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Show Page 213 "Aye, there were some who sneered at the native ways, who distrusted them and called them savages, who welcomed them not into their homes and fed them not at their board. I now believe they were the ones who truly saw into the heart of the Indians and knew the treachery there." "People such as Richard Kean," John said, voicing my own thought. "People who believed the land would not be safe for Englishmen till all the Indians lie dead." I nodded. "Yet even those others such as ourselves-people who respect the ways of the natives-we, too, have earned their hatred," he said. "And a well-deserved hatred it is." "What mean you?" I cried. "It is indeed a wonderful dream we have, to build a new world. But building a new world is like clearing a field to plant. First the land must be cleared ere the crops can be sown. And as the field spreads and becomes larger, the forest is pushed back and back from the land where once its roots grew deep. "Can you not see, Sarah? We are the new fields; the Indians are the forest." At last I understood. "We have . . . " I paused, searchini for the word. "We have-dispossessed the Indians." "Aye. We have taken from them the land their god had |