THE STORY OF POCAHONTAS, THE INDIAN PRINCESS.

Pocahontas was a very beautiful child, and was so good and sweet that she was loved by all the tribe over which her father ruled. Her home was in Virginia, and a very happy life she led there, in the sunny woods, with the birds and squirrels for her companions; and in after years, when she went to live far away across the sea, the memory of her childhood home seemed the sweetest thing in the world to her, for it brought to her mind the songs of the birds, the beautiful flowers, the waving trees, the bright rivers, and the fair skies that she was so familiar with when she was a little happy child.

To have had a happy childhood is a very beautiful thing, it makes all after-life sweeter, it is like the first spring flowers which we gather in the meadow, and although by and by the snow will come and cover the place where they bloomed, it cannot take away the memory of their sweetness and loveliness, for that is in our hearts and will stay there forever.

So Pocahontas grew up in this pleasant home, and learned to embroider her dresses with shells, and to weave mats, and to cook, and to do all those things which Indian maidens were accustomed to.

One day, when she was about twelve years old, an Indian came into the village and told the people a story about a wonderful white man that had been captured some time before. It was said that he could talk to his friends many miles away by putting down words on a piece of paper, and he had a queer little instrument by which he talked with the stars, and he had told them that the earth was round, and that the sun "chased the night around it continually." They had never heard of such curious things before, and they decided that this strange being was something more than a mere man, and that perhaps it was in his power to bring good or evil upon them as he wished. So all the Indian priests and magicians met together and for three days practised all sorts of magic to find out from the invisible world what they had better do with their prisoner; and finally they decided to take him to the great chief Powhatan, father of Pocahontas, and let him decide for them.

Powhatan received the captive with great courtesy. He asked him about his life, and found that he was one of a company of men who had sailed from England to found a settlement in Virginia.

This man was Captain John Smith, a great soldier, who had already won much fame in fighting against the Turks.

He and his companions founded Jamestown, in Virginia, the first English colony which succeeded in America. While exploring the country he had been captured by the Indians. His companions were put to death immediately, but he saved his life by his presence of mind. When the Indians captured him he did not show any sign of fear, but began talking to them about his friends in Jamestown, and wrote a letter which he asked them to send there. Then he took out a pocket-compass and showed them how to use it, and also talked to them about the shape of the earth, and its motion around the sun.

All this surprised the Indians very much. They had never seen a written letter before, and they imagined it could only be done by magic, and they thought that if Smith were guided through the forest by means of the compass it was because he could talk to the stars and the sun. And then, had they not always been taught that the sun came up from the east in the morning, and went down in the west at night, never to return, but that a new sun came each day to light the world? So they listened to all these wonderful things with great awe and fear, and Powhatan and his council decided that it was not safe to let such a man live, as he might do them great harm, being so powerful and wise, and knowing so much about the unseen world. When Pocahontas was told that Smith must die, she felt very sad indeed. During the time that he had been a prisoner in the village she had grown very fond of him, as he also had of her, and it seemed a dreadful thing that such a brave and good man should die.

Many a story had he told her of the lands beyond the sea, where lived the little English boys and girls whom he had left behind him, and Pocahontas was never tired of listening to the tales of that fair England that Smith loved so well. How different it was from her own home, and how she would like to see those blue-eyed, fair-haired children, whose lives were so unlike her own. Ah, it was such a cruel thing to think that this good man must die. If she could only save him in some way, how glad she would be. And he was so brave too, he did not flinch when he was told that he must die—not even when he was told that he was to be put to death in the most cruel way that the Indians could think of. And so the Indian maiden grieved and grieved and tried to think of some way in which she might save her friend's life, but she could not.

At length the time came for his execution. He was brought out in the village square, and after his hands and feet were bound he was stretched on the ground with his head resting upon a great stone. Beside him stood an Indian with a great club in his hand with which he was to dash out the Englishman's brains. The club was lifted in the air and in another moment would have fallen upon Smith's head, had not Pocahontas, who at the last moment resolved to save his life at the risk of her own, rushed up to the spot and, clasping the captive's head in her arms, begged her father with tears in her eyes to spare his life.

Powhatan was touched by his daughter's sorrow and listened to her request; he ordered Smith's bonds to be taken off, and said that he would spare his life.

So Smith rose from the ground a free man, and with an escort of twelve men was sent back to Jamestown.

You can well imagine that he would never forget this brave, beautiful Indian maid who had saved his life. And many times after that he had reason to be grateful to Pocahontas. At that time the Jamestown settlement was in constant fear of attacks from the Indians, and more than once Pocahontas came through the forest at night to warn the English of danger, and Captain Smith said that, had it not been for her help, the Jamestown colony would have died of starvation. The Indians were very unfriendly and very unwilling to supply the English with food, and if Pocahontas and her father had not brought them corn they could not have gotten it anywhere else. Jamestown soon became as familiar to Pocahontas as her own father's home. She often went there to offer help and counsel to the colonists, and always showed the same fondness for Smith that she had shown in early childhood. Smith was obliged to go back to England after a while, to be treated for a wound, and after he went away Pocahontas did not visit Jamestown any more. The English told her that he was dead, and she could not bear to go there without seeing him. But he was not dead, and the two friends were to meet once more—not in Jamestown, it is true, but in England, where Pocahontas went as the bride of the young Englishman John Rolfe.

Rolfe loved the young Indian maiden dearly, but he could not marry her, as it was then considered very wrong for an Englishman to marry a heathen; but after a time Pocahontas became a Christian and was baptized under the name of Rebecca, and soon after she was married.

Powhatan and his chiefs were very glad of this marriage, as were also the colonists, and for many years after the Indians were more friendly. Pocahontas was taken by her husband to England, where she was received with great delight by the English court. The king and queen grew very fond of her and showed her every kindness that they could, and all the great English lords and ladies wished to see the Indian girl who had been so kind to their countrymen in Jamestown. As she was a princess she was called Lady Pocahontas, and every one was surprised that a girl who had been brought up in the society of cruel savages, should have such beautiful and gentle manners. They said that she acted more like one of their own English ladies than the daughter of an Indian chief, but Pocahontas was gentle-mannered because her heart was kind and good; not gentle birth but kind hearts make the truest ladies and gentlemen, and no lady of the English court could say that she had saved another's life at the risk of her own as could the Indian maid from across the sea. Pocahontas was much surprised to find Captain Smith alive and in England; she wept on seeing him, and begged him to let her call him father.

Smith told her that, as she was a king's daughter, this would not be allowed at the court; but she said that she must call him father and he must call her child, and that she would be his countrywoman forever. Smith wrote a letter to the king and queen asking them to receive Pocahontas kindly, and it was through him that she was so much noticed by the English nobility.

Her beauty and sweetness would have won their hearts, but it was the memory of what she had done for the English in Jamestown that made them so eager to be kind to her in return. Pocahontas did not stay very long in England, although she grew to love it dearly, and did not want to go away from the land where she had only known happiness and kindness. But her husband decided to return to Jamestown, and Pocahontas prepared to leave England with a heavy heart. She thought that they could be much happier there than in America, and she wanted to bring up her little son as an English boy, and did not want him to see all the cruelty and wickedness which she knew he would find in the wild life in Jamestown. So all things were made ready, and they left London and went to Gravesend, where they were to take ship for America. But, just as they were about to sail Pocahontas was taken ill and died; the English climate had been too severe for one born in the South, and so Rolfe and his little son went back to America alone, and the beautiful princess was buried in England, far from her own land; and her English friends mourned for the sweet Indian girl whom they all loved; and for years and years her story was listened to with admiration by the boys and girls in the homes of England, for it was the story of a brave and true heart, and such we must always honor.