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70 How I Live. Living friendly, feeling kindly. Acting fairly towards men ; Seeking to do that to others, They may do to me again. Hating no man, scorning no man, Wronging none by word or deed; But forbearing, soothing, serving, Thus I live—this is my creed 1 — : » Written for Burke’s Weekly. MAROONER’S ISLAND ; OR, Dr. Gordon in Search of His Children. BY REV. F. R. OOULDINO, Author of " The Young Murooners.” CHAPTER YII. simpson’s story. I was a « big chunk of a boy,” my father moved from Ivi okee, where I was born, to a place called the AY Cherokee Corner, where he farm- J|3|\L ed and preached. My time was divided between working on the * 4wl f arm during the busy season, and helping in a store in which my father had an interest, and which kept up a pretty brisk trade with the neighbors and the Indians. I do not mean to say that the Indians w|re living there at the time, for that part of the country had long been settled by the whites, and the red men had been pushed off towards the sunsetting; but the store used to be a famous place of trade with them when the Cherokee line cornered at that place,f and for a great while afterwards they would come a long way to trade at their old-time stand. Some of the Indians came as much on my mother’s account, as on account of trading, for she was a great favorite with a large part of the tribe. You remember I told you she had been captured when a wee-baby, and had lived among them all her life, until she married my father. The truth is, the “Injin” in her was so strong that to the day of her death she was never able to give in entirely to the way 7 s of the Unaykas, as she called the white people ; but she loved her red-skin ed brothers and kinsfolks, and they loved her to the last. The name they had for her showed their feelings ; they knew her as O-see-u, which is the Cherokee for Good morning, because her face always brightened on seeing them, as if she was saying in her heart “Welcome! I am glad to see you.” And the name she gave me showed her love for Indian ways, f The passages in this story marked thus, are histori cal, or rather traditional, being parts of the unwritten history of the places and parties concerned. BURKE’S WEEKLY- for she did not give me a Christian name, as might have been expected of a Chris tian man’s wife, but one in Cherokee, the same as if I were to belong to the tribe. People know me as Joe Simpson, and suppose that I was named Joseph for my father; but this is not so; the name my mother gave me was Yonali-steeka, Avhich is the Cherokee for Little Bear; and my father, who thought the world and all of his bright-faced wife, but who did not “give in” to all her ways, humored her so far as to tell the people that my name was Jonah-Stephen, the nearest sound in English he could find to my Cherokee name; while, for short, he called me Joe, after himself. I do not think that my mother’s love for her adopted people is to be wondered at, when her histor} 7 is known. She was brought up in the family of an old war rior, who, after her parents had been killed, had taken her from her home and adopted her as his own child, in place of a daughter that had been killed by the whites. He was a very great “ brave;” no one in his nation stood higher, or could stand higher than he. I will tell you why. As long ago as two life-times, —may-bc more, —there was a big warj* between the Cherokees and the Coosas —these are the same that are called Creeks, on account of the many streams that pervade their country.f The Creeks, who wanted more land, tried to force the Cherokees beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the Chero kees, who loved their hunting grounds, and the graves of their fathers, tried to keep the Coosa’s back to their old limits. After a long and bloody Avar, in Avhich many lives had been lost, and the Chero kees had been forced back almost to the Blue Ridge, and the Creeks had settled as far as the Coosa-Avattee river, (Coosa- Avattee means the settling place of the Coosas,) it was agreed by solemn oath betAveen the parties to leave the question in dispute to be settled by a fight betAveen twelve men selected from each side. If the Creeks Avere successful, the Cherokees were to give up all their hunting grounds south and east of the Blue Ridge Moun tains; if the Cherokees were successful, the Creeks Avere to be content Avith their former boundaries. The place selected for the battle Avas a mountain, which has a level top, containing about forty acres —a beautiful place for a fight—away up above the world. There they met and fought, those twenty-four men, Avhile all the rest of the two nations, assembled on that high table land, looked on without striking a blow. Os these twenty-four men Avho went into the fight, only one came out alive. That man Avas a Chero kec, my mother’s adopted father. The Coosas kept their Avord, called back their warriors, broke up their settlement at Coosa-wattee, and established the bound aries as they were before the war. The place of the fight keeps the name of “ Blood Mountain ” to this day.j- This old warrior had three sons, one of Avliom, named Yonah-steeka, was my mother’s playmate Avhen she was a child. He died young. The others greAV to be men, and Avere quite famous in their day. One of them Avas named Nung-noh-hut. tar-liee, (he avlio kills the enemy in his own way,) and the other Kah-nung-da ha-geh, (the one Avho Avalks on the moun tain ridge.) These men my mother taught me to call uncle; but as their names were too long to be pronounced by any one except a Cherokee, the first Avas call ed by the Avhite people, Way, and the other-was called Ridge. My' uncle Way Avas a great sportsman, both by' land and Avater, and Avas skilled in all the arts practiced by his people for taking deer, bears, raccoons and wolves, and also for spearing and shooting fish. My uncle Ridge was a “medicine-man,” or doctor, the most famous in his tribe, and not only 7 did people come to him to be cured from all parts of the nation , but many also from the Avhite settlements. WheneA r er these tAvo men made a visit to the Corner , they Avould ask my 7 mother to let me return AA 7 ith them, and she Avas almost as ready to consent as they Avere to ask; and I Avould go and spend one, tAvo, or even three weeks at a time at their lodges, living just as they' lived, and enjoying myself more than y'ou Avould suppose in that Avild kind of life; and Avhen I returned home, nothing pleased my mother more than to hear me recount all that I had seen and done. It seems to me, now that I look back, that I learnod more, and more that Avas useful, among them, than I did at home. So I thought at the time, because I did not expect it, and because what I learned at home came to me natural like; and I have not changed my 7 mind since. Among the useful things I learned at uncle Way’s Avere two in one day'. The first is that clear water is much deeper than it appears to be. I was in a canoe with him and a son of his, about my own age, spearing fish. There Avas a fine trout near my end of the boat, in Avater that seemed only knee deep. I bogged him for the spear, and tried at it, leaning over the side of the boat and pushing as quick ly and vigorously as I could, expecting of course to find myself supported by 7 the resting of.the spear upon the sandy hot-