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There is no doubt but that the squaws got to thinking a great deal of pa, 'cause he talked with them, through the Carlisle Indian for an interpreter, and as he sat on a camp chair and looked like a great white god with a red nose, and they gathered around him, and he told them stories of women in the east, and how they dressed and went to parties, and how the men worked for them that they might live in luxury, and how they had servants to do their cooking, and maids to dress them, and carriages to ride in, and lovers to slave for them, it is not to be wondered at that those poor creatures, who never had a kind word from their masters, and who were looked upon as lower than the dogs, should look upon Pa as the grandest man that ever lived, and I noticed, myself, that they gave him glances of love and admiration, and when they would snuggle up closer to pa, he would put his hand on their heads and pat their hair, and look into their big black eyes sort of tender, and pinch their brown cheeks, and chuck them under the chin, and tell them that the great father loved them, and that he hoped the time would come when every good Indian would look upon his squaw, the mother of his children, as the greatest boon that could be given to man, and that the now despised squaw would be placed on a pedestal and honored by all, and worshiped as she ought to be.
The squaws were particularly interested in them when Pocahontas told them that they were made of a substance which would not break as did their own vessels of sun-baked pottery. But it was the red mantle of soft English cloth, in shape like to the one, he was told. King James had worn at his coronation at Westminster, that made Powhatan's grim features relax a little with pleasure.
If the two travellers had been less sparing of words, they would doubtless have told us that as they entered the village square the flattened earthen domes that surrounded it were thronged with squaws and children, for this was always the case on occasions of public interest, and that they were forced to undergo a merciless series of feasts in the lodges of the chiefs.
Black Kettle and many of his braves were slain, the tepees were burned, the Indians' ponies were slaughtered, and the squaws and children made captives. News of this engagement reached Sheridan's garrison on the day after our arrival, with the word also that Custer, unable to cope with the tribes swarming down the Washita River, was returning to Camp Supply with his spoils of battle.
The counsel that told your young men to come so far, was not spoken in the voice of the Manitou. It came from the tongue of one that loves to see game scarce, and the squaws hungry. Go you follow the mocker, or your hands would not be so dark."
Passaconaway, who had hitherto been an unmoved spectator of the scene, relaxed the Indian gravity of his features, and murmured, in an undertone, "Good, good." "Will my brother go?" he inquired, touching Martin's shoulder; "my squaws have fine mat, big wigwam, soft samp, for his young woman." "Mary," said Martin, "the sachem is impatient; and we must needs go with him."
In fact, they are paupers, and we are all taxed to support them and the army which is more than necessary as a police to keep them in order. When the dance was half over about twenty soldiers came into the gate and produced quite a panic among the squaws and children, who shrieked with terror and rushed toward the larger gate. The braves did not think it the correct thing to show any fear.
Did the missionaries suppose the braves would follow the lead of squaws? Ugh! Ugh!! For the first seven years, at Lac-qui-Parle, mission work was prosecuted, with marked success in spite of many grave hindrances. But for the four years following 1842-46 the work was seriously retarded. The crops failed and the savages charged their misfortunes to the missionaries.
The cost I estimated at about 500 dollars. We intended to return to the Sault by steamboat, but none came, so we got some Indians to take us back in their boat, a man, a boy, and two squaws, and a leaky old tub it was with old rags stuffed in between the boards. Happily we had fair weather.
The agent made a furious lunge to the rescue of his first-born, and the squaws and young girls scattered shrieking at his charge. Startled and excited, the horses of Cranston's wagon whirled sharply around, nearly capsizing the vehicle.
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