Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/109

 occasion to witness a weird scene characteristic of the time and place. Some of my staff officers had built a little fire under a rock, to take the shiver out of their limbs. One of them reported to me that two women had come and squatted near that fire, and that nobody could understand what they said. Would I not come and examine them myself? There I met a curious spectacle—the two women sitting on their heels like Indians, looking in the flickering light of the camp-fire almost like two bundles of rags; the one old, sharp-featured, and wrinkled, strands of gray hair falling over her face, her mouth holding a corn-cob pipe with a very short stem, the eyes dark, with reddish, apparently inflamed, eyelids. Her shoulders were covered with something like a dirty gray woolen shawl; her dress somewhat dingy and tattered, undefinable as to stuff and color. So one of Macbeth's witches might have looked. I asked her what she wanted. She looked up to me with a meaningless eye, and muttered something which I was unable to understand. Then her gaze dropped to the fire again, and she continued to smoke her short corn-cob pipe, which she seemed much to relish. I thought it best to try my fortune with the other woman by putting my question to her. Her attire was very much like that of her companion, but when she lifted her head, I was surprised to look into a young face which might have been called decidedly handsome, if not beautiful, had it been washed—large lustrous dark eyes shaded by long lashes, fine features of classic cut, a noble chin under exquisitely curved lips. But these lips bore a brownish line, which was soon explained. She also uttered some—to me, at least—entirely unintelligible words in response to my question, whereupon she quietly dropped her eyes to the fire, as if she had said all that she could say. Then she thrust one of her hands deep into her bosom and brought forth a huge roll of tobacco, bit off