She greeted the
end of it all with a sorrowing, half-breaking heart, for she had
learned to love the woman she had envied, and to weep for the
little child who lay so helplessly against her unselfish heart.
A beautifully lucid half-hour came to the fever-stricken one just
before the Call to the Great Beyond!
"Maarda," she said, "you have been a good Tillicum to me, and I
can give you nothing for all your care, your kindness--unless--"
Her eyes wandered to her child peacefully sleeping in the
delicately-woven basket. Maarda saw the look, her heart leaped with
a great joy. Did the woman wish to give the child to her? She dared
not ask for it. Suppose Luke "Alaska" wanted it. His wife loved
children, though she had four of her own in their home far inland.
Then the sick woman spoke:
"Your cradle basket and your heart were empty before I came. Will
you keep my Tenas Klootchman as your own?--to fill them both
again?"
Maarda promised. "Mine was a Tenas Klootchman, too," she said.
"Then I will go to her, and be her mother, wherever she is, in the
Spirit Islands they tell us of," said the woman. "We will be but
exchanging our babies, after all."
When morning dawned, the woman did not awake.
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