The Indian Special 3 Estelle Aubrey THE INDIAN SPECIAL THE INDIAN SPECIAL BY ESTELLE AUBREY ARMSTRONG NEW YORK HERMANN LECHNER PUBLISHER qff COPTHIGHT, 1912, BT ESTELLE AUBREY ARMSTRONG TO MY COUSIN CYNTHIA 263706 " Ye say that all have passed away, That noble race and brave; That their light canoe has vanished From off the crested wave. That mid the forest where they roamed, There rings no hunter s shout But their name is on your waters, Ye may not wash it out: We say their sons are with us yet, Armed for the fray as of yore; In workshop, on gridiron and diamond They gather our scalps by the score. They lower fair Harvard s proud crimson, Our Marathon win with a shout We ll leave their name on our waters, For we cannot wash it out. vii THE INDIAN SPECIAL CROW RIVER BOARDING SCHOOL, SOUTH DAKOTA OCT. 24, 19. MY DEAR: I am in an appreciative mood to-day. I have been thinking how thoroly I could sympa thize with old Pete Tatreau ; you know he was drafted during the late not the latest un pleasantness and during his first battle was heard to remark with considerable emphasis that he wished he was at home under the bed eating the neighbor s cat. Speaking for my self, I think I could find a more congenial occu pation, but the spirit which prompted the slightly strange desire appeals to me very strongly. Even that dreary, dried-up old town you and I call home looks remarkably good to me from my present view point, the Crow River Boarding School. From the days when I read " Our Wild In dians " by day and dreamed touching scalping scenes at night, I have known that Fate, as she collected and mixed together, one by one, the ingredients which were to compose my particu- [1] THE INDIAN SPECIAL lar bit of dough from the universal batch, would throw in a few Indians to make good measure. And she has. You can trust Fate every time. She will see that you get all that s coming to you, regardless of any little private plans of your own. The soul-satisfying con solation of " What is to be, will be " would be lost were it otherwise ! When one does not hap pen to be a man with a wife to blame things on, Fate makes an excellent substitute, with the added advantage of not being able to talk back. Has mother written you how I happen to be here ? That happen sounds rather disre spectful to the goddess I have just been eulo gizing, but never mind. If she mother has written you, she doubtless told you that I have a Civil Service appointment as kindergartner, at the Crow River Boarding School for a probationary period of six months, with fur nished, lighted and heated quarters gratis, and with regular doses of Uncle Sam s soothing syrup in the form of a fifty-dollar check every thirty days. In return, I am to train the ideas of various juvenile members of the Sioux tribe how to shoot, via highly colored papers, gifts, straws, sticks, beads, etc., a la Froebel. Imagine me ! You must know that when I took that Civil Service examination I had never seen the outside of a kindergarten, much less [2] THE INDIAN SPECIAL the inside arrangements of one. I didn t know a gift from a Free Will Baptist! But I took two lessons from a private kindergartner and with the aid of sundry books and pamph lets I managed to pass the two days examina tion. I even wove a paper mat, zig-zag design, a thing which had never before crossed my op tical horizon. Doubtless it was easier for me to do it that way than straight; it more closely resembles my usual method of doing things. If you have any extra superlatives getting rusty for want of use, prepay them out to me and I will use them in my next to describe the cheek of me in coming out here, eighteen hun dred miles from home, to teach a kindergarten, and an Indian one at that. Of course I have been teaching, spasmodically, since I was six teen. Like other girls from the old town who had sufficient ambition to provide their own means of attending the academy in Malone, I taught part of each year and attended school the other half. But teaching district school in the wilds of northern New York is rather in adequate preparation for teaching a kinder garten on a Sioux reservation. The curricu lum completely ignored any working knowledge of the pedagogue s gospel according to Froebel. I will tell you of my adventures in the new art later. Up to the present time I have had [3] THE INDIAN SPECIAL none, as I only drove in to-day, the last twenty- five miles being covered by stage from Cham berlain, a small town whose chief distinction lies in the fact that it is the terminus of the C., St. Paul & M. Railway. This railroad daily disturbs the Sabbath quiet of innumerable small towns along its path. We passed dozens of them. Some I saw, others were quite hidden by the teams and ponies hitched at the station. Those I did see were all alike: muddy tired- looking, treeless affairs, with one main street Broadway, doubtless bordered on either side with one-story frame buildings, each having an extension at the top to deceive the passers-by into thinking they boast two. The dwelling houses are modestly located in the back yards of these architectural excrescences, being, I suppose, the Western method of expressing the Eastern principle of business first and home where there is room for it. One other point of interest common to all the towns I noticed: the depot is invariably near the entrance to Broadway, and on the corner nearest the depot there is invariably a saloon. It occurred to me that the people whose occupation it is to de liver tracts might do a profitable business out here. At Mitchell our train stopped for two hours to allow the passengers to visit the Corn Belt [4] THE INDIAN SPECIAL Festival, then in full swing. I observed then, and have since, that while the girl from our Middle West nearly always looks nice and up- to-date, the young men give the impression of having just arrived from year-before-last. I got into Chamberlain in the evening, re maining there over night, as the stage for the school leaves at eight each morning. I was the only passenger, so the driver, a young jehu in overalls, piled the luggage and mail sacks on the rear seat and gallantly assisted me to a place beside himself. As I had arrived within twenty-five miles of my destination without the slightest idea of what the place was like, I was somewhat curi ous, and naturally began asking questions of the first person I had met who was in a position to give me the desired information. The first item of interest I obtained was the fact that " the superintendent and the agent are in a devil of a row and the superintendent has to get out." When pressed for particulars my pri vate bureau of information proved rather defi cient in details. For his part he didn t like the superintendent; he was too polite. He raised his hat every five minutes whether anyone was about or not. As I did not think that a matter worth government investigation, I decided to suspend judgment till better informed. [5] THE INDIAN SPECIAL I discovered that I was one of three teachers and that the school consisted of about one hun dred and twenty-five pupils, with a force of some twenty employees. I also learned that school was in session and that I had been ex pected for some time, the superintendent s wife substituting till I should arrive. I was glad to hear that. Being eighteen hundred miles from everything which had made up my life for twenty-three years, it gave me a comfortable feeling to know that someone was looking for me. The horses covered the miles of dusty desert in much better time than their general appear ance had led me to expect, and we sighted the Indian School just as my appetite sounded the first call for luncheon. Looming high on a neighboring hill was the big water tank into which is pumped the water for the school. The various buildings of the agency and school are painted the color my little niece calls a " dark white," while the roofs are a bright red. I was delighted to see trees, plenty of them, with the foliage showing beautiful colors, as befitted the season. The Missouri flows beside the school, and you don t know how good it looked to me. I had begun to think I should never see trees or a river again. I had lunch with the agent s wife, a sweet, [6] THE INDIAN SPECIAL tired-looking little woman. She also gave me the information that the superintendent over at the school had to get out. I presently found myself in the agent s office, answering sundry questions regarding my health, age, morals, family, the whereabouts of my husband if I had one, or in case I didn t, a good and sufficient reason for the deficiency. This valuable addi tion to the agent s seemingly superior knowl edge was entered in a big, red-tapey looking book, to be used against me, perhaps, when my time comes for " getting out." Just now I feel that I cannot get any too soon. I have had dinner, have met the school people, including the United States Indian Inspector who is conduct ing the "getting out" proceedings, and am now in my room hanging onto myself for dear life. The glory of my dreams has departed, taking along the haloes from my Wild Indians and leaving me stranded, desolate, in the midst of tame ones. For they are tame, O ! so tame ! That much I have discovered already. My tow locks are as safe here as in the dead old town. If there is any hair-raising done I shall have to do it myself. I am apprehensive that if I had the fare home the superintendent s wife would continue substituting. I am asking myself, shall I stay? Can I stay? I have to stay till I earn money [7] THE INDIAN SPECIAL enough to take me back. It seems the majority of the employees here are from the Middle West. They told me at dinner, as a joke, of a kindergartner from Boston who came on one stage and left on the next. I don t know as there is any fundamental difference, diet ex- cepted, in kindergartners from Boston and New York, but I think I comprehend her attitude. She evidently had sufficient foresight to provide a return ticket. " What fools these mortals be." I wish the immortal bard had had the courage to strength en his vocabulary. The idea of handing out an adjectiveless adage, anyway! I made so many good resolutions on the way out. I might have known the futility of so doing, for I never made one yet that I didn t smash up and contribute as my share towards the paving of the broad way. And that is needless generosity, for sure ly that highway is sufficiently smooth and slip pery. I resolved to be brave, to come out here and do things and show the stay-at- homes a thing or two, and here I am as brave as a sheep and with the feeling that my back bone has mysteriously changed to corn meal mush, a thing I always detested, even when put to legitimate uses. The consciousness that I was acting like a fool doesn t help the situation any. [8] THE INDIAN SPECIAL I am going to stay ! My mind has done an unaccustomed amount of work in the last few minutes and the result is I am going to stay. They shall not tell my successor of the kinder- gartner from New York who stayed over night and departed on her way. And I shall put up the best bluff in the kindergarten line of which I am capable. I know we sit in a circle and play singy games and imitate the birds of the air and the beasts of the field; for the rest I shall have to trust my Yankee ingenuity. Surely not in vain do I boast at least half of me does an ancestry of pure Yankee stock. The other half, being Scotch, doesn t brag; it furnishes the pig-headed obstinacy which up to now has been my undoing. If I can succeed in diverting its main current into the broad chan nel of self-reliance, it may do something for me beside serving as a good conductor of trouble. What do you think? Please do not get alarmed or unduly con ceited at my writing at such length. It was write or explode, and even leaving my feelings out of the question, I knew you would prefer the former. If you only knew how hungrily I shall watch for the stage and mail sacks at noon! Forlornly yours, JEAN. [9] RlVEE BOAEDING SCHOOL, CEOW RIVEE, So. DAKOTA OCT. , 19. DEAE: Aurelius says that " Where a man can live, there he can also live well." I dislike to confess a doubt regarding the soundness of my friend s philosophy, yet I can t help wishing he could have visited Crow River previous to its utter ance. He remarks in the same breath that " To seek the impossible is madness," and with that I most heartily agree. It is impossible to live well here, and it is madness to attempt it. I have passed all the stages of homesickness I know of, and if there are any more, I humbly beg to be excused. During a lucid interval I wrote home for money to return, but destroyed the letter when the madness came on again. I know a bathtub of nice, clean, warm water would work wonders for me, mentally, morally and physically, but it is among the impossibili ties. The water is strongly alkali, and if you use it without soap, it contributes a sediment of its own to the grime already present and per- [11] THE INDIAN SPECIAL suades the combination that its present quar ters are quite suitable. If you use soap, as I did, the skin gets so hard and dry that it cracks open. My hands were a sight in a week, and so sore ! As for drinking the stuff, that is impos sibility number one hundred and seventeen. I am reasonably sure that number is correct, but I gave up counting at ninety-eight. Give the problem of existence to half a hun dred people, isolate them, subtract all worldly amusements, add daily discomforts and petty annoyances, and must the process of solution be marked by moral carnage and official blood shed? It would seem so. The school and agency forces are at it tooth and nail! The agent is fighting to get the superintendent out, and the superintendent is fighting to stay. I can almost hear you smile. It does seem ridic ulous, fighting to stay in such a place; but re member this is the problem of existence. It is easy to laugh at someone else s solution of it; it is the ciphers in our own figuring that ap pear to our selfish sensibilities as deserving of sympathy. The agent has rather the better of it, for while the superintendent is under Civil Service and good behavior, he is appointed and holds his position as long as a Republican adminis tration reposes at Washington. The prospects [12] THE INDIAN SPECIAL are excellent for our continued enjoyment of his society, as the Republican party is the star actor in the continuous performance of our political vaudeville, with the dozen or so lesser ones to furnish the chorus and scenic effects. I have a suspicion that the primary object of the United States Indian Service is to clad " Poor Lo s " moccasined feet in patent lea thers, that his footsteps in the path of progress may be as deep and lasting and uncomfortable as his white brother s are. It might occur to an interested observer that the majority of the employes sent here to assist in the desired pedal transformation are laboring wrong end to! They are demonstrating all too plainly where the civilized shoe pinches. They were sent here by a paternal government to teach the arts of peace and civilization, and instead are raging like heathen. Just what the trouble is I can not tell you. My unsophisticated brain refused to deduce one logical conclusion from the chaos of information it has had poured into it the past week. I have smiled and looked sympa thetic during the recitals of the various belli gerents, but for once I have managed to keep my opinions to myself. Please give me due credit, for, as you know, my opinions are alto gether too ready to exploit themselves on all [13] THE INDIAN SPECIAL occasions, and this unusual muzzling of them has made me feel as tho my brain was done up in curl papers. His majesty, the United States Indian In spector, occupies the room which is to be mine, smokes strong cigars and listens to tales of woe. I suppose when the evidence is all in, the last grievance aired, he will send his verdict to the Honorable Commissioner at Washington, shake the dust of Crow River from his trousers, and leave his room " to darkness and to me." Meanwhile, I am quartered at Superintendent Marks , doing my level best to let Mrs. Marks succeed in her efforts to make me feel less like " a stranger in a strange land." Mrs. Marks is an oasis of peace in this desert of strife. She has transplanted her sunny Southern tempera ment and genial ways to this barren soil and they thrive wonderfully well. Possibly her tears furnish the moisture necessary for their growth. I have found that the right kind of tears the kind a brave woman sheds to get the weakness out and the courage in will develop more virtues than a volume of sermons. Any way, Mrs. Marks manages to keep her temper and her accent, and both are a great comfort to me. Mr. Marks, poor man, looks worried to death, and I don t wonder. Some people are [14] THE INDIAN SPECIAL born old maids, some achieve old maidhood, and some have old maids thrust upon them. Mr. Marks is one of these last poor unfortunates. About nine-tenths of the women here are of the Kingdom of Single Blessedness, while the other tenth are alienated halves of matrimonial mis fits. Now pray tell me what chance does a poor married man stand? If the Department at Washington was half wise, it would instruct its Indian school superintendents to leave their wives at home. Mrs. Marks is pleasant and courteous to all, but I know she is boiling in ternally, for some of these very females have joined forces with the agency employees, divid ing the school against itself, which doesn t add to the general comfort. It is not particularly pleasant to have to sit at table three times daily with people who are laboring industriously to make your chair a vacant one. I have been trying the past few days to puz zle out the cause of the disturbance here. There may be no reason for the happening of un pleasant things, but there is usually a cause. The general cussedness of human nature will account for nearly everything under the sun, yet there is generally some specific agency lend ing a helping hand, and in this case I think it is dirt. What I said about His Majesty s trousers was meant literally. Dust is the most [15] THE INDIAN SPECIAL obvious thing here, Indians excepted. It forms a large part of our diet, it mixes generously with the air we breathe, it is the medium thru which we move and have our being. You can no more escape it than you can resist the temp tation to appropriately express your opinion of it. It adheres affectionately to your gar ments by day and hovers lovingly above your pillow at night. As for your stockings, they have openly deserted and gone wholeheartedly into the real estate business. It is a fine sur face dust gumbo, they call it which has no fixed place of habitation, but wanders about seeking whom it may provoke to unseemly lan guage. It accomplished its mission with me in about three minutes after my arrival. I never before felt so keenly the defects of my vocabu lary. I reported for duty on the 25th. Please note my military expression, as you probably will hear more of them. It would seem to suggest heroes and brass buttons, but alas! it is only a suggestion. The buttons we have, to be sure every Indian lad s uniform boasts at least a dozen, but there are no heroes buttoned up in side or I lose my reputation as a prophet. I went to the school building the first morn ing with a very mushy feeling inside don t suppose it could be outside and in ten min- [16] THE INDIAN SPECIAL utes had successfully made my first blunder. Mrs. Rowling, one of the teachers, asked me to stay with her pupils while she went to the office to sign payroll. I wish I could make you see that group of brown statuary, silent, motion less, expressionless except for eyes. They watched my every motion with an attention that never wandered for an instant. Thinking their unbiased opinion of me might prove help ful, I began to question them. Not a sign did they give that they heard me. I drew a picture on the blackboard, they showed no interest. Pictures they evidently were accustomed to, I was something new. I happened to have on my chatelain, and I took out a penny and held it up. I could fairly feel the electric shock that went thru them. A dozen brown hands shot into the air and " Me, me," came from all parts of the room. I had found one thing that would make them sit up and take notice. I knew that * money talks, but I was unprepared for such a show of eloquence. For days afterward my appearance on the campus was simultaneous with a rush of baby Los, demanding of me good coin of the realm. Mrs. Rowling translated their request, their English being of a variety quite unknown to me. They have the queerest little guttural voices! Their speech seems to start from the soles of their government boots, [17] THE INDIAN SPECIAL working its way painfully upward till when it emerges its energy is spent and it collapses into an unintelligible mumble. Dear, it would make your heart ache, as it does mine, to see the circle of tame little sav ages that surrounds me every morning. Poor little babies, so patiently enduring the penalty of " the iniquities of the fathers." I have forty of them, and there is not one whose bad blood is not in bodily evidence. We had a warm spell last week and the boys came to school barefoot, and behold! the lad who sits next me in the circle and whose hand I hold in the games had the itch so bad that he couldn t tell where to scratch first. They have boils and swellings and sore eyes. It s a lucky little brave who isn t done up somewhere. I thought at first I should not be able to overcome the physical repulsion I felt, but it is gradually wearing away. One dear little girl came, led by the hand, with both eyes bandaged. She sat with her hands clasped in such sweet meek ness that I could not help but take her in my arms. She scarcely moved as long as I held her. The girls show their affection much as any children would, but the boys are usually little graven images. The most of my morning class do not speak English, and if they understand it, or me, they [18] THE INDIAN SPECIAL conceal the fact wonderfully well. I keep some of the bright ones in the afternoon divi sion to interpret for me, little Maria Ghost Bear being my chief medium of communication. She has a very active brain in her small brown head, and her eyes fairly sparkle with mischief. She openly makes sport of me, and I know she interprets a lot I never say, for the class will laugh in the most unexpected places. She is the leader in all our games and songs. The songs are my salvation, for while you can t make these images talk, they will sing anything you teach them. They seem to enjoy the games I invent for them fully as well as the ones my predecessor, a real kindergartner, taught them. There is a wheezy old organ in the room and it would add to your store of memories treasured up for old age if you could hear us when or gan, papooses, and I are doing our utmost to waken Crow River from her morning nap. I say " papooses " out of consideration for you, for it is a word of English coining and the In dians almost never use it. A new actor has appeared on my two-by- four stage, who rejoices in the name of Harold Bobtailed Goose. In all his seven years he has never seen a fair-haired person, and he is actu ally afraid of me. I don t attempt to go near him, for he yells louder if he catches me looking [19] THE INDIAN SPECIAL his way. Talk about your stolid Indians ! they can lift up their voices and weep louder and longer and with a greater degree of enthusiasm than any specimen of humanity I ve seen yet. Harold howled all the first forenoon and showed no signs of stopping when I dismissed the class for dinner. Poor little chap, I would like to see things from his point of view. I know he hates me, and I don t blame him. What right have we to forcibly pick him up from the path nature intended him to follow and set him right about face on the road to civilization? It seems a sad thing to me that the path by which the Indian is to advance must be marked by the sorrows and heartaches of the children who are to blaze the trail for future generations. No doubt the visiting cards of Harold the Second will read, " Mr. B. T. Harold Goose," and the woes of the pres ent Harold will be amply justified. Let us be charitable and hope so. Most uncharitably yours, JEAN. [20] RlVEE BOAEDING SCHOOL, So. DAKOTA Nov. 6, 19. DEAR: This has been a gray day. It has rained and rained, till even the dust has settled down with a sort of discouraged, give-up-flying air. My one pet corn aches like the mischief, and all my mental corns are twinging mightily to remind me that they still do business at the old stand. Back in my childhood days they taught me that the membrane lining the organs of the body was red. Mine isn t; it s a dirty brindle gray, and all my wasted tears haven t changed the color the remotest shadow of a tint! I ought to know, for this far I have shed more good tears to the square inch of my life than most people do to the acre. O, I know psychologists tell us that our liv ers are to blame for the tricks our brains play on us, and that what I need is not sympathy, but a good dose of calomel. However, I am not particularly interested in the cause, but the result claims my attention, whether or no. My [21] THE INDIAN SPECIAL digestive apparatus has struck for dustless food, and the muscles of my face have had numerous lockj aw for so long that I have about as much expression as a compressed yeastcake. If I could see any prospects of a clearing-up shower it wouldn t matter so much, but every where I look I see the same gray horizon limit ing my future existence. Dust and Indians and official investigation are my portion and I am expected to return thanks ! Never ! I have to do it every morning for a hundred and forty uncomprehending Sioux, and surely fate must be sufficiently propitiated by such wholesale gratitude. Whenever I feel especially called upon to render thanks for mercies vouchsafed, I put on my most unbecoming neck-ribbon and read the Rubaiyat. It s comforting to know that Omar s equivalent for dust and Indians had precisely the same effect on him that mine have. Isn t it strange that for all these countless years people must experience the same mental processes, the same doubts and fears, must direct the same kicks against a fate so much stronger than they? It seems a terrible waste of energy to me. Omar is a great comfort to me, tho. His kicks are models of precision and force, and hit the mark beautifully. When you slam a door, slam it hard, or what s the use? [22] THE INDIAN SPECIAL Omar shut his so hard that the echo has come sounding down the ages and penetrates my * furnished quarters at the Crow River Boarding School. Only yesterday Mrs. Marks said to me, " It is so nice of you to come here and persist in making the best of everything." She fairly took my breath away. I must be a gay de ceiver sure. I do laugh and talk nonsense in public, but I didn t suppose I deceived anyone by doing it. It s easy enough to get up spurts of bravery to tide you over unexpected high places, but the unwavering courage for every day life is a hard proposition to me. You will laugh when I tell you what caused my tears to flow publicly the other day. I was over at the rectory there is an Episcopal mission here and on the front porch was a nice, big, homey- looking cat, and I just picked him up and cried into his soft fur. Don t ask me why, for I don t know. I mentioned, didn t I, that I publicly return thanks each morning in behalf of our tame In dians? When Mr. Marks told me of this par ticular duty I collapsed into his office chair and weakly objected. I told him it was strongly against my religious principles to do such a thing, but he only laughed at me, so I went to my room and began work on sample copies of [23] THE INDIAN SPECIAL grace. I finally turned out a daisy, quite highsounding and ambiguous, for I didn t want to take unfair advantage of my audience as I was a little doubtful regarding their degree of gratitude. Do you remember Brother Jones of our prayer meeting days in the old town? How he always got on his knees with " O, Lord ! " and a groan perfectly audible all over the church? I ll be blessed, on the first morning of my pub lic devotions, if my carefully learned " grace " did not take a graceless leave, and I stood there repeating Brother Jones formula, groan and all. I finally got the Amen out, which is the signal for one hundred and forty chairs to be pulled out and an equal number of braves de posited thereon, and breakfast began, and I still lived, weak but brave. I do it better now, but I shall never forget that first morning. If you think this is funny, or a good joke on me, it is your privilege to think so, but just let me know of your telling it and I ll begin taking scalp ing lessons against the time I come home. The trouser-shaking ceremony has been per formed and our Honorable Inspector has de parted for similar work elsewhere. He left be hind him a strong odor of cigars, and a com plete exoneration of Mr. Marks. I am very [24] THE INDIAN SPECIAL glad of both: glad that Superintendent Marks is to stay, and glad of the odor, for it is the only homelike thing about my room. Smoking is against the rules and regulations of the In dian Office and no one but an inspector would dare attempt any infringement, and he only in private. Someone ought to invent an odorless tobacco especially for the Indian Service. It would benefit employes and pupils alike, for the latter are punished if they are caught smoking, ac many of them do. I have boys in my kinder garten who chew, altho how or where they get the tobacco I cannot imagine. Harold Bob- tailed Goose has stopped crying, but sits for the most of the time with his hands over his face. Such virgin modesty I never encountered before. I haven t put my hands on him yet, for he still has spasms if I come near his vicinity. Little Maria Ghost Bear chatters to me by the hour. The girls seem brighter to learn than the boys and more readily adopt new customs and ways of doing things, possibly due to the instinctive longing for freedom from the half- slavery which their sex has always endured. Civilization offers much to these little Indian maidens, and they are not slow in grasping some of its customs. From my school window I daily watch the [25] THE INDIAN SPECIAL conflict between the old ways and the new. I dismiss my grade fifteen minutes before the other two, sending the little girls out first, but they usually hang about outside till the boys come out. All day the boys have endured an enforced equality of the sexes, and now is their chance to get even. They throw sticks or stones or anything else handy, and beat the girl they can catch. The queer part of it is, that the girls seem to like it, or why do they stay outside? If a girl gets captured and a beating results, she takes it as a part of the day s work, and goes happily on her way to quarters. Sometimes I interfere, but not often. These little rascals have their own problems of life to solve, via Uncle Sam s Indian Special, Elevated, and I only hope they do not make as dismal failures of them as one of their instructors has, so far. The Principal Teacher that is the title be stowed by an all-wise Indian Department on the head of an Indian school s faculty is Miss Conley. She occupies the room adjoining mine, but that does not prevent us from being some few thousand miles apart. It adds a little deeper hue to my beautiful shade of blues just to think of that poor woman s life. She has [26] THE INDIAN SPECIAL been shooting ideas for others for so long that her own have suffered from want of attention. It is quite natural, I think, that she should be a a leader of the opposition forces here. Her ac tivities, denied a proper channel, have finally overflowed, and the people along the banks of her present course are getting the benefit of the inundation. The source of the flood is not of sufficient depth to cause a deluge exactly, but I am afraid the Superintendent will get wet feet before it subsides. I have succeeded so far in keeping my dusty skirts from getting even damp. Miss Conley has been nice to me, and I owe her a little private debt of gratitude for not having discovered that I am only a sham kindergartner. To-day I carried her a pail of soft water and the tears actually came into her eyes when she saw me with it. She said I had not been in the service long enough to get selfish. It gave me a cold potato feeling in my stomach to think of a life so barren that a little neighborly deed like that should produce such a result. Speaking of soft water reminds me that Crow River boasts a cistern. I only discovered it the other day. It s a hole in the ground into which the rainwater is drained, and you get it out the water, not the hole with a rope, a [27] THE INDIAN SPECIAL pail, infinite patience and unlimited persever ance. You finally get enough to fill your un breakable government pitcher, and you heat it in your little tin teakettle on the back of your coal stove, and take a beautiful scrub in a basin as much as half full, and go to bed feel ing as tho, after all, it was barely possible that the law of compensation might be in operation even in South Dakota. I wish to introduce you to Miss Deering, of Connecticut, Matron of the Crow River Board ing School. I do so reverently, with bared head. I had to come to a Sioux reservation to meet the most beautiful character I have ever known. For eighteen years she has loved and mothered and nursed these little Indian girls. Think of it, eighteen years! She is the only employe who is not here " for revenue only." Her dear sweet face is lined and worn, yet her smile is the most cheerful thing about the school. What a fountain of strength that woman must possess, to give constantly to those incapable of making any return, and yet retain a supply sufficient to enable her to live happily in a hole like this. She deserves a halo if ever a saint did, and I only wish I had the material and power to make her one. The Indians are holding their annual scalp [28] THE INDIAN SPECIAL dance, or sun dance, or war dance, I don t know which, but anyway it s a dance and the braves have gathered from all parts of the reserva tion. They bring along their dogs and babies and tent out for the week. It is a sort of Methodist camp-meeting twice removed; not quite so noisy, perhaps, but sufficiently so to invite the comparison. Some of us expressed our ardent desire to drive the eight miles to the place of encampment, so Mr. Johnson kind ly volunteered to act as escort. Mr. Johnson is the only white man at the school who boasts a baby, so naturally we felt honored. We started soon after dark. All the stage settings for a first rate melodrama were present, but for the life of me I couldn t get into the proper spirit. The dusty plains, the shining stars, the lonely tepees, the darkness and uncertainty were all there, and yet I couldn t persuade a single thrill to go shivering along my spine, as thrills are supposed to do on such occasions. That s just like my spine, to play such a trick on me. It is sure to flop over just when I have it nicely braced for an occasion. It will soon be as erratic as my kindergarten methods. The hundred or more dogs of the encamp ment came out to greet us and escorted us thru the tepees to the place where the Indians [29] THE INDIAN SPECIAL were dancing. Greatly to my surprise, the ceremonies were conducted inside a building, much like a barn, only with a turf floor. Only the chiefs and their families were allowed in side, the common herd watched performances thru the windows. We elbowed our way thru the crowd, no one paying the slightest atten tion to us, except the dogs. A fat, good-natured squaw kindly gave me her place at the window and I peeked in. The chiefs, in various kinds of dress and un dress, were dancing slowly around a fire in the center of the room. At one side, surrounded by a circle of squaws, was a big kettle of soup from which all present helped themselves with tin cups when so inclined. And that was all. The glory, the significance of these dances have long since departed, and only mockery remains. The Indians dance only by permission of the Indian Agent, the soup they eat is made of government beans, and their every motion is controlled by red tape reaching out from Washington to bind and hold them in submis sion. I suppose they realize this and carry heavy hearts under their buckskin jackets. I felt sorry for them and wanted to tell them so, but as I don t speak Dakota I was afraid they might misconstrue my meaning. [30] THE INDIAN SPECIAL Last week I was detailed to take a wheelbar row and a couple of dozen budding Sioux over the campus, with instructions to have them col lect such sticks and stones as we might come across. I found my command lined up on the sunny side of small boys quarters and called cheerily to them to come on. They mutely objected. I collared a fair sized brave and put him in command of the wheelbarrow, then by physical persuasion I got my detail into action. Passing around the corner of the building, where I got a cheerful grin from Mr. Marks, we emerged on the open battle ground of the campus. I immediately discovered that from general to private, every last one of my com mand was color blind. A big piece of white paper looked to them like mother earth, while sticks and stones were as tho they were not. I armed myself with a big stick, and pointed out the articles I wanted collected. We made but slow progress, yet our vehicle showed the nucleus of a load, when I suddenly noticed that my force had decreased by half. Every time I tried to get up personal relations be tween a boy and a stick or stone, several other boys would improve the opportunity to retreat in double quick time. You might as well try to control as many angleworms. They have the same facility for slipping thru your fingers. [31] THE INDIAN SPECIAL Not wishing to confess myself defeated, I rallied the remnant of my band and struggled on. But the acquisition of every stick cost me a man, and the number of casualties was alarm ingly on the increase. Thinking a retreat ad visable, I ordered my command right about face and we started back to quarters. The wheelbarrow and I arrived in safety, but the rest of the force was a minus quantity. The earth had opened and swallowed them up, and I went to the Superintendent and so reported. He regarded my load of trophies with a thoughtful smile, and remarked that I was capable of doing better things. I had private ly thought so myself, and it was a satisfaction to have my opinion corroborated. You may construe his remark differently if you choose, but when I see a nice speech wan dering doubtfully about, I am going to make it my business to stop it and take it home with me. When the collection gets large enough, I shall condense it and make a motto out of it and hang it on the wall to be obliterated with Crow River dust, which fate is, I suppose, the common lot of all. And speaking of dust reminds me that I have the day s dirt still with me, patiently awaiting an introduction to the water in my teakettle. May the choicest of blessings be reserved for the Honorable Mem- [32] THE INDIAN SPECIAL ber of Congress who shall have the courage to stand up and recommend that some bath tubs be sent to the Crow River Boarding School. The man who does it may have my motto, gratis. Generously yours, JEAN. [33] CROW RIVER BOARDING SCHOOL, So. DAKOTA JAN. 26, 19. DEAR: Things are happening out here ! Yesterday, on the banks of the beautiful, muddy Mis souri, Harold Bobtailed Goose smiled at me! A nice big, expansive smile, which cleared away the clouds of misunderstanding which have hov ered over us since our introduction three months ago. I had taken my class out for a walk thru the dust and cockle burrs to the river to see if its complexion had cleared any since I last saw it, and on the way we ran into a drove of pigs. They scattered, squealing, in every direction and as I turned about, laughing, to watch them, I caught Harold s eye and he pointed to the running pigs and said, * Kakusha, Kakusha. Our souls have at last found a medium of com munication and hereafter I know we shall get on famously together. Kakusha is the first Dakota word in my vocabulary, and I had to have an object lesson [35] THE INDIAN SPECIAL to learn that. Harold has taught me more than I have him, for to my knowledge he has never pronounced an English syllable. To morrow I am going to try to have him say pig, and we shall be quits. Poor little Har old! His body is covered with inherited sores, the flesh of his hands has great cracks in it from washing in the ice-cold alkali water. He can t appreciate the fact that he is immeasur ably better here than he could possibly be at home, and he hates us with the instinctive hatred of his conquered race. Poor, little, sor rowful chap! Last week had a red letter day. We were paid off. Something went wrong with the financial machinery and we have been penniless for three months. As that includes all of my time here, you may perhaps imagine the condi tion of my pocketbook. Government employees are paid their salaries in nice blue checks which are cashable anywhere. As we don t happen to be anywhere, we have to depend on the agency store for banking facilities. I took my three checks over and got the value there of, one hundred and fifty dollars, in silver, with a soiled cloth bag to put it in. Did you ever happen to carry one hundred and fifty dollars in dollars, half-dollars and quarters, and shake it as you walked to keep step with the jingle? [36] THE INDIAN SPECIAL And to the blessed consciousness that I had earned the last cent of it by the sweat of my brow and the dust collected thereon, was added the blessed consciousness that it was all mine except what I owed. Like Huck Finn, I was feeling pretty brash when, like a slap in the face, came the thought, " There is no place where you can spend it ! " And it was true! Here I was with a whole bag full of good coin of the realm and a most natural inclination to exchange some of it for feminine gee-gaws, and not a department store within a hundred miles! There was sim ply no getting rid of my treasure except to pay my debts, and of all the ways and means of spending money, that is the most unsatisfac tory one I know. We are all in debt here. I borrowed of my neighbors till their account and my credit was exhausted, then I sent home for a needed supply and they borrowed of me. I balanced my assets and liabilities, paid my three months board bill, sent home the money I had begged and still found some loose silver remaining. I guarantee it not to remain over long. Trust to my Yankee ingenuity to get rid of it. I shed money as some people do ad vice and with about as beneficial results. Christmas has come and gone, and I only wish that my memory, like the small boy s, was [37] THE INDIAN SPECIAL the thing I forget with, so that the recollec tion of it could be banished forever. There was nothing to do, nowhere to go, there wasn t even any mail. All there was left to us was to eat, so we did that. Uncle Sam gives special dinners to his wards at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and after our dinner we went over to the pupils dining-room to see the tables set. There was turkey and cranberries and fresh fruit, extra, and perhaps the coming genera tion of hopeful Sioux didn t leave a barren waste of bones and grease spots behind them. It s a pity we cannot civilize the rest of them as easily as we do their appetites! Our bill- of-fare is about the only thing they take kindly to, and they object quite seriously at times be cause it doesn t include butter! But I like to have them object, I encourage them in it. Any thing except their usual stolid, passive accept ance of conditions as they find them. I would give a good deal to know whether there is one student here who will go out in the world and earn the butter for his bread. The constant giving of the necessities of life by the paternal government isn t exactly conducive to a growth of independence. This generation was born with its mouth open for government rations and I can detect no symptoms of its being closed in the near future. It will never [38] THE INDIAN SPECIAL shut up with a snap, I know, but it may close gradually as a realization comes of the sweet ness of the bread of independence. I was miserable all last week because of something which happened here, and I am go ing to tell you in hopes you may be miserable, too. What s the use of having a friend if you can t dump your burdens on her occasionally? When I run across people who don t seem to have enough troubles of their own, I am always perfectly willing to loan them some of mine, tho in justice to the universal distributor of woes, I must confess I don t find such people plenti ful. They most certainly are a scarce article in the Indian Service, which accounts for my delivering this recital by mail. I suppose there are not a half dozen barns on this whole reservation. The Indians brand their ponies and cows and turn them out in the fall to shift for themselves. If they turn up alive in the spring, well and good. If they turn up dead, ditto. Naturally, many of the half-starved animals gather about the agency corral, where the big stacks of hay stand invit ingly just inside the fence. The stray ponies are gathered in and fed enough to keep them alive. In the spring the Indian who belongs to the brand may have his property by paying a small amount for the animal s keeping. The [39] THE INDIAN SPECIAL poor cows do not fare so well. If we have an open winter without much snow, they manage to live on the prairie grass, but let a fall of snow come and their earthly course is soon finished. Recently, snow fell to the depth of several inches and shortly afterwards, on my way to the agency store, I notice a cow and calf stand ing outside the corral fence. I didn t think much about them at the time, but during the evening, in my warm room, the desolate picture they made returned to me, and I resolved to go out in the morning and see if they were still there. It is one of the few resolutions I didn t break, and I found them standing in nearly the same place, mutely begging for food and shel ter. I hunted up the herder and implored him to feed them. He seemed sorry enough, but said that the supply of hay was barely suffi cient for the herd of ponies and the government stock, and, as many cows came there during the winter, it was impossible to feed them all. I left those poor, starving creatures there and went to my work. They were before my eyes all day, and after school I went over to the industrial teacher s rooms and tried to bribe him to go and feed them. He either couldn t or wouldn t, and told me not to worry as they would be dead before morning. And they were, [40] THE INDIAN SPECIAL starved and frozen to death in sight of food and shelter. I was glad to know they were no longer suffering, but my Puritan conscience has been torturing me ever since. I might have done something, and not have accepted the sit uation as helpless, like any fullblood. I could have bought some grain at the agency store and have kept them from starving till the snow melted. And then the thought came, why feed them to keep them alive to suffer? They are better off dead. But are they? Had I fed the cow she doubtless would have lived to do her share of the world s work as well as I am doing mine. And then the uselessness of everything I had ever done came rolling over me like a huge wave, and my life seemed of no more im portance than the one I had let go out. And it isn t ! O ! the little, insignificant, complain ing lives of us! How we fret and fuss over trifles Aurelius says only fools do that en tirely ignoring the big principles of living which would bring us peace if we would but observe them. I have a hazy idea of the essen tials of life, yet I go about magnifying the non-essentials and making myself miserable in consequence. There is something in a place like this that changes your perspective wonderfully, there is so little to interfere with your vision. It is life [41] THE INDIAN SPECIAL sans everything you were brought up to con sider as a necessary part of life, and you have to construct your scheme of living over again. Mine still includes a cat, for I didn t think it prudent to eliminate quite all the factors of the old existence. It is a tri-legged, dust-colored kitten which limped into school one day, and as the children teased it, I took it along with me to the kitchen. The long-suffering cook told me that if I brought another cat there she would put it in the soup ! I didn t bear the soup any grudge, so I car ried Madam Puss home with me and legally adopted her. She sleeps on my bed, pulls the cushions off onto the floor, gets on top of the dresser and scratches it clear of all its para phernalia, and does her best generally to give the place a homelike atmosphere. She is such a little Indian of a cat that I didn t feel equal to the task of naming her, so I gave a public function and solicited aid. I asked everyone present to write an appropriate name for her on a slip of paper. These I strung on a cord and trailed before her majesty. She coquetted with them a little, but soon daintily reached out a graceful paw and pulled off a slip. It had 6 Sprite written on it, and proved to be Mrs. Marks contribution. Mrs. Marks made a nice little christening speech, after which we popped [42] THE INDIAN SPECIAL corn in honor of the Event. A capital, please. This is the nearest to a social affair that I have seen at Crow River, and deserves capitaliza tion. You write that my letters make you inter ested in Indian education. Let me recommend to you a book just published, " Indian Boy hood," by Dr. Chas. Eastman. Dr. Eastman is a fullblood, a graduate of Dartmouth, and is our school physician. His book is just out and is an autobiography, as he was raised in savagery. Our boys play the same games that he describes, and while they cannot get buffalo ribs to slide down hill on, they make govern ment barrel staves answer the purpose. Only yesterday I heard the small boys ma tron call out, " Rowland, don t you slide down hill on your pants ! " Poor Rowland, he was evidently shy even a stave. But then, they were government pants and didn t cost him anything, so why should he be careful of them ? My head is getting in a bad condition from breathing dust so constantly. Probably some of the few thousand microbes I consume daily are beginning to get even with me. I have been driven to fancy work, the last resort of boredom. At present I am at work on some doilies, and if they turn out decently I am go ing to keep them. Otherwise I shall send them [43] THE INDIAN SPECIAL to my sister. They will be marvelous to her in any condition, for in her wildest imaginings she never pictured me doing anything so nice and ladylike. This has been an off day, and I am desper ate with loneliness. I am not just lonesome to see you and the home folks, much as I should love to. It is a loneliness of body, mind and soul and there isn t a person in the world who cares or understands. We may rectify our mistakes to a certain extent, but we cannot banish the influences they have exerted over us. Mine confront me everywhere, trailing their wretched memories. I am beginning to grasp the idea of a faith big enough to accept in trust the reason of things we cannot understand, believing that the final outcome will be good. It is like the ego in us to make every unpleasant incident a per sonal matter between ourselves and a watchful Providence. A belief in a protecting Provi dence is very comforting as long as the sun shines, but what are you to do when it begins to hail? You may either follow Mrs. Job s ad vice, or change the attributes of your divinity. I much prefer Aurelius belief that all the laws of the universe are working together to a certain excellent end, and that the things which happen to us along the way are simply results [44] THE INDIAN SPECIAL of this co-labor, and must be cheerfully accept ed, since their ultimate aim is universal good. " Say any dream of all the dreams that shift and darkle, drift and glow, Holds most of truth within its gleams, but say at last I do not know." It is too deep a problem for Crow River and me. I suppose I ought to be glad that I was deemed worthy to be made an object lesson by the things " which work together for good." The potter has the right to mould his clay as he pleases, but it is pretty hard on the clay at times. If I only had a pound package of Huy- ler s I should feel better, but I haven t seen a chocolate in four months. If that isn t enough to make one question the justice of Providence, I leave it to you to tell me what is. If you have any doubts regarding my final salvation, you can send me a box, and have the satisfaction of knowing that you did what you could. Yours doubtfully, JEAN. [45] HURON INDIAN SCHOOL,, WYANFORT, INDIAN TERR. MAY 8, 19. DEAR: The first two days here I spent mostly in the bathtub. It seemed too good to be true that I could go to bed clean and get up in the same condition in the morning. No loving gumbo hovering o er me while I slept to set my teeth on edge even in my dreams. I don t believe that sanctification in the su perlative degree could give me nearly as pleas ant a sensation as has the feeling that for the first time in five months, I have been clean for twelve consecutive hours. I am beginning to realize to what a great extent that horrible dust was responsible for my low outlook. How can you be normal mentally in an atmosphere so thick with dusty microbes that you can fair ly detect the taste of the different species? No doubt there are mental as well as physical microbes, and I think Crow River is their dis tributing point. Anyway, they got the best of me, and I was ill for two weeks. I wrote the [47] THE INDIAN SPECIAL Department at Washington that unless it wanted to lose a most valuable employee, it would have to transfer me to a place where the real estate was fastened down. And it did. In about three weeks I got orders to report to the Huron Indian School, Wyanfort, Okla. I remained at Crow River until my successor came, a pretty Irish girl, who looked capable of holding her own with any number of mi crobes and Indians. Miss Deering was ill, worn out with nursing sick children night and day. There was a decrepit hospital there, but such a barren, desolate place, and the nurse harmon ized with her surroundings so perfectly that you could hardly drive a child to stay there, and Miss Deering had kept them in her own room and cared for them. I left her in bed, worn out, sick and suffering, but the smile with which she bade me farewell was as sunny as ever. I shall carry the memory of her unselfish devotion with me always, a guiding star of love and service. There were two feet of snow in Dakota and on our way to Chamberlain our sleigh got stuck in the snow and the driver had to unhitch and pull the sleigh, plus me, out of the drifts. At Wyanfort, driving from the station to the school, only a very short distance, I am glad to say, we got stuck in the mud. But it was de- [48] THE INDIAN SPECIAL cent, well behaved mud and minded its own af fairs, and bore no more resemblance to Crow River mud than a cat does to a catacomb. I have been here nearly two months now, and it seems so good to be cheerful and con tented again ! To get up in the morning with a smile that doesn t come off. It is beautiful here, partly by contrast, perhaps. It seems as tho the grass was greener, the flowers sweeter, the birds merrier. Spring comes early, and every nook and hollow is filled with violets and wild pansies, and sweet williams, while every hillside is a mass of dogwood contrasted with the flam ing color of the redbuds. This reservation is allotted among seven tribes, all of which send their full quota of chil dren to the school. Only one tribe the Qua- paws send any full blooded pupils. The other tribes have intermarried with the white settlers and renters who drift here from Missouri and Arkansas, and my pupils have enough white blood to make teaching them quite resemble my work among the white Indians of Northern New York. I see fair hair and carrot tops above my school desks quite as often as brown and glossy black. I have some dear little girls, and I am enjoying my work as much as I shall ever enjoy such slow torture as school teaching. Please don t repeat this. Teachers are sup- [49] THE INDIAN SPECIAL posed to teach for love of the work, not for the pay accidentally attached, and I don t want to destroy the illusion. But then, I guess it can t be, so long as the salaries of the public school teachers remain at their present figures. We live by bugle calls; reveille sounds at a quarter of six, when everyone turns out sup posedly. The assembly call for dinner and supper, and taps at nine o clock, when every body goes to bed, again supposedly. At Crow River they tolled the bell at mealtime, and it always sounded so terribly appropriate, par ticularly at six-thirty on a cold winter s morn ing, when yours truly had to get up and say " grace." I don t have to do that here, but I do have to teach a Sunday school class. At present we are studying the sins and shortcomings of the fathers in Israel, and I try to make the lessons as edifying as the material will allow. I am sending you a photo of a little neigh bor of mine, the daughter of one of the Indian employes. She is a fat, four-year-old rascal with pigtails, and so bow-legged that should she meet a dog on the walk, it would be sure to go thru rather than trouble to go around. Her name is Lucile ! How she ever manages to get one foot out of the other s way when she runs I can t imagine. I hold my breath when I [50] THE INDIAN SPECIAL see her attempt it, for she acts as tho she were trying to make both feet occupy the same space at the same time, and that cannot be done with any degree of success, except by Lucile. She seldom falls, I notice, but when she does her feet are considerably mixed up. There are three other pairs of pedal ellipsis in the fam ily, and when they take to chasing each other up and down the walk there is nothing for the spectator to do but sit down and laugh it out. Our school is under the spiritual direction of a Quaker Mission. Perhaps you don t know that at one time, under what was called Grant s Quaker Policy, most of the Indian schools were in charge of these Quaker Missions. Old na tives here still speak of the school as " The Mis sion." Our present pastor preaches the old- fashioned hereafter of fire and brimstone, and wears a celluloid collar when he does it. Doesn t that impress you as a dangerous com bination? I should never dare tempt Provi dence that way. I have a new friend. Not just a friendly acquaintance, but a real, sure nough friend. That means a great deal to me, for I could dispense with part of the digits on one hand and still have enough left to number the people I have considered my friends. My newly-found one is Captain Taggert, chief of the Wyan- [51] THE INDIAN SPECIAL forts, a man of mental and physical girth be yond the average, a pioneer who, with others of his tribe, settled here a score or more of years ago and under the usual " insurmount able difficulties " which confront the pioneers of progress everywhere, set in motion the wheels of industry and enterprise which revolve toward civilization. Captain Taggert has, I believe, but a small degree of Indian blood, but he is an Indian first and all the time, and a white man only occasionally. His father, also a chief, organized, and was the master of, the first Masonic order to be founded in the Terri tory of Kansas. His home was originally in Wyanfort, Kansas, now Kansas City. The old town is full of the landmarks of the Indians who were the founders of the present progres sive city. I only wish I could make you see Captain Taggert as he is to-day, in the autumn of life, with his well-spent years behind him; his halt ing walk, his twinkling brown eyes, his inex haustible fund of stories, his ready, jovial laugh. Since Mrs. Taggert s death several years ago, his affections have seemed to center in two objects, Old Flop, his big, bony, awk ward horse, and his order of A. F. A. M. Cap tain Taggert has been kindness itself to me, and stands between me and a hundred disagree- [52] THE INDIAN SPECIAL able trifles. You see, I can t get used to being under command, and I blunder into things and break a dozen rules a day. Superintendent Marks seemed to understand my peculiar Yan kee temperament, but this Superintendent is a different proposition. He is the type of man who comes to dinner three-quarters of an hour behind time and grumbles because the potatoes are cold. If he were just an ordinary mortal it wouldn t matter so much, but since he hap pens to be an Indian school superintendent it behooves you to keep the potatoes sizzling. This is a very religious community, if churches constitute religion. Wyanfort is a town of some two hundred inhabitants don t be alarmed, it grew very rapidly and the Friends, Methodist and Christian denomina tions each have a church, and the Baptists, eleven in number, are trying to raise funds to build another. They all seem to believe in the doctrine of immersion, and nearly every Sun day, even in cold weather, there are public bap tisms in the creek which flows just below the school and which furnishes the school with sew erage facilities. The occasions are a sort of sanctified picnic, for the settlers come from all over this section, come in farm wagons and bring the children and have dinner at the creek. Every gallant who boasts a carriage and best [53] THE INDIAN SPECIAL girl is there, and a goodly number of toughs come whooping it up on horseback. The Holi ness people are also laboring in this neghbor- hood. I should imagine the Holiness doctrine and Indians would make an interesting com bination if thoroly mixed. Last Sunday I went down to the footbridge to watch proceedings. One of the women to be immersed wore a calico wrapper they are always made of calico and the rough element saw what it came to see. And yet people with a fair amount of common sense will attend these meetings and claim they are of a divine mean ing to them. It is a question of the " human form divine," I suppose. That was the only thing of a divine nature that I could see. I shall not go again to watch. I may have a great dearth of religious sentiment of the orthodox brand, but I cannot help feeling that such a spectacle is little better than sacrilege. The essentials of Christianity are so grand, so ennobling, that it seems a degradation to drag the literal interpretation of the letter of the law thru the mire of publicity, and tag the per formance a religious ceremony. I said as much to Captain Taggert and he replied that with a primitive people like these, creeds and spectac ular ceremonies were a necessity. He said their belief in hell was the only incentive strong enough to incite them to decent living. Per- [54] THE INDIAN SPECIAL haps he is right, and as succeeding generations learn to have more faith in their God, and less fear, the bubble of eternal punishment will burst in an atmosphere too pure for its overheated vapors. I hope so. It seems a pity to preach an eternity of torment to these poor, strug gling people. This life to them is barren of everything the soul longs for. It is reduced by poverty and ignorance to the very lowest terms of existence. Surely their cross is suf ficiently heavy without the added weight of fear for the hereafter. As I looked at the women at the creek it was easy to select the wives of the white renters, the " poor whites " who come here and rent the farms of the more prosperous Indians. They live in shanties of two or three rooms, the walls of which are often covered with old newspapers, and unfailingly make their yearly contribution to the Territory s population. If all beauty is by contrast, so also are things hideous. About the second time I drove thru the reservation with my new friend I dis covered that I was by no means among the world s unfortunates. I shall bark no more up the tree of misfortune. I don t believe I have a barking acquaintance with it, anyway. The children of the poor whites are doubly unlucky. Uncle Sam provides a home and [55] THE INDIAN SPECIAL means of education for the children of his wards, but his white sons and daughters are not included in his parental care. Indian Ter ritory is not a territory in the usual meaning of the term. When the Indians first came to this reservation they adopted certain portions of the Kansas law, particularly regarding the inheritance of land. Of course taxes are un known, as Indian land is not taxable. Conse quently the roads are not worked, there are no public schools, and such laws as there are are enforced by the United States marshals, assist ed locally by the Indian police. Captain Tag- gert is a member of this latter organization. Only yesterday he came into the dining-room and asked me if I would come out and hold his horse while he went to kill a man. There is very little trouble here, tho, and an arrest is seldom made. The laws forbidding the " sale, introduction, or giving away " of spirituous drinks are strictly enforced. To be sure you can get Deruna in Wyan- fort, at the one drug store. We have a good joke on one of the teachers, Mrs. Cawston. This spring she felt the need of a tonic, and as Deruna was highly praised, she decided to try it. When she asked the clerk at the drug store for a bottle he smiled very peculiarly and said, " Madam, I don t believe you would like [56] THE INDIAN SPECIAL Deruna." You see, she didn t know that the special brand of Deruna sent to Indian Terri tory is a mighty poor kind of booze. Perhaps the pure food law, along with the pure feud law of Kentucky, will materialize some day, and when we drink from a bottle of patent medicine we shall know the contents thereof. A very great deal depends on our outlook, doesn t it? There is a girl here who happens not to like her steak rare. Our cook is a jewel an auburn-haired one and she tries to send the steak to the table done to suit the various tastes of her large family, but it occasionally happens that it is all too rare to suit this par ticular member of it. She flounces in her chair when asked if she will have meat, and says, " Thank you, I don t like raw beef." And raw beef expresses her outlook to a T. Nothing in the heavens above or the earth be neath meets with her approval if it differs from her idea of what it should be. She doesn t like cats of course and to her all cats are gray. With her the only good Indian is a dead one, and the children here are just so many little savages which a kind Providence has placed in her path that she may shine in contrast. She is a Baptist, and members of all other denominations are shod for the in fernal regions. They are all raw beef to [57] THE INDIAN SPECIAL her. She has immense feet and cordially dis likes me because I haven t, which is as good a reason as any other if you think about it. We seldom dislike people because of their faults, any more than we like them for their virtues. Someone has said that " men like women in spite of their virtues, rather than because of them." Apropos, Mark Twain says that " vir tue is its own punishment." One hardly knows whether to break or mend their ways. I have been sewing all my spare time of late. You know I make most of my own gowns and hats, and am regarded as quite a marvel in consequence. Captain Taggert told me the other day that I could do everything for my self but make my own shoes and mind my own business, and strongly recommended that I learn both accomplishments. I may decide on the shoemaking later, but the other is quite beyond me. Cheerfully, yours, JEAN. [58] WYANFORT, INDIAN TERRITORY, HURON BOARDING SCHOOL JUNE 1, 19 . DEAR: You ask me what our amusements are. My dear, my letters have indeed been fruitless if they have failed to impart the knowledge that as far as the east is from the west, so far has the Indian Service removed amusements from us. We play croquet with the thermometer 100 in the shade and fight like Turks doing it. Attribute the disgraceful fact to our tempera ment if you choose ; I much prefer to blame the temperature. It sounds as well and lightens your conscience. Every Friday evening, from seven till nine, the pupils have a " party " and we teachers are accessories before and after the fact. We play Drop the Handkerchief, Jolly Old Miller, Skip to My Lou, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. Sometimes we dance. We boast one young man who can skip the light fantastic, but he usually skips the party instead. I have a suspicion he pre fers doing so. No doubt a room full of part- [59] THE INDIAN SPECIAL ners is rather a discouraging thing to face. I have aped the man s part so much in dancing with girls that I suspect if I ever do dance with <a man again I shall endeavor to put my arm around him, just from force of habit. It is to be hoped that he, whoever he may be, will be equal to the occasion. Last Saturday I went with Captain Taggert on a drive up into the Peoria Reservation. We crossed the range of wooded hills which bound this reserve and drove over into the level prairie land which stretches away to Kansas on the north. A most delightful drive if you don t mind stumps. The roads thru the woods are made by cut ting down a needed tree here and there roughly chopped off a foot or more from the ground and blazing the trees along the way to serve as a guide. The combination proved disastrous to a greenhorn like me. If I watched for the stumps I missed the trail and got off the road; if I watched the trail I hit every stump within a radius of ten feet. I sur rendered the reins to Captain Taggert after I had made my fourth attempt to descend via the dashboard, and told him he could drive and that I would watch out for the stumps. He said I didn t really need to, as he could hit them all without my pointing them out. Old [60] THE INDIAN SPECIAL Flop objects decidedly to stepping over a stump, and persists in going around, regard less of our wishes in the matter, which leaves no alternative for the buggy and us but to go over, which we do with as much grace as the circumstances will allow. At the foot of a long hill I saw a nice big stump waiting patiently for us in the middle of the road, and watched with considerable in terest for our probable encounter with it. Just before we reached it I noticed a horrid creep ing thing in the wheel track, and called out, " Stop, quick ! There is a tarantula." Captain Taggert reined up Old Flop so quickly that he snorted with indignation, and there just between the fore and hind wheel was the worst looking specimen in his particular line of goods that I had ever seen, with black, beady eyes glaring straight up at us. You may be sure that I didn t get out for an intro duction, and when Captain Taggert started Old Flop I shut my eyes, so I don t know whether we ran over the thing or not. Captain Taggert broke the silence by asking, " Where did you ever see a tarantula, that you knew one so quickly ? " I had been asking myself that question, for I had never seen even a picture of one that I knew of. Had I suddenly met an archangel in [61] THE INDIAN SPECIAL the road I should immediately have mistaken him for a member of some traveling show and asked him the price of his tickets ; but a hor rible, loathesome, hairy thing I knew at once. Is that a result of an intuitive knowledge of evil, think you? Why can t we be born with a reversed tendency, I wonder, and not have to seek the things that are good so strenu ously? I asked Captain Taggert what he thought about it and he only laughed at me, as he always does. Said I needed an intuitive knowledge of evil in order to avoid it instinc tively, otherwise I would have picked up the tarantula and taken it home with me to make a pet of, or at least have attempted it. I told him my sense of the general fitness of things would have saved me from making a mistake like that, and he came back at me with the re mark that without an instinctive knowledge of evil I could possess no such sense. We seemed to be arguing in a circle, and there is no profit in doing that, so I quit, without the last word, too, but I really felt bad to think I had known Mr. Tarantula on sight. It made me feel as tho something must have been wrong with my ancestors. I had the pleasure of attending a Quapaw Council recently, tho not in the capacity of councilor, as my remark might lead you to [62] THE INDIAN SPECIAL infer. The Quapaws are a rich tribe, whose members hold in common a large tract of land which has never been allotted. Capitalists from Joplin have been trying to get the land for mining purposes, and last week the tribe met in council to consider the question of sell ing it. The capitalists had offered a fair price for the land, and the majority of the tribe was willing to dispose of it. Now, Indian land, surplus or otherwise, is tied up hill and dale, by miles of government red tape, as all good capitalists should know, and word had come from Washington to the agency office that the Quapaws could sell their land only with the government s consent, by government methods and at a government valu ation. Captain Taggert was sent to carry the glad tidings to the assembled Quapaws, and in vited me to go along. I was prepared for a goodly number of full bloods in civilian s clothes, with their hair braided with strips of red calico, but I wasn t prepared for automo biles and a merry-go-round. There had been a street fair in an adjoining town in Missouri, and the proprietor of the merry-go-round, with a practiced nose for business, had scented the Quapaw Council and was revolving there for a week. He seemed to be thriving in his chosen profession and a number of braves and [63] THE INDIAN SPECIAL babies were circling solemnly around to the tune of " Good Old Summer Time." A dignified old Quapaw fetched me a chair and when I thanked him, raised his hat with the nicest kind of a smile. Talk about " repose of manner." These fullbloods have the genu ine article. There isn t a superfluous motion in their whole makeup. Old Paul Dabber is chief of the Quapaws. Someone had rigged four boards on the top of as many posts driven into the ground and under this glorious canopy old Paul squatted, puffing a big clay pipe. The leading men of the tribe were gathered around him exchang ing occasional very occasional ideas on the subject under consideration. The capitalists from Joplin they were accountable for the irrelevant autos wandered uneasily about, plainly in a hurry to get matters under way, but wise enough or experienced enough not to attempt to rush things. Slowly, however, the crowd of Indians, capitalists, children and dogs circumscribed the squatting place of old Paul, who still smoked and exchanged occasional ideas. Captain Taggert kept in the back ground, biding his time. Suddenly the spokesman for the Joplin company began speaking, addressing himself [64] THE INDIAN SPECIAL to a young Indian interpreter, for while old Paul speaks English, the majority of his tribe does not. He spoke at some length, stating the terms of the intended purchase in the simplest language. Old Paul listened in silence, but nodded his head when some of the tribe spoke favorably of the sale. My companion seemed to think matters had gone far enough, and, pulling the letter containing Uncle Sam s directions from his pocket, he walked to the center of the little circle and asked for its at tention. You may be sure it was given at once, for Captain Taggert knows every man, woman, child and dog on the reservation and counts most of them as his friends. The capi talists looked anxious and gathered nearer; the boys on the outer circle suddenly became quiet, and even the dogs seemed to scent trouble, for three of them went off to one side and settled a little private difference of their own. Captain Taggert read the letter from date to signature amid a complete silence. As he finished, one of the members of the Joplin company asked to see it, but appeared satis fied after glancing at its contents. The Qua- paws accepted the mandate passively, stolidly, as they have accepted them all their lives, well [65] THE INDIAN SPECIAL knowing the futility of objection. I didn t hear the capitalists say anything, but they piled into their autos with a very damnlike expression on their faces. I have no doubt they thought Mr. Bumble s definition of the law a particularly fit one. I had been giving a divided attention to the reading of the letter, for reasons I will tell you. Near me, seated on the ground, was a young squaw with her year-old baby. I knew her slightly, as a girl who had attended the Wyan- fort school some time previous. She had re ceived a fair education, as education is counted here, and had learned the ways of civilization. She had gone back to her tribe and married what we call a " blanket Indian." My dear, I am telling you the gospel truth when I say that every stitch of clothing that woman had on was a red calico wrapper, open from throat to waist that the baby might nurse when he felt so inclined. She sat there, exposed, as calmly as tho sitting in a bathtub. The baby, poor little rascal, wasn t so calm, and cried most of the time. Perhaps the cause of his wailing oc curred to her, for she lifted him into her lap and proceeded to administer to his wants. And what do you suppose she used ! Pieces of cloth like the red calico dress she wore! That poor [66] THE INDIAN SPECIAL baby s hips and legs were a mass of sores to which the cloth stuck as she pulled it off. She made no pretense of cleaning him, but put on the dry cloth and pinned him up. And this in sight of autos and a merry-go-round. You can t circumvent nature by a few years in a gov ernment training school. I saw some of the little girls from the school, whom I had known with their hair down and their skirts up; they had reversed the order and were gravely mas querading as grownups, with trailing skirts and their hair piled on top of their heads. Poor children, if they could only realize in time the value of the childhood they are deny ing. One would think that the female sex, especially, would have an innate knowledge of the fact that it is inestimably better to be even a young Junebug than an old Bird of Paradise. We drove home over another road out of deference to the stumps, and I got quite de cently surprised. Near Spring River, which we had to cross on our way, is a deep gully with hills on either side, which is known locally as the slough. This slough is usually as dry as a chip please excuse my Old Town vernac ular, it will crop up occasionally but at times is filled with backwater from Spring River. As Captain Taggert reined up Old Flop on [67] THE INDIAN SPECIAL the crest of the hill, I knew by the amused ex pression on his face that I was in for a new experience and he was wondering how I would behave. "Well!" he exclaimed, "if that pesky old slough isn t up again. I am afraid you are in for a ducking. I suppose you don t want to get out and wade over? " I thanked him and said I was quite content ed where I was. He had been rolling up the laprobe, giving it to me to hold, turning up his trousers rather high even for Indian Terri tory, and acting generally as tho he thought something was likely to happen. " Do you advocate the doctrine of immer sion ? " I asked him. " Now," he answered, " you get a good grip on those skirts of yours and sit on top of the seat back with your feet on the seat, and hold tight." I asked which I was to hold tight, he or the laprobe. He said whichever I preferred. Well, I don t think there is much support in a linen laprobe, do you? And, anyway, I don t be lieve in tempting Providence too far. Old Flop and the slough were evidently old friends, for he waded sedately in, deeper and deeper, until suddenly the water closed over [68] THE INDIAN SPECIAL him and I felt the buggy rock gently as it floated after him as he swam. I remarked to Captain Taggert, who was taking life easy with his feet on top of the high dashboard, that I was glad he was along to furnish the neces sary ballast. The water splashed gaily about within a half inch of the seat, and I was just beginning to worry for my patent leathers when Old Flop struck bottom and we dripped our way to land. There we waited until the water ran out of the wagon box it has holes bored in it for just such occasions as this before descending from our " bad eminence " and started on our way once more. Captain Taggert turned to me with a laugh. " I have a good smoke coming to me on this. Col. Davis bet me the cigars that you would scream if I drove you thru the slough when it was up, and I took him up on it. Somehow, I didn t think you would." I told him I was always glad to be of service. I couldn t help wishing that mother had been in my place, with her best black silk gown on. I am afraid she would have been guilty of con duct unbecoming a member in good standing. I doubt, too, if the laprobe would have fared as well in her hands. It came thru safe and [69] THE INDIAN SPECIAL dry, as did I, which, take it altogether, is rather surprising. But if the water had come that half inch higher I am afraid Captain Tag- gert would have occupied the anxious seat for once in his life at least. As ever, yours, JEAN. [70] HURON BOARDING SCHOOL, WYANFORT, INDIAN TERRITORY AUG. 8, 19 . DEAR: Your overdue letter came yesterday and I am coming the Christian act by answering it at once. Not that I make a specialty of hot coals as a rule, but I think you need a few. I have had a most interesting and profitable vacation so far, in St. John s Hospital in Smithfield, being relieved of my appendix. I really didn t expect to mind so much the loss of a little thing like that. I had always con sidered it a mere matter of gossip that I pos sessed such an article of inside furnishing, till it suddenly developed the most unexpected pow ers of internal revolution. This was four months ago, and, as one of my small pupils aptly expressed it, I have been walking one side lame ever since. A friend in Smithfield advised me to come there to a small hospital conducted by the Sis ters, rather than to the large one in St. Louis, as I had planned. I am very glad I did so. [71] THE INDIAN SPECIAL Those dear Sisters petted and soothed and nursed me thru those long, hot days and nights, fed me iced orange juice and tepid Catholic tracts, and sent me back to Wyanfort healed in body, and with a new conception of the lives led by those patient-faced women, who so gladly give up the pleasures of this world in anticipation of those of the world to come. I shall never forget their kindness to me, any more than I shall forget the chromo which hung on the wall at the foot of my bed. It pictured the death scene of St. Joseph, and green, red and blue robes, haloes and hovering angels with purple wings were much in evi dence. A most cheerful scene for a sick room, especially if the occupant has a fair eye for color. Now what I need is a religion which will help me to live right here, not one which I am to treasure in death and carry on to the next world. The world to come will doubtless have theology sufficient for the needs of its inhabi tants, and, anyway, a religion which has stood the wear and tear of this sphere must be pretty well frayed. The worlds to come do not trouble me any more than do the ones in which I must have lived since the beginning of time. Each successive stage must be oblivion to both the [72] THE INDIAN SPECIAL past and the future, and only the crying needs of the present deserve our consideration. " Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, The soul that rises with us, our life s star, Hath had elsewhere its setting And cometh from afar." Something of this I said to the Sister who sat with me thru the long, wakeful nights, and she prayed more fervently than ever that I might be led to perceive the " true light." Poor woman, I really think she felt the heat she believes is to consume me. So much for opinion. Who is responsible, I wonder, for the direction in which our mental cogs revolve? But to question and wonder is much like cutting our wisdom teeth ; they cause you a deal of pain and trouble and you are not one whit wiser after you get them. Ah! well, " What we know is nothing : what we do not know is immense." It is gratifying to know there is something immense about us, even if it is what we don t know. Don t think death scenes were all I had to contemplate. Captain Taggert sent me a big bunch of roses every day and they completely changed the atmosphere of the whole room. St. Joseph made but a poor showing in their presence, tho he seemed to die quite comfort ably day after day. I couldn t help thinking [73] THE INDIAN SPECIAL that he made the occasion over-solemn, like a certain justice of the peace in one of Captain Taggert s stories. A Western man who had frequented criminal courts and picked up a few legal phrases, was elected justice of the peace. One day an eloping couple came to him to be married, and tho somewhat excited by the un usual occurrence, he stood them up in the cor ner of the room and proceeded. " Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded wife, and promise to obey him? " " I do," faintly. " Do you take this woman to be your wed ded husband? " " I do." " Then by virtue of the power in me vested I pronounce you man and wife, and may God have mercy on your souls ! " I was glad to get back among friendly faces again. This is the first time in my life when I have had nothing to do, and I do it extremely bad. My idleness will be of short duration, however, as school opens again in September. Captain Taggert vowed eternal vigilance of stumps if I would try driving, and I am getting to know this section of the country fairly well. We discuss every subject under the sun and a few that aren t. We will be in the midst of some controversy [74] THE INDIAN SPECIAL we never by any accident agree on a sub ject when whew! you take a long breath, ap ply your handkerchief, and whip up Old Flop. The pigs do their level best to spoil the land scape, and if they can t do it by living, they cheerfully die to accomplish it. You see, every renter and Indian owns a few pigs, which they brand and turn out to live on acorns and their neighbor s crops. Some of them the pigs are continually getting cholera, and they al ways choose the side of the road on which the flowers grow as an expiring place, with the result above mentioned. They never by any chance die near home, consequently they are never buried, for who is going to trouble to dig a grave for someone else s pig? Well, they make good punctuation marks for our conversation, so perhaps they have served their purpose. Sometime ago I noticed that my arms were blotched with little red spots. A first I attrib uted them to the heat, which has been excessive, but they seemed to increase in number daily. Shortly afterward, one morning as I was making my bed, I noticed a nice, red bug on the quilt. Now, back in the years dim distance I may have seen a bedbug, but I never had a sleeping acquaintance with one, and I didn t like to trust my intuition too far. There are [75] THE INDIAN SPECIAL so many bugs here that are strange to me, and I didn t want to call one names unjustly, so I persuaded Mr. Bug to crawl on a piece of paper, which he did quite reluctantly, and I carried him downstairs and asked the clerk, Mr. Freemont, a remarkably nice young man with " A book of verses underneath the bough " expression, if it was a bedbug. " It surely is," he replied. " A nice, fat, juicy one; you must have fed him well." I thought me of the spots on my arms and went sorrowfully back upstairs. Bedbugs are like trouble. Let some incident open your eyes to its existence and set you searching and you find it everywhere. I found bugs in the bed, in the creases of the quilts, in the wardrobe, and even in the seams of my clothes. A party of us went over to the hotel in town for a Sunday dinner and one of the girls picked a bug off the front of my white dress, where it was evidently trying to work up a color scheme of its own. It should have known better, for I never wear red at least knowingly. All this happened soon after my appendix had gone on the warpath, and I had neither the energy nor the unselfishness to retaliate. My coming back at all was too problematical, and I was not in the mood for killing bedbugs for someone else s comfort. So I slept in an adjoining room by night and searched my [76] THE INDIAN SPECIAL clothes for foreign matter by day. I imagine my Knights of the Bedposts missed me exceed ingly during my sojourn in Smithfield. It is nice to be missed, and I used to think of them as I lay on my inflated mattress in the hospital, and hoped they would not die of starvation in my absence. I wanted the pleasure of killing them by a more humane method. Had I known as much about them as I do now, I should have spared myself the idea of their starving. For persistent, indefatigable energy, commend me to the bedbug. He will live longer and go farther on nothing than any bug I know of, except, perhaps a goldbug just before election. Judged from a bug standpoint, I find no blemish in him. He is far handsomer than many of his relatives against whom we raise no such hue and cry. The only objection I have to him is the way he gets his living. On my return to the school I began exter minating operations. The school physician, whom I had enlisted in the warfare, concocted a mixture of some vile-smelling stuff which he burned in my room for twenty-four hours. He warranted it to kill any vermin living. I have decided that bedbugs have no olfactory nerves, for that odor alone would have sufficed to kill anything within smelling distance. My room [77] THE INDIAN SPECIAL was as full of sulphur fumes as a certain un- namable place is said to be. But bedbugs don t mind a little thing like that. They were doing business at the old stand next day as briskly as ever. My room was in a state of seige for two weeks. Everything movable was taken out, except the enemy, and we painted and papered the walls, puttied up the cracks, fumigated the atmosphere, used enough good government gasoline to last an old clothes Israelite for a year, and at the end I sat down in my rehabili tated room and cried " Veni, vidi, vici," and not a solitary bedbug was left to poke its head out of a crack and bite defiance. If this letter smelleth strange to your nostrils you will un derstand the cause. It came in for its legiti mate share of fumigation. I shall not be at all surprised to learn that I have been sending bedbugs to my friends in my letters. If I have, they are likely to prove more interesting than did their means of transporta tion. You will be glad to learn that Superintend ent Marks, of Crow River, has been promoted to a better school in North Dakota. That was a quarrel in which both sides came out ahead, or behind, as you choose to regard it. The agent is now both agent and superintendent [78] THE INDIAN SPECIAL and is rid of Mr. Marks. Mr. Marks is super intendent of a better school, at a higher salary, and is rid of the agent and Crow River dust. Thus doth our all-wise Uncle Sam preserve the peace where peace there is none. I wish I had his faculty of keeping what I haven t got. Pos sibly if I stay in the Indian Service long enough I shall have. I have heard it hinted that government employees learn the knack quite easily. From my window I can see Captain Taggert harnessing Old Flop, and that means he expects me to go for a drive. He is a brave man, who is afraid of neither bedbugs nor Yankee school- ma ams. As ever, with love, JEAN. P. S. The spots have left my arms, thank you. [79] HURON BOARDING SCHOOL, WYANFORT, INDIAN TERRITORY SEPT. 20, 19. DEAR: The entire school force is laughing over an incident which occurred last Tuesday week, an incident, by the way, which illustrates the fact that the best of laws may be broken by people with the best of intentions, and that, too, with quite satisfactory results. I think I have previously mentioned that the sale of intoxicating drinks, of all kinds what soever, is strictly forbidden in Indian Terri tory, not only to Indians, but to whites as well. It is unlawful to have in your possession a cold bottle of any description, no matter how soft the contents may be, or how high the thermometer may soar. Also, it is natural that the employees of this agency, since in a way they represent the government at Washington, which the people of this reserve have just cause to venerate, are expected to be bright and shin ing lights amid the surrounding density and, [81] THE INDIAN SPECIAL above all else, to place no liquid stumbling- block in their red brothers paths. Well, we are and we don t, yet one of the same red brothers I say red out of courtesy to the geography I studied in Oldtown, but he isn t red at all; he isn t even pink had good cause to be grateful to those of us whose gen eral broadmindedness had induced us to give a liberal interpretation to this special law. To be sure, there was direct tangible evidence of this brother s broad view of things in general, and the prohibition clause in particular, but I grieve to say that the flask was nearly empty. There wasn t nearly enough in it to cure the bite of a mad dog, and Captain Taggert, who is the red brother in question, was indeed grate ful to us whose flasks were in a more prosperous condition. There is a four-foot picket fence at the foot of the school grounds, and the points of those pickets are exceedingly sharp, as certain young ladies who climbed over them in something less than three seconds government time, slow can testify. I think I must resemble Sam an thy Allen, insomuch that when I start to tell a story I ramble all over the Lord s creation and a part of Canada before I can settle down and get the thing out of my system. I started out to tell you that last Tuesday [82] THE INDIAN SPECIAL week Captain Taggert was bitten by a mad dog and how we saved him, and here I have the prohibition clause, Monteith s Comprehensive Geography, our picket fence, government time and all of the school employees mixed up in the recital, or what would have been the recital had I ever begun. You do not need to feel called upon to petition the Interior Department for a keeper for me. I am quite sane, if this letter does read as tho a mad dog had been let loose in it. I am going to make one more brave attempt to tell you about Captain s being bitten, and I will endeavor to keep the government out of it this time. I have as much difficulty in keeping Uncle Sam out of my letters as Mr. Dick had in keeping Charles the First out of his Me morial. O ! Lordy, there I go again ! My fail ure to analyze the prohibition clause correctly isn t to blame for my incoherence, either, for there wasn t so much as an odor left in the bot tle I had secretly cherished for so long. Not that I have any regrets in the matter, for that bite was really a bad one, and heroic measures pints, mostly were necessary. I have circled back to that bite again, I see. I begin to entertain hopes of spinning that yarn yet. You see it is barely possible that you don t Captain Taggert and several fair [83] THE INDIAN SPECIAL charmers had been over town that evening. We had sauntered home and had nearly reached that picket fence when a dog passed us running with lolling tongue and with eyes staring straight ahead. It passed so close to Captain Taggert that almost unconsciously he reached out his hand to touch it, and the motion, slight as it was, was sufficient to attract the animal s attention, and with a snarl it leaped for Captain s throat. He stood his ground and caught the brute by the neck, call ing to us to " run and get an axe." Superflu ous advice it was, for we were over that fence and half way up the hill before that dog knew what had happened to him. The school carpen ter ran down with a club, and poor doggie s troubles were soon over. Captain Taggert s, however, had only begun. There was a nasty looking wound on the back of his hand and the indications were pretty fair that the animal who made it was mad. " You have got to have some whiskey, quick, Cap," said the Superintendent. " We have some at the cottage which we keep in case father should be ill," and the Superintendent disappeared. " I really do think a little brandy would be good for you," said Mrs. Barber, a severely pious woman. " I have a very little which I [84] THE INDIAN SPECIAL keep on hand for fear one of the children should be taken suddenly sick," and Mrs. Barber dis appeared. " You must have s-some whiskey right s-soon, Captain," stammered excited little Miss Alice. " I have s-some I got for ," and Miss Alice disappeared. " I think I have a little snake-bite cure in my room," said Mr. Freemont, and he also went his way. " Miss Smith," said Captain Taggert to the only employee in sight, " there is a bottle of something in the left hand dresser drawer in my room. Will you fetch it, please? " and the Captain was left alone to nurse his wounded hand. Presently came the Superintendent with a pint bottle of Old Bourbon. Came Mrs. Bar ber with a quart bottle of brandy. Came little Miss Alice with a pint bottle half full of Kentucky rye. Came Mr. Freemont with a bottle of gin. Came several more bottles with bearers. Came Miss Smith with Captain Tag- gert s own bottle, but it was too nearly empty to be of any service, as I tried to tell you some time ago. And it is a misdemeanor to " buy, sell, barter, give away, or have in your posses sion " ! Well, well, we are all doubtless doomed [85] THE INDIAN SPECIAL to perdition, but we prevented Captain Tag- gert s making a premature entrance, anyway. Captain acted strange for several days, but no one seemed to blame the dog at all. I no ticed on the following Saturday that an un usual number of the employees went to the nearest Missouri town, to shop, they said. I sent my flask by Miss Alice. I am a peaceful, lawabiding citizen, usually, but if I must choose between a mad dog and my Uncle Sam, I take my Uncle every time. And alas, alas, I am again forcibly reminded of Mr. Dick and Charles the First, and there isn t even a donkey about to create a diversion. I suppose I may as well give up trying and let our Uncle Samuel crop up in my letters in the usual unexpected places. It s a habit the old gentleman has, I notice, and habits in the old are stubborn things. I am very sore on the bedbug question, and I fully expected a liberal dose of sympathy from you, and behold! I get only cold criti cal doubts concerning my mental condition. You say that anyone with half a mind would have known what was the matter from the first, and that I must have been a very careless housekeeper not to have found them out sooner. I am not in a position to argue the first point with you. I never had the pleasure of having [86] THE INDIAN SPECIAL only half a mind. Mine is sound and whole, to the best of my knowledge and belief yours to to contrary notwithstanding and I am not going to have it cut in twain for the doubtful honor of recognizing bedbug bites when I see them. As for being careless, I hereby challenge every housewife in this broad land to say whether, to their combined knowledge, a bedbug was ever known to be visible in the daytime. Where they hide, I leave it to the furniture manufacturers to say, for they are in league with them, I know, or why all the needless nooks and crevices in our modern bedsteads? You may anoint a feather with poison and insert it in every crack visible to the naked eye, but you wont damage anything except the var nish. The manufacturer watches out for his own, and supplies secret tunnels and hidden re cesses in case of sudden attack. Let a bed become thoroly infested and there is no known cure except another bed, as their maker well knows. And I don t speak as do the scribes, either. If there is one subject on which I am competent to speak with authority, that sub ject is my late friends, the bedbugs. Hereafter, when I am looking for sympathy, I shall cry my wares in another market. You also remark that you are not particularly in- [87] THE INDIAN SPECIAL terested in bedbugs, and would much prefer to hear about Indians. So you shall, my dear. Indians are of two kinds only, viz. : male and female, good and bad, light and dark, indus trious and lazy, frugal and extravagant, large and small, bright and stupid, rich and poor; in fact, they are " even as you and I." Which valuable addition to your store of information will, I hope, make you more charitable and sympathetic with the woes of, Yours afflicted, JEAN. [88] HURON INDIAN SCHOOL, WYANFORT, INDIAN TERRITORY Nov. 15, 19. DEAR: " Truth is stranger than fiction." I know my originality will surprise you, but of late I have been led to think that occasionally there may be a grain of truth in some of our over worked quotations. There is no imagination in the circumstances which called out the above remark. I may at times, from my stock of miscellaneous misinformation, pawn off on you a little harmless second-hand fiction, but I do so from strictly conscientious principles, for your Puritan work-twenty-four-hours-per-day conscience worries me considerably. I am a mem ber of the Consolidated Conscience Union, and when mine has labored more or less faithfully for eight consecutive hours I give it the rest it deserves. So sometimes it has leisure to gather a rose or two amid the waste of thorny mem ories in which it delights to exist. I don t ap prove of bringing up one s conscience to be color-blind to every thing but black. It is a [89] THE INDIAN SPECIAL tiresome companion at best, and I am trying to educate mine to recognize some of the tints and shades in this rainbow of complex actions. Nevertheless, it has reminded me quite fre quently of an act which left a brown paper taste in my mouth at the time, altho I never ex pected to be confronted with any results at this late hour. It chanced that I was in St. Louis alone for two days during the exposition. I felt as forlorn as Crusoe himself alone in that desert of strange faces, and I registered a vow then and there never to venture alone in a crowd again, if I had to misappropriate a yellow dog for company. The second day I had found my lonely way up to the Anthropological Build ing, hoping to see a familiar face, for I knew that a model Indian School was being conduct ed there, composed of pupils and teachers from the Indian Service. I was standing in front of the exhibit from Chilocco, the second largest Indian School, listening to the remarks people made as they stared at the display remarks which showed how ignorant the average Ameri can is regarding a system of Indian education, for the support of which he is duly taxed when I noticed such a nice looking young man just across from me. He seemed to be alone, too, and was looking my way. [90] THE INDIAN SPECIAL Presently he crossed over to my side of the hall, seemingly interested in the exhibit. You may cut my acquaintance hereafter if you choose, but I turned and spoke to him. I haven t any idea what I said, but I didn t say any more of it, for his majesty answered me quite loftily, as tho he didn t approve of strange females, and just then a girl came along from another part of the building and they went away together, so he wasn t alone, after all. Now, that wasn t a bit nice of me, as my conscience has dutifully reminded me at divers times, yet I had not lain awake nights because of it, till last week, when I was unexpectedly brought face to face with the consequences of my rash act. I understand La Follette sees to it that you people of Wisconsin do not have to go outside your own borders in search of political diffi culties, yet you may have chanced to hear that Oklahoma and Indian Territory are in the midst of their statehood throes and we don t know yet whether it will be twins, or not. With Oklahoma clamoring for joint statehood, In dian Territory frantically petitioning for sep arate statehood, and a large faction in both territories wanting no statehood at all, what [91] THE INDIAN SPECIAL the outcome will be no one can tell, except, of course, the politicians, who can tell anything. The white merchants of Wyanfort in August held their annual Indian Green Corn Feast see the nigger in the fence? in the grove just beyond the town, and we school people drove over one evening. We had drawn our camp stools in a circle and were watching things in general and the Superintendent s dear little baby girl in particular, when Captain Taggert brought up such a nice looking young man, whom he introduced as Mr. Gordon, a reporter for a Muskogee newspaper. Mr. Gordon had been sent to Wyanfort by the leaders of the Se- quoyah movement to enlist Captain Taggert s aid in the separate statehood campaign. Mr. Gordon joined our circle and conversa tion became general till he turned to me with the question, " I have seen you before, have I not?" I denied the honor immediately, and justly, too, for I didn t know him at all, but I ll wager my new tan oxfords that he thought I was fabricating. " Were you at the St. Louis Exposition in August?" he asked next. I plead guilty, of course. " Were you at the Anthropological Building [92] THE INDIAN SPECIAL one afternoon ? " Then I knew ! I answered " Yes " quite meekly. " I saw you there," he said. "But, Mr. Gordon," I objected, "do you mean to say that you remember the faces of people whom you meet in a crowd like that? " " Yes," he answered, " I do, if any incident occurs to impress their faces on my memory." You may be sure I did not ask him what the incident was to which I was indebted for his recollection of me, and he left us shortly after ward, and I didn t see him again. Now, who would dream that a perfectly harmless remark, dropped so long before in a crowded city, would suddenly rise from the ground at an In dian feast in the wilds of Indian Territory to confront the dropee? No doubt that dignified reporter he descends from Boston, by the way, and carries his credentials with him thinks I go about addressing remarks to strange young men, as a matter of course. If I ever see him again I shall know him next time I shall enlighten his understanding a little. It s quite evident he does not know a nice girl when he sees one, and it s not safe for him to be at large in that condition. I wonder if you would be interested in our statehood movement. I am, intensely so, only I can t see as things move any faster because [93] THE INDIAN SPECIAL of it. And I am not in favor of statehood, either, at least for Indian Territory. I am perfectly willing that Oklahoma should fight her own battles, but she has no business forcing her quarrels on us. By " us," I mean the In dian population of Indian Territory. The present situation is another case of the Arab and his camel. The white settlers were allowed to come here, and now they think they own the reserve, forgetting that first, last and always, it is Indian Territory. Indian allotted land cannot be sold, but in herited land may be, and since Indians have human nature enough to die, even as the white man dieth, a small per cent of the land has come to be owned by white settlers. A much larger portion is leased by white prospectors and capitalists. It is a poor man s paradise, for there are no taxes to pay, not even a road tax to work out, nor will there be as long as Indian Territory remains in her present condi tion. Since with statehood comes taxes, a large number of the white settlers are opposed to the change. Occasionally you find one with suffi cient public spirit to welcome the project, con scious of the added advantages, and fully aware of his own splendid qualifications for governor or justice of the peace. So much for the white man s point of view, [94] THE INDIAN SPECIAL for which I don t care a green persimmon. He had no business coming here if he was not will ing to live under existing conditions. I argue from the Indian s standpoint. On the surface, statehood doesn t mean much of a change to him. His land will still be inalienable, still be exempt from taxation, according to the terms of a treaty the provisions of which are effec tive for some twenty years to come. The aver age Indian cannot see how statehood will affect him, unless, indeed, it changes the prohibition clause, as it is extremely likely to do, and few of them will object seriously to that. Not many of them are far-sighted enough to see that a state with the greater part of the land inalienable and free from taxation is as much an impossibility as mosquitoes at Christmas. Just as surely as Indian Territory becomes a state, just so surely will her representatives in Congress introduce a bill removing the restric tions from all Indian land, treaty or no treaty, and the Indians will awaken some fine morning to find that they may sell their land when and how they please, and that hereafter they have the unutterable bliss of paying taxes. This condition of things would be fair enough provided Indians were white men, but the fact remains that they are not. However far they have advanced on the road, the goal is not yet [95] THE INDIAN SPECIAL reached. The average Indian will sell his last acre and in a year s time have nothing to show for it. What then? The discussed restricting clause, making a homestead of forty acres in alienable, will help some, but in time that will be struck out also. Our politicians seldom do things by halves, providing they once get the chance to do the first half, and in speaking of politicians, you have the clue to the whole situ ation. Will you for one minute think of the offices to be filled in every town and county should we get statehood? Do you wonder that a few men in every locality, with the office bee buzz ing away in their bonnets for dear life, are arguing and exhorting for statehood? All the plausible reasons which they can put forth, and from the white man s standpoint they are many and good, cannot alter the fact that the Indi ans are not yet ready for it. Uncle Sam has spent many good dollars on Poor Lo in his journeyings upward to usefulness and inde pendence. He will realize but a poor return on his money if he discounts the loan before it matures. There is no use in baking a batch of bread if you take it from the oven half baked. You may advance the theory of the survival of the fittest if you like, but that is not the theory on which our government has treated [96] THE INDIAN SPECIAL the Indians the past two decades. It has tried rather to make them fit to survive, to enable them to meet the onrush of civilization and hold their own, and results show it can be done. It seems to me, as far as the Indians of this Ter ritory are concerned, that if our government sanctions the petition for statehood, it will " have set up a mark for the purpose of miss ing it." I wish there was an official bag large enough to put our over-zealous politicians in and shake them up " good and plenty." It would be in teresting to see what would come out after the ceremony. The only thing that makes me at all reconciled to the situation is the fact that should statehood be forced upon us, the good old Democratic party will be in the ascend ency. Now in your next I shall find a quota tion which will contain these three words : con sistency, woman, and jewel. All right, fire away, I shall be prepared. As ever, with love, JEAN. P. S. I have delayed sending this letter till after the election of delegates to the Constitu tional Convention, in hopes I might be able to cheer your good Republican heart with tidings of a glorious Democratic victory. My hopes are realized, for about ninety-nine and nine-tenths [97] THE INDIAN SPECIAL of the delegates are Democratic. I almost pity that " submerged tenth," don t you? Just watch out for the proceedings of that conven tion, will you? I ll wager it turns out a Con stitution which will make other state Consti tutions appear as modern as the Book of Job. It isn t often that Democrats get the chance to be so entirely the whole thing, and it will be their own fault if they fail to have the time of their lives. The local election was entirely satisfactory. Only good Democratic delegates go from Qua- paw County or what will be Quapaw County if prophecies come true. Our Superintendent, an ardent Republican, called up Miami the evening of the election and asked for the results of the day s voting. " Only Democrats elected," came the answer. " Give me Republican headquarters, please." " Can t. Every Republican in town has gone to bed," and the Superintendent rang off and went and did likewise. Showed their good sense, I think. Bed is a good place to go when we are aching from defeat or malaria or any of the other aches we may have handed out to us. Mine is the malarial brand just now. That s a disease that doesn t make you half as ill as angry. People only laugh at you when you get stiff in the joints and have liver spots on [98] THE INDIAN SPECIAL your face. A proper respect for our complex ions leads us to adopt a diet of lemons and quinine, which we wouldn t do had we a like regard for our tempers. Achingly yours, JEAN. [99] OLD TOWN, N. Y. MAY 16, 19. DEAR: Dear girl, I wonder how I am ever to explain to you the silence of the past year. You have been your kind self, and have written me the same dear, cheerful letters that you always write, without one word in reply. And your letters have helped, some, as much as anything could help such a severe attack of give-it-up- ness as I have suffered from the past twelve months. Do you remember Miss Conley, of Crow River? I recall a favorite misquotation of hers: I never had a piece of bread, particularly large and wide, But what it fell upon the ground, and always on the buttered side. Those two lines fit the case exactly. I was fonder of this particular piece of bread than I had imagined it possible for me to be. It was well buttered, too, to the very edge, and had a generous coating of English marmalade on top. [101] THE INDIAN SPECIAL O! these Englishmen! I suppose it serves me right for falling in love with one, instead of a home-grown product, but love isn t a matter of creeds and nationalities. Dear, for a time I was so happy it hurt. I lived with my head in the clouds and did all sorts of queer stunts with my feet in consequence. I know we poor mortals are not constituted to endure the tension of living keyed up to such a pitch, and since I had to come down to earth some time, perhaps it was just as well that I should make the descent alone. Only I should have preferred to have made it less abruptly. This inhabiting a rose-tinted castle in the clouds one day, and burrowing in a hole in the ground the next, isn t exactly conducive to well, let us say equanimity. It is worse than useless to conjecture what might have been had I married him then, as he urged ; but I put it off, and the crash came which flung him, marmalade side down, in the mire, and, for all I know, he may be lying there yet. I will ask you to bid adieu to Mr. English man. He shot into my little Yankee orbit like a comet out of the void, and as promptly shot out again. If he succeeded in putting me out of my course for a time, it was only for a time, [102] THE INDIAN SPECIAL but the deviation left me with a wholesome respect for that style of celestial interference. I think the past few years I have failed to have a proper respect for my own limitations. I have had my customary allowance of troubles, but I have managed to entertain them and keep my appetite, and I had got in the way of think ing that I was " bigger than anything which could happen to me." I should like to think that still, yet how can I, when I was down and out for a year just because a little blind mis chief-maker aimed a misfit arrow in my direc tion? Why, there was the longest time that I actually didn t care whether my hair was curled or not! You can judge of my extrem ity, for since the time when I used to braid it in little tight pig- tails every Saturday night in order that I might wear it crinkly to church on Sunday, I have tried to keep my hair in a con dition directly opposed to its natural inclina tions and till last year nothing, except wet weather, had ever seriously interfered. I guess I am "a lone, lorn creetur, and everythink goes contrairy with me." I have lost my appendix and mislaid my heart, but I am going to try to worry along with the few organs left me. I think you will understand, dear, my seem ing to treat as a joke what was to me the bit- [103] THE INDIAN SPECIAL terest experience of my whole life. I can t indulge in heroics; they are not becoming to my style of plainness. Still I like to think the ordeal has left me stronger than of old; to think that the courage which enabled me to rise above the wreck of the fondest hopes I had ever known is of a nobler, better kind than that with which I had almost unconsciously risen above the less serious trials of previous years. An intuitive courage can scarcely be called a virtue. I had deliberately to set about to weave, from such materials as the loom of my past life afforded, the threads of courage with which to bind together the broken strands of the present. It was hard at first. I was a poor weaver, and the threads often became tangled and broken, leaving me to begin anew. But that much-abused Scotch obstinacy of mine came to the rescue and helped me with many a knot and snarl. I have put aside my patchwork for the pres ent and, Micawber-like, am waiting to see what will turn up next. Fate has used me for a punching bag for so long that I suppose she will keep it up from force of habit. With the exception of a strong prejudice against June- bugs, I have never been greatly troubled with fear of things, but I have learned to be fearful of one thing at least, and if the time ever [104] THE INDIAN SPECIAL comes again when one man begins to be more to me than another, I shall pack my trunks and " run like a whitehead." I haven t the remotest idea what a whitehead is, or how fast it runs, but it stands for the maximum of speed in Old Town. You may not think that a spe cial recommendation, but I ll warrant the pace will be swift enough for the occasion. You don t have to run very fast or very far nowa days to distance most men. The poor dears have come to think that they are the pursued and we the pursuers, and I notice a good many women encourage the belief. Well, " Barkis is willin ," I am sure, if they enjoy that sort of sport. Yours repaired, JEAN. P. S. Never learn to play cribbage, my dear, or at least don t let an Englishman teach you. It s a stupid game at best. I had rather play poker in Indian Territory and lose my last blue chip trying to bluff the game with a bobtailed flush! [105] OLD TOWN, N. Y. JUNE 4, 19 . DEAR: So you are surprised to learn that I am in Old Town once more. So am I! I never re alized before what a perfectly charming place it is to stay away from. I have been here two weeks, and have shrunken a cubit inch all around and am still shrinking. Judging from its general appearance, I think Old Town has been undergoing the same process for some time. If some lively breeze were to happen along and pick the whole town up bodily and set it down in the midst of the Sahara Desert, the misguided camel who had taken it for a mirage could walk right over it without dis covering his mistake. There is an air of unworldliness about the place which extends even to the millinery. Mother brought out her latest venture in that line of wearing apparel and asked me how I liked it. I told her it looked on the point of testifying in meeting, and the dear woman was [107] THE INDIAN SPECIAL quite shocked and put the hat away without a word. I found all the family skeletons parading the village green for public inspection, as of old. They may think that with familiarity they become less gruesome, and give beholders fewer chills than if they kept themselves shut up in closets, with only occasional private ex hibitions, and perhaps they are right. I do not feel competent to argue the subject with them. Besides, I prefer an opponent whose good points are not so much in evidence. I found many changes in the " gang " which made the town lively when we were young very young, indeed. Most of its members are married, with families, and the feminine portion of it cannot boast one waist line to the dozen. Jean Brown married a rich Bostonian, much to Old Town s disgust. In Old Town phrase ology, she had the knack of putting the best foot forward, and she used to arrange her mother s scant supply of silver on the side board in such a way that the number of pieces seemed doubled. Personally, I admire a woman ingenious enough to get the advantage of a mirror most women stand too much in awe of one to venture any liberties but you know what Old Town thinks of such hypocrisy. If a brother has a patch on the seat of his trous- [108] THE INDIAN SPECIAL ers, it is counted to him as unrighteousness if he sits down to hide it. No, indeed, let there be no hypocrites among us! Let us be open and frank in all our dealings! Stand up, brothers and sisters, and show your patches! (I beg the sisters pardon, most humbly, for my unfortunate figure of speech.) Bob Warren is home from college with a tailor-made suit that cost forty-five dollars, and his father, who is so close that, as Mr. Wel- ler remarks, he would have made an uncommon fine oyster had he been born to that station in life, has forsaken pants altogether and wears overalls instead as an offset to his son s ex travagance. Mr. Warren s economy takes queer streaks at times. Last year he had a re markably fine crop of early potatoes, which in due time came to be covered with a remarkably fine crop of potato bugs. Willing to dispense with the surplus crop, Mr. Warren hired sev eral small boys to hand-pick the bugs, for which they were to be recompensed at the rate of one cent per hundred bugs. As a result of the first day s work, the boys brought Mr. Warren a bushel basket well filled with indignant potato bugs and de manded payment, so many cents for so many hundred bugs. Mr. Warren s troubles began at once. No event of his life had prepared him L109J THE INDIAN SPECIAL for the emergency of calculating the number of potato bugs to the bushel, and how was he to know if these boys told the truth, the whole truth, or everything but the truth? He could see no way out of the difficulty except to re count the bugs himself! He labored faithfully for an hour without any apparent diminution in the contents of the basket, then gave it up as a bad job, kicked the cat whose curiosity had gotten the better of her discretion, paid the boys and sent them home with orders to stay there, and the unplucked bugs ate the remain der of the plants in peace. Verily, some peo ple s vices are only virtues overgrown ! Dear little old Aunt Jane dear to my child hood memories chiefly because of the big black berry bush behind the house, whose yearly crop she regularly gave to me to devour is dead. I met Uncle Ned the other day, and in answer to my words of sympathy he replied, " Yes, she is gone," and, after a moment s reflection, " She had a hard row to hoe, and she hoed it well." Dear, you and I will indeed be fortunate if, when our rows are hoed, there is someone left to say, as lovingly as Uncle Ned did, that we hoed them well. I paid my old friend, the mill dam, a visit of course. Do you remember the " flat rock " just below the dam where we used to tuck up our [110] THE INDIAN SPECIAL skirts and go wading, thereby scandalizing some of our good neighbors? They blasted away the larger part of it a few years ago to use in laying the foundation for the big trestle for the new railroad. I wonder if the present generation of children born with wading pro pensities know of how much pleasure that rail road deprived them. I saw a vision while sitting there beside the old dam. Shall I conjure it up for you? I saw two barefoot, tow-haired urchins climbing the ladder leading to the loft in the old barn. They seek a dark corner where two mother cats are nursing their respective families, and, lifting the kittens into their laps, proceed to examine them with anxious care. The smaller urchin, after due consideration, selects the prettiest kitten and replaces it beside its mother. The larger tow-haired lass tenderly reverses each kitten and suspends it by the hind legs and listens to the resulting cries. The kitten which objects the loudest she places beside the anx ious mother cat. She has ascertained to her satisfaction which kitten has the " most spunk." The urchins then proceed to decorate the re maining kittens with strings, at the other end of which stones are securely tied. Gathering kittens and stones carefully in their aprons with one hand, they back down the ladder with [111] THE INDIAN SPECIAL the aid of the other, cross the orchard, climb the fence, and, passing thru the back lot, come out on the bank of the river just above the dam. Here each urchin takes a kitten from her apron, kisses it tenderly and, with tightly closed eyes, throws it in the water just where it flows the swiftest towards the dam. When they open their eyes nothing is to be seen of the poor un fortunates, so, taking courage, once more they close their eyes and throw, and yet again, and the aprons are emptied of their sad little bur dens. I wondered, as I walked home thru the back lot, if I could have suddenly come face to face with the smaller tow-haired urchin, what would have happened. Would she, happy, little, ig norant country maid, have recognized in me the weary, disheartened woman she was to be come, and shrink aside, trembling and afraid? I think could that little tow-haired girl have foreseen the demands to be made on her supply of that particular quality she, too, would have chosen the kitten with the most spunk. I should dislike to drown a kitten now, but we were so thoroly accustomed to the ceremony as children that we didn t much mind. Per haps you recollect the tendency of our family towards cats. Each member owned a cat and each cat owned a family. A sort of endless [112] THE INDIAN SPECIAL chain affair, for there really seemed no end to the supply of kittens. Now when the supply of an article is in excess of the demand, there are but two methods of maintaining an equal balance. Either increase the demand or reduce the supply. In this case, the former was usu ally impossible; the latter could only be done after the supply had been produced, which was manifestly unfair to the supply. Poor little cats! The unchangeable law of the household decreed that each cat might rear one kitten, the rest must be disposed of, and to the re spective owners of the mother cats fell the un pleasant duty of reducing their families to the required denominations. Well, it isn t every kitten that is kissed before it is drowned, and I hope the ceremony helped some in the last struggle. Do you remember the time these same two urchins got even with the clerk for killing their favorite mother cat? The lady of the house hold had considerable difficulty in getting a grown cat disposed of, should the necessity arise, and this time she had inveigled dad s clerk, who boarded with us, into shooting Old Bess one day while they were at school. In some way we found out who did it, and we vowed vengeance. That rash clerk had taken Old Bess to the back lot to perform the last [113] THE INDIAN SPECIAL sad rites, and had thrown her into a clump of bushes. This was late in the fall, and the snow came and buried poor Old Bess, and she lay undiscovered all thru the long Northern New York winter. Spring came, and had nearly merged into summer, when one day, as the urchins were on their way to the river with their fishpoles and a box of angleworms for bait, they were suddenly arrested by a most pungent odor. Following their noses, they soon hunted out Old Bess, sadly changed, to be sure, but still recognizable. A hurried consultation followed. The fish ing trip was unceremoniously abandoned and the urchins sought the house for gloves and a stout cord. The former they put on their sunburned hands, the latter they gingerly fast ened about Old Bess neck, and as gingerly carried her to the barn, up the ladder and into the loft. The urchins appeared at the dinner table with unusually guileless faces, but had disap peared long before the unsuspecting clerk had finished his dinner. He ate leisurely, then went to the barn to feed the horses, as was his cus tom. He pumped two pails of water, threw each horse a forkful of hay from the lower loft, then went into the granary for the oats. Now the granary was below the upper loft, [114] THE INDIAN SPECIAL the door leading into it being about three feet from the edge of the loft. He had filled the measure with oats and was coming out of the door, when, like a thunderbolt from the blue, a very much decomposed cat suddenly descended on his head and made frantic efforts to en circle his neck. " Gosh all fish-hooks ! " exclaimed the aston ished clerk, dropping the oats and brushing excitedly at the dangling object. The motive power at the other end of the cord starting up at this point, the cat made a leisurely disappearance over the edge of the loft, leaving the clerk staring as tho bereft of his senses. A poorly suppressed giggle from the loft speedily recalled them, and, with a " Damn those kids," he started for the ladder. Damned they probably would have been then and there, could he have reached them, but they had very prudently pulled the ladder up after them. Well, the horses went without their oats that day, and Old Bess had a well deserved funeral, and the urchins came to the supper table with guileless faces, as was their wont when any thing particularly interesting was going on. I cannot vouch for the statement, but I really do think that clerk killed no more cats as long as he remained a member of the family. [115] THE INDIAN SPECIAL Did you ever observe how many perfectly foolish questions a perfectly sane woman can ask? Nothing except the fact that you are an Old Town product yourself could induce you to believe me were I to tell you some of the questions I am asked regarding the United States Indian Service. Here are a few sample copies : " How do you catch them ? " meaning the Indian pupils. " Do you have to live in a wigwam ? " " What do you have to eat? " (I told that woman, " Food, mostly," and she doesn t speak to me now.) " Are the pupils locked up when not study- ing? " Do Indians carry rattlesnakes in their pockets? " This from a little old lady. " Oh, no, I think not," I assured her. " No, I don t suppose they do, or you d a heerd em rattle. Indian don t have pockets, do they?" I told her that an Indian s trousers usually boasted the customary allowance. " That s queer," she said, but I don t know whether she referred to the pockets, as pockets, or to their being attached to an Indian, or to the astonishing facts that there were no snakes in them. [116] THE INDIAN SPECIAL My questioners, one and all, are as surprised as was the little old lady, to learn that Indians possess such accoutrements of civilization as pockets and razors. (Pockets, indeed! An up-to-date savage can jingle seven coppers with as a fine a ten-dollar air as any Dick Swiveller in the country.) They are aston ished to learn that Indians employ a dentist and chew gum. They had no idea they were as civilized as that! Yours, still shrinking, JEAN. [117] CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL, CARLISLE, PENN. JULY 15, 19. DEAR: Kindly observe that I am still improving my knowledge of local geography. A highly col ored landscape this is, too, with the Allegany Mountains and the good old Pennsylvania Dutch in the background, rendered quite dim and blurry by the yellow stripes of some few hundred blue uniforms containing a corre sponding number of incipient braves, which occupy the foreground. Indians again! 0! dear, yes, and more of em. Shoot and curve about this broad country as I may, I never shoot very far or curve very wide from juvenile Los. It s Indians, Indians everwhere, And not a scalp to lose. It was a lucky shot that fired me here, tho. Carlisle doesn t show in the same class as Crow River, and has Wyanfort distanced in the first heat. In fact, there are only three other Indian schools which are entered for the same [119] THE INDIAN SPECIAL stakes, and they are Chilocco, Okla., Haskel Institute, Kan., and Sherman Institute, Cal. Even such an ignoramus as you are regarding the Indian service or were, rather, till I took you in hand must have heard of Carlisle, tho your knowledge of the place is probably as comprehensive as Mr. Winkle s was of skates. Carlisle is the finishing-off place for ambitious Indians from all parts of the United States. She has every modern convenience for turning out a first class article in the up-to-date In dian line, warranted perfectly tame, fast col ors, and guaranteed not to revert to original condition if carefully handled. Carlisle pol ishes dull copper surfaces with a judicious mix ture of education and athletics. She turns un der raw edges with social intercourse and hems them down with right habits. She corrects, as far as possible, the inherited tendency towards idleness by administering regular doses of hard work, week in and week out, year in and year out, till labor becomes a regular part of her students lives. The youth or maiden who leaves Carlisle with their diploma carries with them a good practical education and the knowledge of some trade by which they may gain a livelihood. Give Carlisle a fair chance and she will con vert an indolent, ignorant Indian into a self- [120] THE INDIAN SPECIAL supporting, self-respecting one. If Carlisle cannot do this, then no other school or system of education can, and the best thing that In dian can do is to go home, roll himself up in his blanket and forget it. They tell me that when a new employee comes to Carlisle she pays excess postage for two weeks, by which time her spare cash is exhausted and she has to curtail her enthusi asm till payday. I am inclined to think it true, but you could explode a skyrocket at the wrong end with about as much success as you could describe Carlisle by letters. In my first epistle to the innocents at home, I attempted to give them a bird s-eye view of the whole in stitution. I began with the beautifully kept campus and ended with sherbet for supper, with Indians, tennis courts, the old guard house, white duck suits, old maids and street cars strewn all along the way. I might as well have saved my time and mailed them a Chinese puzzle, for mother wrote asking what on earth the old maids were shut up in the guard-house for, and did we have to wear our white duck suits all the time or only on the street cars ! Encouraging, wasn t it? I am going to spare you such an ordeal and leave you to gather your ideas of Carlisle from my letters generally, without distracting you [121] THE INDIAN SPECIAL with statistics. But this much I must say, Carlisle is beautiful. Big, rambling, old brick buildings, their gray surfaces nearly hidden by a luxuriant growth of ivy ; closely cropped lawn, stately trees, the whole scrupulously clean and garnished with a generous supply of the most common article in the whole Indian Service old maids. If I were asked to select a motto appropriate for the feminine portion of the Service, I should choose : " All hope abandon, ye who enter here." If you ever happen to run across a young girl headed for a husband and the Indian Service, just whistle her off, please. She may make the Service all right, but she will find it a corporation in which the husband stock is way below par, yet one with an unusually keen market for what few shares there are. For unprotected females of a certain age or un certain, either, for that matter the Service offers excellent advantages. The pay is good and safe, the quarters are comfortable, they are well protected and the chances to squander money are few. Rather, it is a remarkably good place to save money I do not speak from experience, mind you. Far from it, altho Carlisle may not boast of quite as many ad vantages in that line as Crow River. Last, and certainly not least, the work is intensely [122] THE INDIAN SPECIAL interesting and is capable of absorbing all the surplus energy one may bring to it. I am not teaching now. I was so thoroly tired of the occupation that I vowed I would take in moppings rather than go back to it, so I took another Civil Service examination, and am here as matron of the girls quarters. I will tell you about my manifold duties when I know more of them myself. At present, my head is buzzing like a Fourth o July pinwheel, and so would yours were I to wax confidential about my work. I had company on my way here, and never in my life was I so much the observed of all observers as on that trip. I had been staying in Syracuse getting acquainted with my new nephew, and just before I was to leave to come here I received a letter from Superintendent Dickoff, stating that a truant Carlisle pupil, Joseph Gargon, was in St. Hospital, in that city, and requesting me to bring him with me in case he was able to travel. Well, I sought out the hospital, and an attendant sought the physician in charge, and he sought the nurse of the charity ward and the nurse thought Joe would be able to travel in a few days, so we made arrangements about the time and train. Joe I didn t see. Superintendent Dickoff had written to keep [123] THE INDIAN SPECIAL a sharp lookout for fear Joe might try to elude me on the way, and as the nurse told me he was a lad of twenty years, I naturally won dered how I could best assure myself of his society all the way. Poor Joe! Any fears I might have had about mislaying him enroute vanished the moment I saw him. My dear, that boy was a scarecrow! I don t mean his state of health so much, tho that was bad enough. He had been injured in the side by falling from a hayloft and his cough and emaciated condi tion proclaimed him a sufferer from that dread disease to which so many of his race fall vic tims. They brought him to the depot in the ambulance, and two attendants had to assist him aboard the train. He was so weak that he trembled as tho entertaining a good, old- fashioned Indian Territory chill. But his clothes ! I know now that Carlisle sends her students out decently and respectably clothed. (Joe had been in the country during vacation and had run away from his country home.) Wherever Joe got the rags he had on I cannot say, but they never came from Car lisle. And the dirt on them showed by the lay ers that it had accumulated for as many sea sons as they had been worn. He had on a pair of old trousers with a three-cornered tear in them sewed up with white thread I ll warrant [124] THE INDIAN SPECIAL Joe sewed it himself, an old shirt guiltless of any laundress acquaintance, sans buttons, and fastened with a two-inch safety pin, and a coat that resembled both trousers and shirt, inso much that it was torn but not mended, and was, if possible, more soiled. A black felt hat that was gray when it started on its career, and a pair of rusty shoes, one of which was laced with a white string, to mate the patch, com pleted Joe s attire, and was to all appearance his entire stock in trade. The train wasn t crowded, and I managed to get a double seat so Joe could lie down, which the boy was glad to do, altho the cramped position hurt his side. Taking the " tout ensemble," Joe made a fine traveling advertisement for the charity ward of St. Hospital, only he should have had his nurse along as manager. Even if the boy had been entirely destitute there was no excuse for sending him out with that amount of real estate on his person, but I found out afterwards that Joe has money in the bank and that his expenses at the hospital were paid out of it. Judging from appear ances, his laundry bill must have been enor mous ! My sister, out of consideration for my trav eling companion, had prepared a generous lunch and I know by the way the boy demol- [125] THE INDIAN SPECIAL ished it that he had not had enough to eat. He made up for lost time, and it didn t seem to cause him any discomfort, as I was afraid it would. We had to change cars twice, with long waits at both places, and it was midnight before we arrived at Carlisle town, and poor Joe was all but exhausted. As midnight seemed rather an unpropitious time to report for duty, I took Joe to a hotel for the night. He had to be helped up the stairs, he was so weak. I was respectably tired, too, and tho I had surprised a number of healthy-looking cock roaches in my room, I didn t stay awake to speculate on their chances of getting on the bed. Next morning we had a bountiful breakfast of spoiled strawberries, stale eggs, melted but ter, cold coffee, a colored waiter and finger bowls. I confess I had some curiosity to see if Joe would be equal to the latter and waited without using mine. Indeed he was! He wet his fingers quite daintily, wiped them with his napkin, and laid it down without folding it. Joe was now on familiar ground, so he vol unteered to show me the way to the school. He piloted me to the car, and on arriving at the school grounds escorted me to the office, where he was promptly escorted to the hos- [126] THE INDIAN SPECIAL pital, and I to meet Superintendent Dickoff. Very large, very grand, very pompous, he was, and is, and I couldn t help thinking such a quantity of dignity must be a hard thing to have to live up to. I carried Joe some oranges next day. I found him in a spotless room, in a spotless bed, and himself so much in the same condition that even his smile looked clean. His pretty uni formed Indian girl nurse told me that his is a hopeless case of tuberculosis, and he is to be sent to his home in Wisconsin as soon as he is able to travel. Poor Joe! He was so glad to get back to Carlisle, and seemed quite happy and free from pain. There are several boys and girls here from the Wyanfort school, whom I know. Carlisle s pupils are gathered from every tribe in the United States, and from nearly every condition in life. The student body is as complicated a mixture as boarding house hash on Monday, and offers nearly as good opportunities for curious discoveries. There are the youthful Hopi prisoners of war, captured red-handed on the warpath, and sent here by a lenient government to learn the arts of peace; and there is a beautiful golden- haired Chippewa girl who has come here to perfect herself in the art of drawing. Speak- [127] THE INDIAN SPECIAL ing of arts reminds me I had better learn the art of writing shorter letters. I really do think that is the one thing Carlisle cannot teach, unless perhaps it is toleration for the narrow views some of our numerous visitors exhibit. I was standing on the porch of the girls quarters the other day when a fat, red- faced woman, with a sort of give-way-to-me air, came sailing up the walk on a voyage of discovery. There were Indian lasses on the veranda fully as civilized looking as she, but to her they were just so many savages. She stopped and inquired the way to the office, and I directed her as desired. Then, looking over the beautiful, quiet scene before her, she turned and asked, in an awestruck tone, " Ain t you really afraid of losing your scalp? " " Yes, madam, I am," I replied, " so much so that I take it to bed with me every night for fear of mislaying it." You should have seen her get up canvas and sail away. Carlisle could teach that woman a whole lot perhaps. Distractedly yours, JEAN. [128] CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL, CARLISLE, PENN. SEPT. 81, 19. DEAR: Well! They have this particular wheel of the Indian educational machine gauged to re volve about five million times a second, and if you think any of the human cogs of that wheel can attend to anything but its breath while flying thru space at that rate of speed, all I can say is that your thoughts do credit to your imagination. I have been in busy places be fore, and have managed to keep moderately industrious myself, but I have never seen a spot that could hold a pink sperm candle to Car lisle when it comes to hustling. She has Dan Patch and The Witch of Endor beat to a frazzle! (That sounds a bit like slang, but it can t possibly be, for I never use any.) The wheel slips a cog occasionally and gives it a few hours off duty, and when that cog happens to be a one-time schoolma am from New York, she hies to her room and proceeds to settle old scores with her correspondents. [129] THE INDIAN SPECIAL She has been thinking to-day of what a zig zag road her path thru life has been, and how many the intersections in it as it has crossed the paths of others. Occasionally the junction is marked by a milestone to which I look back as a pleasant reminder of that part of the journey; sometimes the converging point is disfigured by an unsightly upheaval of earth, as tho memory had cast up her breastworks to screen from view some ghastly reminder of a past struggle. But more often the paths diverge again, leaving no sign or token of the meeting. As I look back over my life the past few years and note how far apart the milestones are, I cannot help wondering why it is we make so few real friends along the way, why, among the many fellow travelers who journey with us, we so seldom meet with one whom we care to call friend. It seems to me that however much companionship and mutual pleasures may make smooth the way, we travel the road apart after all, owing much to friendly wayfarers for help and sympathy, but meeting with many a pitfall where no strength but our own can avail, and left at the end to make the final stage of the journey weary and alone. I think in the future, when I look back to this part of my life s experiences, it will re- [130] THE INDIAN SPECIAL semble more than anything else a finely woven spider s web, so many are the paths which have made a common meeting place here at Carlisle. In the past two months I have added five hun dred people to my list of acquaintances. I don t do that every two months I can assure you. We have nearly three hundred girls in quarters, and I think I must know about one hundred of the boys, and the employees will swell the list to five hundred. Such a time as we matrons there are three of us, and all new! had in getting the girls names learned. You see, I came to Carlisle during vacation, and there were only one hundred and twenty- five girls here then. It took me three weeks to get to know them all and I had just begun to feel sure that when I called a girl s name, the girl I wanted would appear, when one day in came one hundred and fifty strange girls. They had been in the country for the summer, and such hugging and kissing and screaming you never heard or saw. And questions! " What s the number of our room? " " When will our trunks come? I want my blue silk jumper to wear to sociable!" " Can we wear our uniforms to the dining- room? I ll have to wear a sheet. My clothes are all packed." [13U THE INDIAN SPECIAL " Elizabeth, did you have a beau this sum mer? " " Is Peter Twosticks in from the country yet?" " O ! dear, are the matrons all new ? " We were new, indeed, and if we had had any minds to lose we should have lost them during the week which followed. Every girl s trunk had to be unpacked, and each article of her government clothing accounted for. Most people think it is a task to unpack one trunk. How would you like the job of unpacking one hundred and fifty of them, and count the articles of clothing in each? Well, well, we lived thru it, and things are running smooth as tar now. I have the right names tagged onto the right girls and am feeling quite well acquainted. About fifty of the girls have fair or brown hair, and they were easy to learn, but the black-eyed, black-haired ones all looked alike to me for some time. There are some very nice girls, especially in the senior and junior classes. Since industrial and academic training go hand in hand at Carlisle, most of her graduates are young men and women be fore they complete their course. The members of this senior class range from twenty to twenty-five years of age, and their training [132] THE INDIAN SPECIAL has made them independent, sensible and de pendable young people. There are several new employees, two of them young girls, teachers, just from college. They, with another young employee and my self, constitute the " Big Four," as we modest ly style ourselves, so hereafter when I mention the Big Four of The Indian Special, please don t confuse us with any other road. One of the girls is a tow-head, like myself, and when I tell you that she hails from Penn sylvania and answers to the name of Schlosser, you wont need to be told her pedigree. She is only twenty-one and she came here with very peculiar ideas regarding Indians, and it is due her to say that no girl ever shed one set of ideas and grew another in less time than she did. She is a pretty, slender little thing, as a number of boys in large boys quarters speed ily found out, and that girl is having the time of her life. There is a social dance every Sat urday night, for students and employees, and the Big Four doesn t sit out many numbers, I can tell you. The socials are held in the gym nasium, with our own band to furnish the mu sic, and altho there are usually a thousand people present, the gym is fully equal to the occasion. Most of the students dance, and [133] THE INDIAN SPECIAL dance well, altho you will find the Hopis, Chey- ennes and a few Sioux sitting disconsolately in corners. You see, our pleasures are compul sory as well as our duties, and the pupils have to attend the sociables, as they call them, whether they want to or not. To do them jus tice, not many of them would prefer to keep away, and the severest punishment we can in flict on our girls is to deprive them of their social privileges. And I said, " Can any good thing come out of Crow River? " Carlisle saith, come and see. Pray let me present Mr. James Ashley Eagleson, of Crow River. He is a very nice looking young brave, indeed, with just enough French blood to make his hair curl. He is a senior and one of Carlisle s swells. He is cap tain of Troop B, a member of Carlisle s famous band, a football and baseball player, and a devoted admirer of Miss Schlosser s, a list of accomplishments which does not leave much to be desired. Jimmy I call him Jimmy for Crow River s sake but Miss Schlosser ad dresses him as Mr. Eagleson speaks his own language of course, and Miss Schlosser has been taking a few private lessons in Dakota, with rather unexpected results. Jimmy isn t the only " handsome Sioux " the Big Four s pet name for him in school by any means. [134] THE INDIAN SPECIAL There is a big, handsome junior, half Sioux, half Scotch a Mr. McKenzie who is a mem ber of Carlisle s eleven and he happens into Miss Schlosser s schoolroom occasionally, just to give Jimmy something to think about. It occurred to the object of their attentions that it would be a bright thing to learn to say " Good morning " in Dakota, and accost Jimmy in his own language the next time he came into her schoolroom before school opened. She asked Mr. McKenzie what the Sioux equiv alent for " good morning " was, and he said without hesitation that it was " Cantesquya." (If you can t pronounce it, just give four bass grunts and accent the third one.) Well, next morning, as Miss Schlosser was putting some work on the blackboard her door opened, and in walked Jimmy. " Canteskuya," Miss Schlosser called to him with her sweetest smile. To her consternation, Jimmy stared at her in amazement, then got as red in the face as conditions would permit, and collapsed into the nearest seat and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. Miss Schlosser tried in vain to find out what she had said to affect him so peculiarly, and he went out as the schoolbell rang, still laughing. Mr. McKenzie very innocently wandered in the next day and Miss Schlosser pounced on [135] THE INDIAN SPECIAL him at once and demanded to know what " Canteskuya " meant. "Why," he drawled, " I thought you knew. It means sweetheart." No wonder Jimmy collapsed! It got out, of course, and Jimmy has a new pet name now. My knowledge of Dakota grows slowly. I know two words, kukasha, pig, and canteskuya, sweetheart. Not a particularly good combina tion of words. I don t believe I shall ever have occasion to use them both in the same sentence. I can say " thank you," in Wyanfort, but I don t attempt it often. I said it once before an old lady and she told me I ought to be ashamed of myself. It does sound profane, but I don t see why I should be blamed for that. I suppose you are familiar with Herbert Spencer s definition of a good education. The position of matron at Carlisle offers excellent qualifying advantages for its realization. A matron is supposed to be a combination of gen eral utility man, private bureau of information and a walking model of morals and deportment. Something on the order of one of those patent mechanical devices which can be used for any thing from a darning needle to a sausage grinder. I gave a public demonstration of my ability in the general utility line by making " squaw cuts " on some small Nez Perce pupils who arrived recently. [136] THE INDIAN SPECIAL There are about twenty-five small girls who wear their hair a la mode. The newcomers had pigtails, and it devolved on yours truly to transform said pigtails into " Dutch cuts." The finished product seemed rather a libel on that style of coiffure, and squaw cuts seemed less incongruous, so I relabeled them. Those squaw cuts were fearfully and wonderfully made, and I defy any barber in the state of Pennsylvania to produce their duplicate. One little girl of six years had a diseased scalp and the nurse, after the usual medical examination of new pupils, had given orders to cut her hair short. The poor child was badly frightened small wonder and screamed so that I could hardly cut three hairs at a time, or any two the same length. When she felt her shorn head she kicked and yelled till I was afraid she would injure herself. I finally thought to promise her a car ride if she would stop crying, and to go then and there to see the quartermaster and beg some apples. She dried up amazingly fast, considering the quan tity of moisture she was shedding, and we walked down to interview the quartermaster. Mr. Kendall is an elderly man with one of the kindest hearts in the world, which he very carefully conceals under a fierce exterior. I [137] THE INDIAN SPECIAL told him Lucy s tale of woe and begged some apples as a balm for her wounded feelings. " Now that s too bad, little girl," he said, bending down his bald head to her level. " But you got off better than I did, for the other matron took all my hair off." This drew a smile from Lucy, which grew broader when Mr. Kendall filled her blue checked apron with apples. I took her for the car ride that afternoon and it rained the pro verbial cats and dogs and, the car being open, of course we got soaked, and my white parasol was as clean as tho I had laundered it pur posely. The wetter Lucy got, the better she liked it, and when I gave her some giddy-look ing sticks of candy, her troubles were com pletely forgotten. I was glad of that, for some time she will have troubles which cannot be so easily drowned. I had a letter recently from a girl with whom I correspond for the sake of the disci pline her letters afford me. She wrote that she had but then returned from her vacation, and that she was suffering a very great deal from nostalgia ! Now wouldn t that erupt you? I know the girl stumbled across that word during vaca tion, and she wasted three sheets of the best linen stationery just to ring it in on me. She [138] THE INDIAN SPECIAL didn t owe me a letter, either. Now you under stand why writing to her is disciplinary. It s just a case of long-distance courage, for had she been talking with me she never would have dared to say such a thing. That girl will damage her reputation if she doesn t exercise better judgment in her selection of ailments. Yours " nostalgicly," JEAN. 1139] CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL, CARLISLE, PENN. OCT. 18, 19. DEAR: O! dear, does one ever recover from their bringing up, I wonder? I had such a severe attack of it that I sometimes think I shall never quite get over it. Here I haven t been doing a thing but darn stockings on Sunday morning, when all the girls were at chapel and quarters were so quiet and peaceful that it did almost seem a shame to darn anything, and yet when a tap came at my door I hustled hose and darning bag out of sight before answering it. No, indeed, it wasn t a case of guilty con science at all! It was simply too much bring ing up. I don t mean to imply that Sunday is the only time to mend holes, but when your laundry doesn t come home till late on Friday, and when you are so busy Saturdays that you don t know which is head and which heels, and when you have to go to sociable on Saturday night and dance every number, what are you to do but darn on Sunday, unless, indeed, you [141] THE INDIAN SPECIAL m* wear hose with holes in them! My creed won t allow that for the first article in it, is " Let thy raiment be whole and keep the strings and ends thereof in the inside." So I can see no other way out of it but to transfer the responsibility to my bringing up. Speaking of hose reminds me of Lucy of the shorn head. She came up to me yesterday and said she wanted to whisper something in my ear. I took her on my lap and asked her what it was. " You have got a hole in your stocking," she said, in a stage whisper. " Honey," I exclaimed, shaking her, " I haven t either. What do you mean ? " " How do you put it on, then? " she asked, solemn as only a baby Indian can be, and then she jumped to the floor and danced up and down and cried " Stung ! Stung ! " How is that for a six-year-old fullblood, fresh from the wilds of an Idaho reservation? Lucy knows nearly every large girl in quarters, and, what is more, she knows the name of each girl s favorite friend in large boys quarters and calls it out to them at every opportunity. There is noth ing the matter with the inside of Lucy s head piece, if the outside is shorn. We live and move and have our meals in a football atmosphere at present, Carlisle s [142] THE INDIAN SPECIAL eleven are covering themselves with glory and black and blue spots, and Carlisle s employees are yelling themselves hoarse during the per formance. A special train carried some three hundred pupils and employees out to Philadelphia last week to see Carlisle take the University of Pennsylvania s scalp. Scalp, indeed! Pennsyl vania lost not only her scalp, but her head and most of her reputation. There were only a few harmless shreds left of her eleven after our braves had finished using them to soak up the dust of Franklin Field, for all the world like so many overgrown wads of absorbent cotton. The Carlisle rooters had a reserved section to themselves, and a vivid patch of color they made of it. Both boys and girls were in uni form and all carried, besides the Carlisle colors, a big, red government blanket and a red and gold megaphone. Of course it was a Philadel phia crowd and nearly everybody wore the university s red and blue, tho occasionally a red and gold pennant showed a Carlisle sympa thizer. Miss Schlosser and I had agreed to cheer together, and we did, till we nearly cheered ourselves asunder. You see, the game was such a walkover that it kept us busy every minute. Every time our boys made the for ward pass or scored a touchdown, we stood on [143] THE INDIAN SPECIAL the seat and cheered and waved and hurrahed, as did everybody. My pennant wasn t se curely fastened to its staff, and when I got enthusiastic, which was pretty often, off it would fly and off would come some gentleman s hat in the seats below us. I don t know how many times that banner was returned to me, only to make the same trip over again. Pensy never had a show for her money from the time the pot was opened till hands were called. Her pair of openers didn t stand much show that day against Carlisle s full house, and a clean sweep of twenty-six to six didn t leave much to be desired from our side of the game. She tried the forward pass once and the ball went in the air some three feet over the head of our gritty little quarterback. He leaped into the air as tho his feet had wings rather than spikes, and grabbed that ball, made a half circuit and landed squarely on the back of his neck. The thousands of spectators held their breath as one man till he had picked himself up, unhurt and with the ball, and then such a yell went up as even Franklin Field doesn t often hear. I don t know what kind of material they used to make that quarterback s cervical vertebrae, but it certainly was nothing brittle. Miss Schlosser was a few degrees higher in her enthusiasm than I, and I thought for a [144] THE INDIAN SPECIAL time that I should have to put weights on her to keep her down. It happened that one of the teachers, of a certain age, was occupying a seat near us. She has an unusual amount of dig nity strewn about her at all times, and she had brought every ounce of it along to the football game. She sat there, clothed in majesty, as with a garment, and I tell you candidly that a red flannel bathrobe would have been fully as well suited to her surroundings. Think you she stood on the seat and cheered and waved when our quarterback performed his aerial gymnastics? Not she! She sat upright, toes out, and sedately waved her Carlisle pennant back and forth, like a Sunday school superin tendent with a Band of Hope banner. Once, in answer to some enthusiastic remark of mine, she replied, " Yes, isn t it glorious ? " and never was any word so misused and tortured, and stripped of every vestige of accent and inflec tion as was that word " glorious." Webster himself would not have recognized it, in its garb of severe dignity, with about as much of glory in its aspect as a green cucumber could boast of. Now I trust I know how to behave myself, as a general thing, and I can display as much dignity as necessary at a funeral or wedding, or other befitting occasion, but when it comes [145] THE INDIAN SPECIAL to a football game or a horse race I prefer to go appropriately clad, mentally and physical ly, and when our side rolls up the score till it stands twenty-six to six, if I cannot properly express my appreciation, why, I will stop at home and crochet doilies, figleaf design, for the benighted heathen. I am secretly worried about Miss Schlosser and Jimmy. They are getting to be very good friends, O ! very good friends, indeed, and I am stewing internally for fear trouble may come of it. Miss Schlosser is just the age when romance and love of the unusual appeal most strongly to the imagination, and I fear at times that the novelty of having a Sioux lover will interfere with her perspective. Jimmy is a nice boy, and seems to have as good ideas of the essentials of life as any lad I know, white or Indian, but heredity is a strong force to reckon with blindfolded, and Jimmy has only one generation between himself and savagery. He is a typical product of our Indian educa tional system, and the evolution of the dark- skinned boy who some twenty years ago occu pied a seat in the kindergarten at Crow River, with no word of English at his command and with all his strong natural tendencies calling him tepeeward, into the alert, self-possessed and competent young American that Jimmy is [146] THE INDIAN SPECIAL to-day, speaks volumes for the efficiency of that system of Indian education for the support of which Congress annually votes an appropria tion of some six millions of dollars. Jimmy writes and speaks his own language, but aside from his brown skin and high cheek bones, that is about the only apparent indica tion of his ancestry. He dresses as well Jim my has a fair income from his allotment ap pears as well, and moves with fully as much con fidence as nine out of every ten young men you meet. He has been away from the reservation for so long that no sign of its uncouthness is visible, yet supposing he were to go back to it, would the outward semblance of his adopted civilization slough off, and his native habits and tendencies reassert themselves? I do not for a minute think that Jimmy would ever retrograde to any alarming extent. His education and carefully instilled habits would prevent that, I am sure; but I do think the reservation would speedily eradicate the nicer distinctions and tricks of refinement which the East has taught him, as it would of anyone whose sense of deli cacy was an acquired rather than a natural one. Miss Schlosser is much too young to realize how very greatly an ordinary woman s com fort and peace of mind depends on the continu- [147] THE INDIAN SPECIAL ance of just such seemingly minor distinctions. I do not care particularly to own up to it, but I do think that the majority of women prefer a man with a fine appearance, regardless of anything else, to one of your good sort of creatures who eats with his knife. Miss Schlosser has crowned Jimmy with a home-made halo of the tints of her own pris matic imagination, which is extremely foolish of her and shows how hard she is hit, for no woman in the possession of her senses would attempt to make such a radical change in the style of an Indian s headgear. It is a long cry from a war-bonnet to a halo, and Miss Schlosser will find that she must be content to let Jimmy have a derby for everyday wear. Miss Schlosser makes no secret of her inter est in Mr. James Ashley Eagleson, and she has her mother nearly on the verge of distraction. She has written her daughter to expect her at Carlisle on a visit soon, and Jimmy told me that he had shaken in his shoes till the patent leather was peeling off. To do Miss Schlosser justice, she is glad to have her mother come, and will present Jimmy to her with all par donable pride. She is perfectly frank about the matter and takes the Big Four s chaff in good part. Well, I expect I had better peddle my own [148] THE INDIAN SPECIAL papers and let my friends do the same, but I can t help croaking to you a bit. I did at first tell Miss Schlosser what a perfectly horrid hole Crow River is, but I only succeeded in making her curious about the place, dust and all. I do hope she satisfies her inquisitiveness second hand, but I am none too sanguine about results when a woman s curiosity is involved. Miss Schlosser is a dear, little, pig-headed Dutchy, and I told her so. Yesterday, being Wednesday, we had potato chips for lunch. Our meals at the club are served on the rotation plan, and if you are of an observing nature, you soon learn just what to expect each day in the commissary depart ment. A new assistant in one of the industrial divisions reported for duty last month, and notwithstanding the fact that all positions at Carlisle are filled, hit or miss, from the Civil Service registers, it is seldom that that particu lar type of male shows up. He wears a blue checked gingham shirt, and either he has only the one, or has two from the same material, for to all appearances he has not changed it since he came. He dresses for meals by putting on a swallow- tailed coat that was out of style when Noah pitched the ark, and he exudes an odor of stale tobacco that leads us to preserve a re spectful distance. [149] THE INDIAN SPECIAL He informed us the day he came that he had been married just three week before on the strength of his new job, and that his wife had waited for him for ten years. We thought his wife must be a woman of some discrimination, but we should have entertained a still higher opinion of her good judgment had she waited ten years longer. Well, as I said, we had potato chips for lunch, and I think Mr. Tennyson " What s in a name? " encountered them for the first time. He took a generous supply on his plate and attacked them with his usual weapon of gastro nomic warfare, his knife. He would slip it under the pile of chips and carefully raise it, and every time it came up empty. He tried and tried, and not a solitary chip would accept his proffered means of conveyance. Finally a bright idea occurred to him, and he took his knife in his left hand and carefully placed a row of chips on the blade, half way to the handle. Then, slowly, carefully, he started it on its way, and I think I never saw a face ex press as much concentrated attention as his did. The load had nearly reached the yawn ing aperture when Nemesis, in the disguise of the waitress, gently j ogged his elbow in placing his coffee, and O ! dear, I suppose I disgraced myself, for I laughed outright, but those chips [150] THE INDIAN SPECIAL flew in every direction but the one in which they should have flown, and the poor man was left staring at his empty knife in such a discour aged way. He gave it up after that, and pushed the chips to one side and left them there. If there is any truth in the old saw that " A workman is known by his chips," I venture the remark that Mr. Tennyson has mistaken his calling. He certainly will have to display more adapt ability to unusual circumstances before I can recommend him as a matron. The last supper bell has rung and I can hear the tread of our nine hundred students as they march to the dining-room, like so many ani mated stomachs, to be filled. It has been six hours since lunch! Yours appetizingly, JEAN. [151] CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL, CARLISLE, PENN. DEC. 8, 19. DEAR: Last Saturday I came upstairs by the second stairway, instead of the first, as I usually do, and I found Lucy of the shorn head leaning against the railing crying as tho all the saw dust in all the dolls in the Children s Kingdom had leaked away. " Lucy," I exclaimed, " what is the matter? Tell me what has gone wrong." Louder sobs, and more of them. I took her hands from her face and saw that there was a red mark clear across her forehead. " Lucy, dear, did you fall and hurt your self? " " Nuh." " Did someone hit you, then ? " " Nuh." " Lucy," I said, a light suddenly illuminat ing my darkness, " did you try to curl your hair on the steam pipe, and burn your face ? " " Eva Little Elk, she got curls. She got a [153] THE INDIAN SPECIAL big long one all down her back from the steam pipe. I want curls, too, and my hair is all short, so." Poor little girl. Vanity s hurts are long healing. " Lucy," I said, " will you promise me never to use the steam pipes for a curling iron again, if I curl your hair, all over, for the sociable to-night? You see, little girls should have more sense than to spoil their hair curling it. It is only big, grown up folks that do that. When you are a big girl you can wear long skirts and curl your hair, and be a lady, poor child, but now you have a good time and leave your hair alone." Sure enough, after dinner, as I was dressing for the evening s amusement, there came a tap at my door and in came Lucy, gay in her new blue and white uniform, to have her hair curled. I had to keep my promise, foolish as it was, and I wish you could have seen the child a half hour later. Her hair is as coarse and stiff as nails, and the most it could manage in the way of curls were sundry kinks and knots, standing straight out in all directions, like a porcupine with twisted quills. Lucy was delighted, and ran downstairs to make her little friends envious by strutting up and down the halls, patting and smoothing her [154] THE INDIAN SPECIAL projecting locks. A very feminine little Lucy, but I paid dearly for her triumph. Superintendent Dickoff attended the soci able and, as usual, was on the lookout for flaws, exhibited either in dress or manner. He spied Lucy s hair it was rather striking as he was standing near a group containing the Big Four, and called her up to him. " Child," he exclaimed, " what in the world have you been doing to your hair? " " You like it? " asked Lucy, proudly. " No, I don t like it. It looks very bad. Tell me how you did it." " The matron, she curl it for me that one," pointing to me. There was no help for me; I was in for it. The Superintendent turned to me with a frown. " Do you mean to tell me that you purposely made that child the fright she is ? " he asked. " I cannot tell a lie, sir," I said, feeling ex ceedingly like telling a whopper. " I did it with my little curling iron." " May I ask why ? " An iceberg seemed to have suddenly hove to in Superintendent Dick- off s vicinity. I explained my reasons as best I could, considering my half frozen condition. " You did wrong, madam, very wrong in deed. It would have been far better to have [155] THE INDIAN SPECIAL let the child cry over a half fancied sorrow, than to teach her such a lesson in pride and vanity as you did when you humored her silly whim. Please remember that your influence over these children is very great, and be more careful in the future." I wanted to remind Superintendent Dickoff that the lessons of pride and vanity do not have to be taught, but I thought I had en joyed a monopoly of his society long enough, so I retired, to watch him take his square, pad ded, uniformed shoulders into the lancers just forming. If consistency is a jewel in woman, I wonder what it is in a man. A Kimberly dia mond mine, I guess, by its rarity ! The Big Four came up to offer condolences, but I assured them I didn t need any sympathy. Had Superintendent Dickoff said I had done a stupid thing in curling Lucy s hair, I should have felt hurt. To be accused of wrong doing is not half so disquieting as to be called stupid, and I really felt thankful for his oversight. I am always grateful for any experience which serves to call my stupidity to mind, but I never have any particular liking for the person who tells me of it. I have often thought that it would add a lot to a hen s interest in life could there be [156] THE INDIAN SPECIAL one in every flock with enough intelligence to tell the rest what stupid things they were. After I have had the proof of my density forcibly brought home to me, I get out my mental gymnastic apparatus and try to polish it up a bit. It is surprising how rapidly it gets rusty and stiff in the joints from want of use. An intellectual jog-trot is about all that s required for the routine of everyday duties, and when an emergency calls, and you try to come a mental broad jump, it s discouraging to find you ve only turned a handspring and land ed with your feet where your head ought to be. It has happened, just as I felt it would! Yesterday, I went to Miss Schlosser s room to return a magazine. I knocked at her door, and after a minute, opened it and walked in, as I have the habit of doing. Not seeing any one, I advanced into the center of the room to lay the magazine on the table, when from a corner a sound of weeping fell on my startled ears, and I heard a voice remarkably like James Ashley s say, soothingly, " There, sweetheart, don t cry. I am a bloomin Injun, I know, but you will never be sorry that you gave yourself to me. Please, dear, don t cry any more." I shall always know exactly how a thief feels taken with the goods on. I tried to back out, unobserved, as I had entered, and stumbled over [157] THE INDIAN SPECIAL the rocker of a chair and fell backwards, knock ing over an ottoman piled up with books, and striking my elbow on the floor with a thump that sent the shivers shooting clear to my fin gernails. " Please don t stop crying on my account," I said, as Miss Schlosser came quickly out of her retreat on Jimmy s shoulder. " You were inconsiderate enough to cry so loud that you couldn t hear me come in. You might have re gard enough for my feelings to keep it up till I can get out again." " I don t care a picayune who sees us," ex claimed Miss Schlosser, as she and Jimmy came forward to help me up from my lowly seat among the scattered books. " You would have been the first to have known it, anyway." " Known of what ? " I asked. " Don t be an idiot," rejoined my friend. " You aren t one usually, you know." " Thank you. I just thought perhaps you might like congenial company." " Now, see here," put in James Ashley, sud denly straightening himself from the books he had been carefully rearranging, " I know I don t begin to be good enough for her, not by a long shot! (James A. is very original!) No man is; but if you think she is foolish to love me because I am an Indian you are missing [158] THE INDIAN SPECIAL the mark by about seventeen inches. I don t intend to make a flat-footed squaw of her, and she ll wear high heels to the end of the schedule, if I have to sell my allotment to buy em for her." " That s just it, Jimmy," I said, seriously. " You can t sell your allotment ; the Indian Office wont let you. You can t keep Miss Schlosser in the high-heeled sphere in which you found her; race environment wont let you. You are hampered at every turn by an inherit ance you cannot escape. You couldn t make a squaw of your wife (Jimmy started at the word) any more than she could make a white man out of you. You both have behind you generations of a life so vastly different in scope and purpose, whose influences you are blindly following, as we all follow more or less directly, the paths in which our ancestors have directed us that it is utterly beyond your power to create an enduring medium of mental equality. One generation of education wont do it. Love wont do it, tho you think now it will. The flower of love bears the earthly fruit of disappoint ment and unfulfilled longings, just as surely as squash vines bring forth squashes in due season, and if your chosen comradeship is to endure, there must be something besides the remembrance of life s sweetest illusion to sus- [159] THE INDIAN SPECIAL tain it. There must be, at least, the common interests of mutual endeavor, and an abiding sympathy for the hurt each has inflicted on the other. Why, you two couldn t even sympa thize with each other ! Your points of view are too different. Sympathy implies comprehen sion, and Jimmy could never quite understand why your French heels left such wobbly looking prints in the Crow River sand. You may think it better to hitch your wagon to a star, and come a glorious cropper, than to be trundled about in a wheelbarrow, but I am not so sure! It might be, if a matrimonial cropper was the end, instead of only the beginning of the end, and I imagine after you had picked yourselves up and dug the dirt out of your eyes, a wheel barrow might look pretty good to you." " Is my education of no account? " broke in Jimmy, in his impetuous, boyish way. " I don t want to seem a conceited ass, but I am every bit as deserving of a good girl s love as any white fellow at Carlisle. I can take just as good care of her, give her just as comfort able a home, and I can love her a heap harder than any tan-haired swell ever could. They might better have left me on the reservation, ignorant and contented, if they have educated me only to create desires they are unwilling to satisfy." [160] THE INDIAN SPECIAL " Whoever you mean by they, " I said, smiling, for there was more truth in his last sentence than I cared to own up to, " whoever you mean by they, they could hardly be ex pected to know that you, a native American, would ever come to trace the source of your happiness to a Dutch channel." " Dutch channel nothing ! " exclaimed Jim my, catching Miss Schlosser in his arms and hugging her brazenly. " She is the whole Hol land Canal to me, I tell you." " I don t wonder you call me fluid pet names," gasped the hugged one, freeing her self. " I am getting my crying all done up now, so as to have it over with. Dear," she said, coming over and taking my hands, " you have not told me anything I didn t know. (Of course not, Miss One and Twenty.) I am sorry to grieve my parents, but they wont care when they find out what a perfect dear Jimmy is. (I hope they take their daughter along as pilot on that voyage of discovery.) As for our not being able to sympathize with each other, why, I nearly worry my head off every game Jimmy plays, for fear he will be slugged! Mother would like for me to marry a Dutch farmer and live near her and raise garden " And you, like a dutiful daughter, prefer [161] THE INDIAN SPECIAL to marry an Indian and raise a disturbance. That is all right. Everyone has a right to make a botch of their lives if they choose. I like you well enough to risk displeasing you by saying that I think you are both making a mistake. Putting aside your general unfitness for each other, it seldom pays to go against general public opinion. You will find it too strong a tide for your little birch bark canoe to make headway against, government branded tho it is." " You make a mountain out of a lump of Crow River gumbo," said Miss Schlosser, im patiently. " Other girls in the service have married Indians and have been happy enough." " If to be happy enough is your highest am bition, I have nothing more to say. Lovers from time immemorial have thought it a brave act to fly in the face of everything, only to dis cover afterward that their strongest motive was an obstinate fondness for having their own way. Now, my children, I am not going to say another word against this, ever again. I am one of the friends on whom you can depend, and any time you want to use my sitting-room, I shall be delighted to have you, for I am al most never there." " You re a dear," said Miss Schlosser, squeezing my hand, " if you did talk as tho [162] THE INDIAN SPECIAL Jimmy wore a blanket and feathers. I don t believe you meant half you said." " O ! Jimmy knows I was only moralizing for practice and the good of society. If I am to begin this early in life to act the part of a cross-grained fairy god-mother to foolish lov ers, I might as well make the most of my first opportunity. There s the assembly call for dinner, and my hair looks as tho I had fallen over a haystack instead of a chair." " Well, mine, too ! " exclaimed Miss Schlos- ser, with considerable truth, raising trembling hands to her disheveled head. " You must learn that a girl s hair requires considerate treatment these days, Jimmy," I called after the retreating lover, as he turned at the door for a last look at his divinity. Mr. James Ashley Eagles on grinned cheer fully and departed, with his chin in the air, and we could hear him whistling the chorus of "Love Me And The World Is Mine," as he turned the corner. " He is such a kid," said my friend, deep in the intricacies of her pompadour. " I expect he will go about grinning like a Cheshire cat." " His smile is the most vivid recollection I have of him just at present," I replied. " Watch out to-night when he calls, and see if his grin materializes first." [163] THE INDIAN SPECIAL " I don t suppose it s a joking matter," said my suddenly serious friend. " There will be war in the camp at home, but Jimmy is a dear, and I love him, and I have given him my prom ise, and you ll see," she ended suddenly. And I expect to! I came to my room after dinner, and have been holding communion with my neglected soul. There has always been more doing than praying in my scheme of things, and it has been some time since San- dalphon wore a nosegay at my expense, but if I thought any good would come of it, I would go down on my knees and offer up as many original Hail Mary s as I am capable of dic tating. But what good would it do? Miss Schlosser doubtless does some praying on her own account she is a fairly good Lutheran and of course the result will be that she can read her title clear to a tepee in Dakota. So be it! It is none of my business, as I wish I had discovered before I wasted my elo quence on the foolish pair. (O! I was most eloquent, I do assure you. I said a lot that I haven t bothered to write you, and I probably would be there talking yet if I had not hap pened to notice that Jimmy had cut a narrow strip of paper from that unlucky magazine and was surreptitiously measuring Miss Schlosser s [164] THE INDIAN SPECIAL finger with it. Jimmy is a dear, if I do say it, that shouldn t.) I do not deny Miss Schlosser s inherent right to please herself in the man she marries. I have too high an opinion of personal freedom to refuse anyone the privilege of spoiling their lives in the way which best pleases them. I would marry a Hottentot if I wished, provid ing, of course, the gentleman was willing, but to make a fool of one s self is one thing; to stand quietly by and watch a friend do like wise is another, and one which is usually too severe a test of one s powers of suppression. A foolish act always looks so much more foolish when committed by anyone besides yourself. Perhaps, after all, as Miss Schlosser said, I am making a mountain out of a lump of Crow River dust. But did you ever know a woman who, having made a mess of her own love af fairs, wouldn t try to convince others that they are messing theirs also? Disappoint a woman in love, and she usually comes to consider her self a divinely appointed iconoclast, with a heaven-sent mission of pulling down the idols love sets up in every human heart. And I think, in the main, our object is an unselfish one, mistaken tho it is. We who have seen that love spells pain, and who know that for every moment of happiness, love, the heaviest task- [165] THE INDIAN SPECIAL master the world knows, will demand an hour of sorrow we would spare others the payment of the debt, deeming the cost too great. And yet I think it is a mistaken kindness, for pain and sorrow are the only forces strong enough to lift some of us out of our little, nar row ruts of thought and living, and set us with our faces toward the uplands of usefulness and willing service, reached only by the rugged path of sacrifice, where we must learn to be content if there remains any contentment for us in this world. Robert Ingersoll has said, " The dead carry in their clenched hands only that which they have given away." I think it true that the most valued coin in the soul s mint is the one oftenest required of us as our deposit in that universal reserve, so that when life strips us, one by one, of youth, happiness, health and courage, we still may own some few shares in that Company of Faith, the value of which is alone determined by the worth of the coin we gave. O ! well, if Miss Schlosser s cake turns to In dian meal mush I ll have the satisfaction of knowing that she can t say she used my recipe. I have an idea but I guess I had better keep it. I don t seem to have much of a variety on hand just now. This love business has [166] THE INDIAN SPECIAL turned my thoughts topsy-turvy, and I am fast developing into a monoideaist if I may be allowed the word. A man with one idea is bad enough, but a woman so bereft is insuffer able. With prayers for your leniency, I am still yours, JEAN. [167] CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL, CARLISLE, PENN. FEB. 2, 19. DEAR: You remark with customary frankness that you never before knew me to keep an idea, and that you were apprehensive of dire results. Well, it has made me uncomfortable and I am going to pass it on to you in hopes it will pro duce a like effect. The idea, reduced to lowest terms of expression, was that I needed a dose of moral castor oil. My ethical alimentary canal has got clogged with a lot of predigested, properly inspected, government labeled moral health foods, put up by the Universal Reputa tion Co., and distributed gratis by the Society of What Everybody Thinks. It is a diet espe cially recommended for infants and imbeciles. It prevents brain fatigue, cures mental activ ity in its worst stages and is a specific antidote for original thought. Many employees of the Indian Service be long to this same Distributing Society and I find myself rapidly qualifying for membership. [169] THE INDIAN SPECIAL They are afraid of what people will say ; afraid of losing their jobs; afraid of being spontane ous, and here am I proven guilty in two charges by my unpardonable interference in Miss Schlosser s love affair. I have been cultivating the rare accomplish ment of being frank with myself and I know that the advice which I so freely heaped on my long-suffering friend was composed of ten per cent of the gold of unselfishness and ninety per cent of the alloy of what will people think. Well, I ve come to the conclusion that it is none of our business what people think. The Ten Commandments were given us to keep be cause it was right that we should keep them, not because people would talk if we didn t. Nowhere does it say " Thou shall not marry an Indian," and if Miss Schlosser chooses to do so she may, and it is no concern of hers what people think. I suppose it is necessary that people must think when something unusual occurs, but after events seldom show that their thoughts did them much credit. There are few people with faculties so well balanced that a conventional deviation wont send their judgment teetering skyward. We are all fools, learning in the dear school of experience, and I suppose the biggest fools get the hardest knocks. It required several [170] THE INDIAN SPECIAL good raps to teach me to keep step with fate, and even now there are times when I forget to mark time. Now, when Miss Schlosser s pros pects for some hard knocks seem excellent, I thought that by exposing my own bruised cranium I could preserve hers intact. That s when my judgment took a holiday! Miss Schlosser has an inalienable right to hard knocks and measles and immortality and sev eral other unpleasant foreordained things. The predestined events of earthly existence can all be endured, and I do not believe that the mas ters in life s school ever give us " a lick amiss." It is the cowards who cry out that their bur dens are too heavy for them. If they would rid themselves of some of the self-imposed bur dens they would find those which life lays on them easier to carry. We load ourselves with needless worry and selfish sorrows and com plainings and start our little rusty engines screeching along the narrow-gauge road of personal advancement, and we are actually sur prised when destiny unexpectedly spreads our rails and we crawl out of the ditch to find we have encountered something tangible in the way of a burden. For all the burdens which life has placed upon me I am deeply grateful, even tho I may not understand, for I believe they are making me a little nearer what I [171] THE INDIAN SPECIAL would be; for all the burdens which in my asinine stupidity I have laid upon myself, I pray to have strength to lay aside, for they are the shackles which bind my feet to error. Selah! The man down at the boiler-house has the uncomfortable habit of turning off the steam about nine-thirty, and last evening I had built a cheerful fire of purloined soap boxes in the open grate and was sitting on the floor in front of it, pondering on many things: " Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, Of cabbages and kings." I wonder what magic there is in an open fire to set one thinking of all the good things life might have bestowed, and hasn t. What charm hath a soap box as it crackles and burns, spreading its enchantment in showers of golden sparks, that it can conjure before your thought-dimmed eyes the dream-folk of long ago and hold you in its thrall, entranced, till the pitiless heat has consumed its shrinking form and it totters hearthward and lies black ened among its own ruins, to mock you as you gaze with its resemblance to your own soap box castle, whose imaged dome lies buried deep beneath the ashes of the never-to-be-forgotten past. [172] THE INDIAN SPECIAL It is lonely business, this dreaming of for bidden things before a darkening grate, and I was glad when a well known tap came at my door and Miss Schlosser s fair, cheerful face presented itself to my clouded vision. " Somehow, I just knew that you would have a fire and the lights turned off and would be sitting here alone, dreaming. I came over to unburden my soul and I never could unload successfully with electric lights in full blaze. I am such a timid creature that I require sub dued lights and soft music before I can tune my emotions to the confiding pitch." " Which means," I said, piling up some cushions for my friend as she sat down, feet under, like a Turk, " that you want to talk about Jimmy and I am selected to play the part of animated dummy, with the privilege of talking back when I can get the chance. All right, I m agreeable. How is Jimmy dear? " " He s a joy and a dream," said my friend promptly. " He went down town after school to-day to get me some carnations, just because he heard me say I liked them. It poured rain and he was simply saturated when he stopped at teachers quarters with them. I told him he really ought to take himself down to the laun dry and hang himself out on the line to dry." " If he did I do believe he would drip love [173] THE INDIAN SPECIAL instead of rainwater. I never saw a boy so completely soaked thru and thru. Isn t there a sort of painless self-wringer on the market warranted to dry out anyone afflicted as he is ?" "0! joke about it, of course," said Miss Schlosser. " There is such a thing on the mar ket and it is patented under the name of matri mony, and Jimmy and I are going to try it." I gasped. Somehow, I had hoped against hope that it wouldn t come to this. All my old fears, all my dearly gained worldly wis dom, above all, my almost unconquerable de sire to interfere for the girl s own good, seem ingly, came rushing over me in a flood. " You little wretches," I apostrophized my surging emotions, " can t you mind your own business for once? Can t you see this isn t your wedding? Can t you see you have no right to interfere? " I never put in a livelier two minutes in the inside than I did then, but I succeeded in squelching every misguided good intention I found wandering idly about, and returned to the surface quite cool, albeit some what shaken. " Soon? " I asked, meekly. " As soon as Jimmy graduates, in April," replied my friend, evidently much surprised at my unusual silence. Two months! I thought of Mrs. Schlosser, [174] THE INDIAN SPECIAL who would weep ; of Schlosser, pere, who would rave; of the Carlisle people, who would be politely disapproving; of her schoolgirl friends, who, failing utterly to understand, would laugh and turn away, and my thoughts failed to disclose one who thru unselfish, un prejudiced comprehension, would extend the hand of approval and good-will. And as I looked at the fair, frail girl who was sacrific ing so much to be true to the strongest impulse of her untried heart, I found the hot tears on my cheek as I drew her close to me and thought that perhaps my arms would be the only ones to encircle her in loving approbation, because she was true and unafraid. It seemed a long time that we sat silently watching the darkening coals. Suddenly the girl shivered, as tho some evil premonition had shattered a sweet, far-distant dream. " I m cold," she said. " Your fire is dying out. Have you any more wood? " " Plenty, under the bed," I said, cheerfully. " You re the nearer, reach over and pull some out." Miss Schlosser lifted the valance of the low couch, and, abstracting my hat box, would have calmly placed it on the coals, had I not hurried ly rescued it. [175] THE INDIAN SPECIAL "I don t buy hats for fuel, dear. Try again." She patiently renewed her efforts and an other soap box proceeded to disguise itself in a flame-tipped palace as the blaze roared and curled lovingly about it. But the spell was broken. Miss Schlosser rose suddenly and turned on the lights with a snap. " I m tired of being so deadly respectable," she broke out. " I m tired of doing always just what is expected of me. Don t think I do not know the mapped-out life of a common, everyday girl like me. She is not rich enough to satisfy her longing for change by travel, not bright enough to lift herself intellectually out of her prescribed sphere. She marries a respectable man, raises a respectable family and goes to a respectable heaven presumably. I hate the thought of it all. The eternal same ness day after day; the constant friction of trivial tasks which wears both brain and body; the longing, just for once, to do something desperate and not quite daring, and being al ways haunted with the feeling that you have missed something in life which you might have had, had you but dared. I am going to dare. I am not going to shut my eyes and plunge in ; I m going to walk in, deliberately, with my eyes wide open, and if I step on a crab I shall [176] THE INDIAN SPECIAL not scream! I am going to have the satisfac tion of knowing, for once, how it feels to do what everybody thinks is perfectly awful! It will be no end of a lark. I am going to ask Jimmy to send home and get his father s regi mentals war bonnet, tomahawk, and those old scalps he took in Ouster s last fight with Sitting Bull and I am going to have Jimmy dress up in them and take him to church with me some fine Sunday at home, and after the service I am going to say to everybody, " What a fine sermon ; how did you like the text ? " and I ll bet Jimmy s whole outfit that not a single soul will know what it was ! Why, it will be a god send to those poor people. They haven t had a new thing in their lives for twenty years, and how grateful they ought to be to Jimmy and me for furnishing one." " They ought to be, indeed. What if Jim my refuses to exhibit ? " "O! he wont! He ll see the joke all right and will do it if I ask him." " May do it, my dear, may do it. You must learn to conjugate Jimmy in the potential mood." "Why? Because he is Jimmy, or because he is a man ? " "0! just because of the perspicussity of man nature. When you want Jimmy to sing [177] THE INDIAN SPECIAL Injun he ll chant English, and when you ex pect him to go on the warpath he ll wend his way to prayer-meeting instead." " I hope so," said Miss Schlosser, cheerfully. " At least life wont be monotonous." " I can recommend several less conspicuous antidotes for that disease out of my own rich experience," I said, modestly. "Well, what?" exclaimed my friend. "I would like to know of just one thing even that can make me forget I am a desperately re spectable Dutch schoolma am, who has done nothing all her life but what was perfectly proper and altogether useless. We are so ever lastingly civilized, our lives are such stereo typed affairs, that a new sensation is as rare as an honest Tammany politician." Miss Schlos ser has one very serious fault; she is a Re publican, but I do not think it will over set in. " Then, my dear," I said, solemnly, " try bedbugs ; just a good liberal dose of nice, hard working bedbugs. They will make you forget that there is such a thing as respectability in existence. You have no idea how absorbing they can be. They will occupy your mind and hands day and night, and will develop your inventive genius in an astonishing manner. Believe me, Jimmy will be quite a secondary consideration with you." [178] THE INDIAN SPECIAL " I don t call that a cure ; it s only a change of disease, and I much prefer Jimmy." Miss Schlosser spoke rather absently. She was standing in front of the mirror, critically sur veying herself. " I suppose you think I am an awful fool ? " she asked, unexpectedly. " ! I guess most of us have worn the mot ley and pointed cap during some previous stage of existence and we haven t quite outgrown the habit of tinkling our bells. Don t let that worry you. The woods are full of foolish people and I notice they are just as happy as the quidnuncs who delude themselves with think ing they carry the wisdom of the ages on their shoulders." " But I thought you denied that happiness is the chief end of man," remarked my friend. " The chief end of man has always been shrouded in obscurity, catechism to the con trary, notwithstanding," I said, wisely. " But I think happiness is the chief means of accom plishment, especially for a woman. Of course there are women whose deepest natures seem to require nothing more satisfying than the insipid fawning of a pet poodle, but the good such women accomplish is in exact proportion to the worth of their source of happiness. Then there are women who are born with their souls [179] THE INDIAN SPECIAL so on the bias that nothing in the heavens above or the earth beneath can make them happy, while any old thing can make them mis erable. The most that type of woman ever achieves is biliousness and the desolation of her husband. But the women who really help to undo the world s tangle are those who have learned that true happiness comes only thru a forgetfulness of self, in the faithful perform ance of little tasks which paves the way to greater achievement and in the caresses of little children. And a very foolish woman may learn this, else the world and many of the people in it would be in a bad way." " An animated dummy," I heard my friend remark, reminiscently, "with the privilege of talking back " Miss Schlosser caught the piece of fudge I threw at her and paused, smiling. " Why don t you yell Fire ! at me when I get wound up? " I asked. " It might possibly stop me." " Oh, I don t mind your yarning. It gives me time to think." " I was thinking of a character sketch of myself which one of my promising Cheyenne pupils wrote in school to-day. He said I wore glass eyes and was so thin I had to wear a blanket to cast a shadow." [180] THE INDIAN SPECIAL " The little wretch ! Why didn t you shake him?" " I was going to, when I happened to think it was about true. I have lost thirteen pounds in the last two months and shall lose still more if they don t stop worrying me at home." " Do the home folks know of your plans for next April? " I asked. " Mercy, no ! If I told them, the whole Schlosser family would move to Carlisle and camp on my trail. I am going to break the news to them, very gently, about ten hours before the ceremony. They can do a lot of wailing in ten hours." " You don t mean that, dear, I know." " No, of course not. I am going to write mother just as soon as ever I can muster the courage, and ask her to help me buy things. She loves to shop." It would be a good thing for the feminine portion of the population if some mothers would learn the art of governing their daugh ters as thoroly as those daughters have mas tered the science of managing them. Miss Schlosser knows quite well that her mother s love of shopping will be a potent factor in re ducing her very natural disinclination to be come the progenitor of a variegated species of grandchildren. And yet, down in her mother s [181] THE INDIAN SPECIAL heart, I think Mrs. Schlosser will honor her daughter s loyalty to that spark of divinity within her which teaches adherence to the heart s strongest motive love. It is her portion of that eternal spirit which ever strives after the unknown and to those who have followed its guidance, regardless of all else, the world owes all it is or hopes to be. Miss Schlosser may discover nothing more wonderful than the fact that the same stars shine in Dakota as in Pennsylvania, and that Jimmy prefers custard pie to blueberry, but since her discovery teaches the constancy of the heavens and the inconsistency of man, it will probably be of some use to her. To-morrow is Saturday and inspection day. Once a month the Superintendent and the heads of the various departments don their " pomposity," uniforms and white gloves and make the round of all the buildings, looking for dirt. It is needless to say their search is usually rewarded, but girls quarters are as spotless as it is possible for human habitation to be. How the girls scrub and clean the day before inspection! I can hear a fullblood Cheyenne on her knees in the room next mine, scrubbing for dear life and singing the Pil grim s Chorus from Tannhauser as she works. If the two occupations seem incongruous to [182] THE INDIAN SPECIAL you please reflect that the majority of people are consistent only in their inconsistencies. When we train the Indian in the ways of civilization we open up to him the avenue of wrong living as well as the thoroughfare of usefulness. It happens, of course, that an oc casional Carlisle student goes back to his blanket and tepee, or uses his education for dishonest purposes. Such students are invari ably hoisted before the public as examples which prove the futility of assisting the race to a higher plane of living. The argument is too weak-kneed to stand alone. Education cannot wholly eradicate evil instincts in a man, be the color of his exterior what it may, and I hold that if an Indian must be a knave, it were better that he be an intelligent one. The ad mirers of native stupidity may think as they choose. As ever, yours, JEAN. P. S. I forgot to say what brand of moral castor oil I have found most efficacious. It is put on the market, condensed, wrapped in brown paper, and bears the trade-mark of Fra Albertus. Dilute with an equal amount of moderation and you will find that it stays down better. [183] CARLISLE, PENN. MAY 1, 19. DEAR: I don t feel a bit like describing that wed ding. Next to being married yourself, watch ing your best girl friend getting tangled up for time and Dakota is about the most un translatable thing I know of. You see Miss Schlosser had planned on be ing quietly married in town, with just her mother and the Big Four as audience, but the forlorn remnant of the Big Four begged so hard for a merry, informal ceremony at the school, with the employees and Jimmy s friends among the students present, that she capitu lated and left us to arrange things to suit our selves. You have probably heard of that remarkably brilliant collie who was sent to market for some steak. He was carrying it home very carefully, in a basket, when he was set upon by three other dogs, who speedily relieved him of his burden and proceeded to devour it, a la raw. The collie put up a good fight, but when he [185] THE INDIAN SPECIAL saw that he was fairly beaten, and the steak bound to be eaten anyway, he turned to and ate his share with a right good will. Now, that dog displayed some decidedly Christianlike characteristics, tho I don t sup pose there is a Presbyterian congregation in the country that would admit him to member ship. Like the collie, I had done what I could, so I flung regrets and fears to the winds, and did my utmost to make the occasion a pleasant one. So did Miss Schlosser s other friends who had been making themselves miserable borrow ing disaster from the future. It s queer we never learn to attend to our own affairs, and leave the future alone. Whatever private thoughts Miss Schlosser s Carlisle friends may have entertained regarding the match, they un ceremoniously dismissed them, and only bright, cheerful faces surrounded the bride on her last day among us. Mrs. Schlosser s pale face showed signs of the struggle her only daughter s marriage was costing her, but she, too, bravely concealed her regrets beneath a cheerful exterior and joined royally in the merrymaking. We have all seen people who cry at a wed ding as cheerfully as at a funeral. I have no words to do justice to such idiocy! Such peo ple ought to be tied up with a short rope the [186] THE INDIAN SPECIAL day after they get their invitations, and kept tied till the ceremony is safely over. Instead, they are usually the ones to arrive early, and get good seats where they can see and be seen. They weep gently all thru the ceremony, and go up to console the happy couple, with a red nose and their handkerchief in a little wet wad in their right hands. I have never been handicapped in my at tempts to make a fool of myself, and I see no reason to believe that I have by any means exhausted my capabilities, but that is one form of idiocy of which I am not guilty. There are times when it is best to forget that there is a to-morrow, and a wedding is one of them. Tears at a wedding show a pitiful lack of self- control, I think. A group of new, red-eyed re lations must make the groom feel so comfort able! There were no red noses or wet kerchiefs at Miss Schlosser s wedding. There was nothing even half as formal. A stranger happening to visit Carlisle that day would doubtless go away and remark : " Mighty funny thing to call Carlisle an industrial school. No one was do ing a thing but having a good time and mak ing all the racket they could. I always did say that you can t get no work out of an Injun. [187] THE INDIAN SPECIAL I am going to send in a recommendation to have the place abolished." The Big Four had calmly appropriated the public parlor, and cleaned and rearranged and decorated till even their hearts were satisfied. Jimmy s student friends contributed such quan tities of carnations that the prosy parlor looked liked a strayed florist s showroom. Promptly at three o clock, Jimmy, escorted by the entire class of , strolled leisurely over from large boys quarters. Not quite so promptly the Big Four strolled out to meet them. James Ashley looked remarkably well in his civilian s suit, and his black eyes sought his bride s with a world of love in their dark depths. Miss Schlosser wore the simplest of white frocks, guiltless of frills, and she looked I was going to say like a frail bit of Dresden china, but I feel sorry for that overworked simile, and, anyway, Miss Schlosser is deserv ing of a more natural descriptive phrase, so I will say she looked like a sweet little Dutch maid. Merrily, the two parties joined and entered the gaily decorated parlor, where the em ployees, in laughing groups, were in waiting. " Where are we to stand ? " asked the bride. " Please don t stick us up in a corner. Let s [188] THE INDIAN SPECIAL stand in the center of the room and everybody form a circle around us." And we did, and not a face in all the number showed a trace of any fears concerning the future of the youthful pair, so earnestly pledg ing themselves before God and man, " till death do us part." There was the usual little awk ward moment at the conclusion of the cere mony, as we waited for Jimmy to salute his bride. It s queer how foolish public caresses make the observers feel. Jimmy seemed per fectly oblivious of us all as he turned and raised his wife s little bare hand to his lips. Some how, part of the heavy load of doubt I had been carrying took wings and flew away at that sim ple, loving act. It seemed to express a great deal, much more than I can put into words. Jimmy saw very little of his bride after that. There was only an hour till time to start for the train, and sixty minutes is none too long a time for a bride to change into a traveling gown when some forty young people assist in the transformation. Fourteen of them but toned the bride up the back one girl to each button and then fourteen more unbuttoned and buttoned her up again. If you think that can be done in ten minutes, or twenty, just try it the first time you catch a bride with fourteen buttons, who is willing to be the victim. [189] THE INDIAN SPECIAL " There ! " exclaimed the bride. " I knew I would do something foolish, as usual. I ve packed the belt to this waist in my suitcase." There was general rush for the new, bridal- looking suitcase, but it was securely locked. " I locked it and hid the key," explained Mrs. Jimmy. " I didn t want any liberties taken with its contents. Here, dear," giving me the key, " you get the belt for me and put the key in my handbag. There are the car riages now. Hurry! Be sure you lock it again." I found the belt at the bottom, underneath a very suspicious-looking array of things, care fully locked the suitcase, and looked on the dresser for the handbag which had been there but a minute before. It had disappeared. "Where s that handbag?" I called to the crowd in general. " Miss Albright has it," someone answered. " She went out just now." " All aboard," rang out a merry voice out side. " Private carriage for Mr. and Mrs. Eagleson this way," and Jimmy proudly handed his wife to her seat. " I wish you could ride with us," said Mrs. Jimmy, bending down to give my hand a last squeeze. " I have oceans to tell you yet. I [190] THE INDIAN SPECIAL suppose the whole town will be there to gape at us. How do I look? " " Like a fullblood," I replied. " I am sorry, but I have to ride with the mourners in the next carriage." The driver started his horses with a flourish of his beribboned whip, and the other teams quickly fell in line. Autos, carriages, carryall herdic and farm wagons were all put into use that day. Every available vehicle from farm and barns was filled with rice-laden, shoe-laden boys and girls, old maids and benedicts, all bent on giving the departing couple a send-off that should go down in the history of the school as " the day of the wedding." It seemed that Mrs. Jimmy s fears were not vain, for there was a large crowd at the station waiting for the bridal couple, for news of the wedding had been circulating for days. " I wonder where the band is," I remarked. " It s queer that it is not here to see its ex- member off." If the band wasn t there, everybody else was, and things promised well for a lively fifteen minutes before the train was due. The trunks, which the plotting couple had sent on ahead, were promptly hunted out by a crowd of boys, and something like fifty pairs of worn-out gov ernment shoes were tagged on them. Many of [191] THE INDIAN SPECIAL the shoes were filled with rice, and I ll warrant those trunks shed telltale decorations all the way to South Dakota. Among the onlookers at the station was a fat, red-faced drummer, who evidently was at sea about it all, and was wondering if a frag ment of an Indian reservation had suddenly blown into Carlisle. He edged nearer and nearer the circle in the immediate vicinity of the bridal pair, determined to have a look at the bride. When he caught sight of Mrs. Jim my s fair face, as she stood laughing up at her husband, his jaw dropped and he vented his astonishment in a voice audible to the entire group: " Well, by gum, if she ain t married a dumb Injun!" The bride caught the words, and her face flushed angrily. In the momentary silence, Jimmy excused himself and walked calmly up to the drummer, who still stood staring, appar ently unconscious of his remark and its results. The crowd of boys instinctively drew nearer, wondering how long that drummer would last under Jimmy s trained muscles, while those of us who were not boys thrilled with a sudden fear that our delightful day was to end in discord. Jimmy walked to within a foot of the per spiring drummer, and began speaking. At the [192] THE INDIAN SPECIAL first sentence we all grinned gleefully, for we knew Jimmy was equal to the occasion. He was talking Indian to that poor drummer, whose face showed him to be in doubt as to what an Indian s exact method of scalping might be. Jimmy as he told us afterward was only repeating the Lord s Prayer in Da kota, and at the end of every sentence he shook his fist under the paleface s nose, which, by the way, was some ninety degrees in the shade red der than Jimmy s. I knew by the look on the bridegroom s face that he was enjoying himself from the boots up, while for us, we were simply speechless with suppressed laughter. " Eh? " ejaculated the drummer, as Jimmy paused. " I beg pardon, what was that you said?" Jimmy did not think it necessary to repeat his unusual invocation, but stood calmly look ing at his victim, who was momentarily getting more uncomfortable. " I beg your pardon," he said again. " I say," he addressed the staring crowd, " is there someone present who can make this er this gentleman understand that I beg his pardon? " " I accept your apology," said Jimmy, gravely, in English. " Just remember, please, that there are other things in the world be- [193] THE INDIAN SPECIAL sides drummers and dry goods. It s astonish ing what a lot you may learn." Jimmy walked back to his friends, leaving the drummer the very picture of amazed con trition. " By gum," he said again, faintly, as he turned and disappeared in the waiting-room, to be seen no more. At that moment, with a clash of sound that drowned even the noise of the street s traffic, around the nearby corner came the Carlisle Indian Band, gaily marching to the tune of " Hail, All Hail, the Gang s All Here," and led by a small boy who carried Jimmy s trom bone, literally covered with white ribbons, high over his head. Ah, Jimmy ! It was but yesterday that you marched with them, happy and carefree. To day you face the complex future of a Dakota allotment, a white wife, and rations for two. I had never before considered a bridegroom de serving of sympathy, but in isolated cases, it is barely possible that he may be. Well, the train puffed in on time and swal lowed up our bride and groom, together with about a bathtub of rice and numberless old shoes, which, but for the parsimony of a pater nal government, would have reached a less con spicuous destination months before. I had a [194] THE INDIAN SPECIAL special interest in those shoes. The supply came mostly from girls quarters, and I can see a day of reckoning hovering o er me, when there will be weeping and counting of feet, for the quartermaster will demand of me, " Where are the shoes I gavest thou? " and how can I tell, when they strew the earth from Carlisle to Crow River? But it will be worth it just to see the old- shoe room empty, for once! The last glimpse I had was of the conductor, frantically waving " All aboard ! " amid a whirlwind of rice, with two shoes, tied by a string, decorating his manly bosom. It was government rice, and not quite up to the contract at that, but no one seemed to notice it. I excused myself on the plea of having some shopping to do, and walked the mile back to the school alone. I was still laughing at the thought of that poor conductor with his unusual trim mings, but my lachrymal glands were display ing squall signals, and I longed for solitude. As I vainly searched for my handkerchief, I became conscious of a small, hard object in the glove of my left hand, and I drew it forth with a little gasp of amused dismay. It was the key to Mrs. James Ashley Eagle- son s suitcase! [195] 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. MOV 13 19690 KECDLD LD 21A-50m-ll, 62 (D3279slO)476B General Library University of California Berkeley V AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS T LD 21-100m-7, 39(402f YC 49275 RSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY