Kindred Read Online Free Page B

Twain?”
    “It is, ’Zina. You have another mouth to feed.”
    “Uh dun’ min. He needs fattenin’ up. Come’yuh, chil’. Uh got sump’n fuh you now.”
    Kindred bounded out the door.
    “Lelaheo, you coming to live with us? We can have fun. And Gramma will feed you ’til you pop. Would you like that? What does your father think of this?”
    Lelahelo skipped up the steps and into Rozina’s embrace. He viewed Kindred around the woman’s comforting frame.
    “Well, I do not know about the popping part.” Rozina squeezed a laugh out of him as she hugged him tighter. “But I think I will like it here. The decision is not my father’s to make. Only my mother and her family. They rule our longhouse.” Lelaheo spoke of matrilineal rule in the Iroquois society. The woman had the power in his world.
    “No different here. This way, Lelaheo. I will show you to your room,” Dr. Twain said, squeezing past the trio gathered on the front steps.
    ****
    Kindred, Joshua and Lelaheo assembled at the kitchen garden after helping the Oneida boy get settled, and after Rozina spoiled them with hard molasses cakes.
    “And this is what I do every morning,” recited Kindred. “I pick what Father needs.”
    “Joshua, come’yuh. Uh need you ta fetch sump’n frum de attic,” Rozina called out the kitchen window.
    “Yes, Gramma,” he answered. “I’ll see you two later. Teach him well, Kinny.”
    “We also have elderberry and slippery elm trees here for the bark and the flowers,” Kindred pointed out.
    “Medicine is my clan’s calling.”
    “Good, you know herbs and what they do. You can help Joshua.” Kindred noticed the still healing scars on Lelaheo’s hands. She touched the knuckles. “Still hurt?”
    “I am feeling fine. How are you? Truly.”
    “I am well,”piped back.
    “You want to learn my language, Kindred?”
    “Teach me, Lelaheo. I want to know about you.”
    “And I about you, Kindred.”
    ****
    With the increase of Lelaheo to Twainhaven household, life became even more happily hectic. He was as grave as Kindred and Joshua were mischievous. They played practical jokes on him almost daily, just to see his reserve dissolve. Lelaheo gave as good as he got, surprising the duo with jaw-dropping reprisal. Life fell into a pleasant pattern, but a harsh reality was playing itself out around them.
    Dr. Twain slammed down the daily gazette on the side table next to the tufted chair he was sitting in, in the parlor. He tore off his reading spectacles, muttering under his breath. “Damn greedy bastards, all!” The low fire snapping in the English style fireplace, reflected its dance in the paneled surround and mirrored his mood.
    Yes, the world was encroaching upon his piece of heaven. The French and Indian War had ended years before, but discontents were far from over. It had all begun when a Delaware chief entered into negotiations with the British to rid the Valley of the French and other enemy Indian nations that supported them. That pact with the devil allowed two
    foreign powers to play out a war on a land that was not their own and unwittingly made the native Haudenosaunee unwanted guests. The front page of the gazette proclaimed that Britain and the Colonies were gearing up for a tug of war over the Valley.
    In the past when such life-or-death matters raged amongst whites, Dr. Twain had noted that the Haudenosaunee always had watched from a distance, had made certain not one member of their League was unduly injured. Disastrously, this agreement with the
    British had, for the first time, caused a rift. He had seen the Iroquois League of Nations in horrible discord for the first time in his life and probably theirs. When the French and Indian War had raged, the Western nations of the Seneca, Cayuga and the Onondaga had supported a French alliance. The Oneida, Tuscarora and the Mohawk had held fast to a British association as that power protected them from sporadic colonial attacks.
    Dr. Twain wondered