Witch Child by Celia Rees

Author:Celia Rees
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Entry 40

I was brought up deep in the woods and I do not fear the forest as the others do. Neither does Jonah. He has travelled in Russia and Bohemia and assures me that the forests there are just as mighty as this. The forest holds no terror for him. He finds it interesting. At night he slips to the Indian camp. Only they can tell him about the plants he finds on the forest floor, plants he has never seen before. He wants to know the names they call them, what use they make of them. Jonah spends long hours with them, then he comes back and writes their answers in his book, adding little sketches of the clothes they wear, the shelters they make.

Many of our travelling companions think the Indians all to be the same, all savages, but Jonah explains that the native people in New England are divided into nations. They use the same sort of speech and language, only differing in certain expressions, just as is true in different parts of England. These two are Pennacook and their tribe lives to the north of here. The boy was educated by white people, that is why his English is good. His grandfather speaks little of our language but he is the one who names the plants and describes their properties. The boy translates for him.

Some nights even Jonah is too tired to do anything but sleep. The journey is difficult. Every day there are new problems: rivers to ford, boggy and marshy ground to traverse, hills to climb or ways to be cut. More and more are footsore or too weak to walk any more, but riding on the carts puts more strain on the horses and oxen, so this is the privilege of the very few. Nevertheless, we press on, yard by yard, cutting a way through the wilderness with a determination that even the Indians admire.

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