He had recognized with satisfaction, mingled with
amusement, national traits in the boy, who, despite his Indian training,
would not, like them, barter strings of wampum measuring "from elbow to
wrist" without regard to the relative length of arm. Yet he had none of
the Indian deceit and treachery. He was blunt, sincere, and bold. His
alertness in computation gave Varney genuine pleasure, although they
wrangled much as to his method, for he used the Cherokee numeration, and
it set the trader's mercantile teeth on edge to hear twenty called
"_tahre skoeh_"--two tens.
"And why not?" Otasite would demand, full of faith in his own education.
"The Chickasaw will say '_pokoole toogalo_'--ten twos"--and he would
smile superior. This was his world, and these his standards--the
Cherokees and the Chickasaws!
He was not to be easily influenced or turned save by some spontaneous
acquiescence of his own mind, and Varney found himself counting "_skoeh
chooke kaiere_" (the old one's hundred) before he ever induced Otasite
to say instead "one thousand."
The boy even ventured on censorship in his turn. "You say 'Cherokee_s_'
and 'Chickasaw_s_' when you speak of the Tsullakee and the Chickasaw;
why don't you then say the English-_es_ and the French-_es_?" For the
plural designation of these tribes was a colonial invention.
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