George Mansion was bowed with woe.
His mother had been to him the queen of all women, and her death
left a desolation in his heart that even his wife could not assuage.
It was a grief he really never overcame. Fortunately his mother had
grown so attached to Lydia that his one disobedience--that of his
marriage--never reproached him. Had the gentle little old Indian
woman died before the episode of the moccasin which brought complete
reconciliation, it is doubtful if her son would ever have been quite
the same again. As it was, with the silence and stoicism of his race
he buried his grief in his own heart, without allowing it to cast a
gloom over his immediate household.
But after that the ancient chief, his father, came more frequently
to George's home, and was always an honored guest. The children
loved him, Lydia had the greatest respect and affection for him,
the greatest sympathy for his loneliness, and she ever made him
welcome and her constant companion when he visited them. He used
to talk to her much of George, and once or twice gave her grave
warnings as to his recklessness and lack of caution in dealing with
the ever-growing menace of the whisky traffic among the Indians.
The white men who supplied and traded this liquor were desperadoes,
a lawless set of ruffians who for some time had determined to rid
their stamping-ground of George Mansion, as he was the chief
opponent to their business, and with the way well cleared of him
and his unceasing resistance, their scoundrelly trade would be an
easy matter.
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