Now Go Like An Indian True Son Sparknotes

“Now go like an Indian True Son. Give me no more shame.” The light in the forest is a historical fiction novel that tells the story of a young boy who resents being returned to his natural parents. John Butler was at the tender age of 4 when Delaware Indians captured him during a raid on his father’s farm in western Pennsylvania. Adopted by a tribal chief and renamed True Son, he lived for more than a decade in the Ohio wilderness until Colonel Bouquet’s treaty with the Delaware Indians called for reparation of all white captives. On True Son’s reluctant journey to the Paxton settlement, he sees an ancient sycamore that symbolizes his predicament. A dead limb points to the white settlement, while a live branch points back to his beloved Indian culture. The conflict in this story turns on these two claims to his loyalty.

His invalid mother seems ineffectual, and his father preoccupied with business ledgers and property. Only his little brother, Gordon, provides comfort and companionship. True Son reserves his greatest hostility to his uncle, Wilse Owens, an Indian hater and one of the Paxton Boys, who had massacred Indian women and children in an earlier reprisal against the Conestoga. True Son’s smoldering resentment at his “captivity” in the white settlement reaches a crisis when Half Arrow, his adopted Indian cousin visits one night. Half Arrow shows True Son the Body of Little Crane, killed when he tried to visit his repatriated wife. True Son and Half Arrow vow revenge, but their plans are thwarted. The two boys return to their Indian home, and welcomed with warmth. However, Little Crane’s family is determined to avenge his death and calls for war. When conflict arises, True Son has to pick a side: the family that raised him or his blood family, or he will lose them