disease. Smallpox or measles. The bones don’t tell me.”
”She might have been one of my family,” Chief Walker said.
”You’re an Indian?” Toller asked.
”Only an eighth part. But the old genes were passed down.”
”Do you think she was buried there before or after this house was built?” Robert asked.
”I know bones. I don’t know houses. Do you know when it was built?”
Everyone looked at Mr. Prinney for an answer.
He thought for a minute or two, and said, ”Mr. Horatio Brewster inherited it from his Aunt Flora. She was born around 1850, as I recall. She was known to have been born and grown up here. So the house must have been here since at least that date. I can check the records at the city hall. They might still exist.”
”But she was a couple feet outside the foundation,” Robert pursued. ”No matter when the house was built, she wasn’t dug up then, or she wouldn’t have been found this week.”
”I was telling Miss Brewster a little while ago that the skeleton should be preserved at a museum. Right now it’s impossible to guess when she died. But someday science will figure out a way to determine this. I hope some of us survive until that happens and one of you finds out.”
”I’m going to stay one more day, Mr. and Mrs. Prinney, if Miss and Mr. Brewster agree. I want to see her bones well packed into a crate. Then you can present me with your bill for feeding and housing me.”
In spite of what Mr. Prinney, Lily, and Robert had discovered in the library, nobody demurred about being paid.
”I for one have enjoyed having you here,” Lily said. ”You discovered such interesting things. We seldom have guests as knowledgeable as you are.”
On that note, Dr. Toller put the moccasins aside and began his dinner as the others finished theirs.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Thursday, April 27
DR. TOLLER had asked the Harbinger boys to make him a sturdy crate to ship the girl’s bones, beads, and moccasins to the pathologist and then to a museum. He called a freighting company he was familiar with in these cases. ”Do you mind if I leave her in your garage next to your car, Mr. Brewster?”
”Not at all. But let me know when they’re coming so I can move the Duesie out of their way.” What he really meant, of course, was that he didn’t want anybody bashing his precious automobile with a rough wooden crate.
While Dr. Toller and Robert were working this out, Howard Walker sat at his desk at the jail, his feet up on the desk, eating a jelly doughnut he’d bought at Mabel’s Cafe. He was thinking about the skeleton of the young Indian girl. He wondered if she, like him, was all or partly of the Munsee subtribe of the Delaware tribe, from which he, too, was descended—in a sense. His great-grandfather, a full-blood Munsee Indian, had married into a Dutch family, needless to say, to the Dutch family’s disgrace. Walker was a name many of the tribe shared.
The old tribes had all had their fill of the Dutch settlers infringing on their land and way of life. They’d packed up and gone West, taking everything they owned in a wagon or on their backs. Only a few families remained. Those families who emigrated wrote letters home saying they’d changed their names to Walker because they’d walked hundreds of miles to find other tribes to join up with.
When Howard was about eight years old, his grandmother, as Dutch-looking as anyone could be, told him that when she was born, the third of six children, all of them fair-haired and with pale complexions, her own mother, when eventually widowed, decided they’d change their name from whatever their Indian name had been to Walker. Howard’s grandmother told him he was her favorite grandchild because he looked so much like her own father—dark-haired with a proud handsome face, though his coloring was paler than her father’s.
He’d hated his looks in grade school. The other kids called him names, making fun of him for having Indian
”She might have been one of my family,” Chief Walker said.
”You’re an Indian?” Toller asked.
”Only an eighth part. But the old genes were passed down.”
”Do you think she was buried there before or after this house was built?” Robert asked.
”I know bones. I don’t know houses. Do you know when it was built?”
Everyone looked at Mr. Prinney for an answer.
He thought for a minute or two, and said, ”Mr. Horatio Brewster inherited it from his Aunt Flora. She was born around 1850, as I recall. She was known to have been born and grown up here. So the house must have been here since at least that date. I can check the records at the city hall. They might still exist.”
”But she was a couple feet outside the foundation,” Robert pursued. ”No matter when the house was built, she wasn’t dug up then, or she wouldn’t have been found this week.”
”I was telling Miss Brewster a little while ago that the skeleton should be preserved at a museum. Right now it’s impossible to guess when she died. But someday science will figure out a way to determine this. I hope some of us survive until that happens and one of you finds out.”
”I’m going to stay one more day, Mr. and Mrs. Prinney, if Miss and Mr. Brewster agree. I want to see her bones well packed into a crate. Then you can present me with your bill for feeding and housing me.”
In spite of what Mr. Prinney, Lily, and Robert had discovered in the library, nobody demurred about being paid.
”I for one have enjoyed having you here,” Lily said. ”You discovered such interesting things. We seldom have guests as knowledgeable as you are.”
On that note, Dr. Toller put the moccasins aside and began his dinner as the others finished theirs.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Thursday, April 27
DR. TOLLER had asked the Harbinger boys to make him a sturdy crate to ship the girl’s bones, beads, and moccasins to the pathologist and then to a museum. He called a freighting company he was familiar with in these cases. ”Do you mind if I leave her in your garage next to your car, Mr. Brewster?”
”Not at all. But let me know when they’re coming so I can move the Duesie out of their way.” What he really meant, of course, was that he didn’t want anybody bashing his precious automobile with a rough wooden crate.
While Dr. Toller and Robert were working this out, Howard Walker sat at his desk at the jail, his feet up on the desk, eating a jelly doughnut he’d bought at Mabel’s Cafe. He was thinking about the skeleton of the young Indian girl. He wondered if she, like him, was all or partly of the Munsee subtribe of the Delaware tribe, from which he, too, was descended—in a sense. His great-grandfather, a full-blood Munsee Indian, had married into a Dutch family, needless to say, to the Dutch family’s disgrace. Walker was a name many of the tribe shared.
The old tribes had all had their fill of the Dutch settlers infringing on their land and way of life. They’d packed up and gone West, taking everything they owned in a wagon or on their backs. Only a few families remained. Those families who emigrated wrote letters home saying they’d changed their names to Walker because they’d walked hundreds of miles to find other tribes to join up with.
When Howard was about eight years old, his grandmother, as Dutch-looking as anyone could be, told him that when she was born, the third of six children, all of them fair-haired and with pale complexions, her own mother, when eventually widowed, decided they’d change their name from whatever their Indian name had been to Walker. Howard’s grandmother told him he was her favorite grandchild because he looked so much like her own father—dark-haired with a proud handsome face, though his coloring was paler than her father’s.
He’d hated his looks in grade school. The other kids called him names, making fun of him for having Indian
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