Part 26 (2/2)
”At the Indian Industrial School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania.”
”Then you are one of Captain Pratt's boys?”
”Yes, sir,” and a smile lightened the somewhat stolid features. Mr.
Armstrong did not believe in Eastern schools for Indians, and he asked, rather sarcastically, ”And what did you learn when you were in the East--Latin and Theology?”
The boy shook his head. ”I learned to work on the farm,” he said, ”and to read and write, and do a little arithmetic; and I learned some carpentry--enough to build this house, and make that table, and the cupboard and things.”
”Very creditable, I am sure,” Mr. Armstrong replied, half incredulously, ”but how did you come into the fortune necessary to set you up in this flouris.h.i.+ng style?”
”I helped build the new depot at S----, and they paid me off with the lumber that was left, and I built the house out of that. Then I had some money which I had put in the savings-bank from my earnings every vacation in the East, and I bought the cows with that; and then I made a churn, and we've been making b.u.t.ter the way I saw them do it in Pennsylvania, and I sell it for a good price at the Springs.”
”Well, you have more stuff in you than I ever thought it possible for an Indian to have,” Mr. Armstrong replied, fairly won, in spite of himself, to admiration. ”I always supposed that those Carlisle students, as soon as they returned to old surroundings, went back to savagery.”
”It is pretty hard for us,” the boy replied. ”Last year I planted about three times as much corn as you see here. I had taken a contract to supply the quartermaster at Fort ----, and I thought I should make a good deal of money; but just as it was green, all of our relations came to see us. There were ten families. They camped there by the creek, and they stayed until they had eaten every roasting ear. They said they had come to celebrate my home-coming, and father made them welcome, and gave a dance, and killed one of our cows for them. They would have killed them all, but I drove them off into the mountains, and hid them. That is the reason I have planted so little corn here this season. I have another field over in a little valley in the mountains which I hope they will not find, and I drive the cattle up the canon every morning, for they may be here any day.”
”You poor fellow!” said Mr. Armstrong. ”I have heard the proverb, 'Save us from our friends!' but I never understood the full force of it before.”
After the hearty meal the little house was put at the service of the travelers, the family camping outside, and, much to Mr. Armstrong's contentment, they pa.s.sed a comfortable and restful night. The next morning Mr. Armstrong asked Charles Sumner if he was familiar with the mountains, and could guide him to a certain valley, which he indicated as having a chimney-like formation at one end.
”Why, certainly,” the young man replied; ”don't you remember I was with father when he took you hunting four years ago? He killed an eagle that had her nest on a ledge high up on the chimney, and I climbed up for the young ones.”
”Ah yes, I remember now, but you were such a little fellow then that I could not realize the change.”
”I grew more at Carlisle,” said the young man, significantly, ”than at any other time of my life. We all grew at Carlisle.”
”Then you will take us to the chimney,” Mr. Armstrong asked, ”and cook for us while we are out? What will you charge?”
”I don't think I ought to ask you anything, sir, for there is good pasturage thereabout, and I can drive my cows along, and herd them there until after the visit of our relatives. My sister is going to B---- with all the green-corn that the ponies can carry, so when they come they will find mother, and very little else. The valley in which my other corn is planted is in that direction, and perhaps you will let me bring some of it in your wagon when we come back?”
Charles Sumner rode cheerily beside them on a diminutive pony, driving his cows and the pack pony, and chatting freely of many things.
Sometimes Jim sprang from his seat to make him change places and rest awhile. The pony had a fascination for Jim, and he speedily learned from Charles Sumner how to manage it, and to ”round up” the herd of cows and calves. The young Indian taught him, also, how to make arrows, and to shoot with them, to picket the horses, and to use the la.s.so, to make camp coffee, and to set up and take down the tepee, or tent of buffalo hide, which the pack-pony dragged between long poles.
”You would like to be a cow-boy, wouldn't you, Jim?” Mr. Armstrong asked, but Charles Sumner shook his head. ”Cow-boys are no good,” he said, emphatically; ”they shoot Indians as if they were wild beasts.
Better stay in the East, where the white people are good. I wish I could, but the Government insists that as soon as we are educated we must go back to our reservations. I wish it would let us stay and earn our living in the East, where it is so much easier to stay civilized.”
Jim, on the other hand, was delighted with everything he saw. ”If all the boys in Rickett's Court could only come out here!” he exclaimed, ”and ride, and herd cows, and hunt, and camp out, and all the Indian boys could only go East, and go to school, and work at trades--how nice it would be!”
Mr. Armstrong admitted that the change might be good for both, but while speaking they came in sight of the chimney-shaped pinnacle, and he hastily unpacked his theodolite and other instruments, and began to take angles, and to jot down memoranda.
”This is the first time that I have ever seen a surveyor on the Ute reservation,” said Charles Sumner, ”and I think that our troubles will be ended sometime by that little machine. Just as soon as the Government divides up our land and gives each Indian his own share, then each good Indian will cultivate his own farm, and will have some heart to work. How can he now, when the land belongs as much to every lazy Indian in the tribe as to himself? O sir, is it possible that the Government has sent you to begin this division?”
Mr. Armstrong confessed that his observations were made only for his own amus.e.m.e.nt. He was surprised to find that the young man had such advanced views on the ”land in severalty” question, and he asked whether any of the other Indians of the tribe shared his opinions.
”There are a good many who have staked out farms and are cultivating them, just as I have,” he replied, ”but we know that we have no right to the land, and may be turned out any day, whenever bad white men persuade our chiefs to give up this reservation and move away to the bad lands in the West.”
Mr. Armstrong winced a little under the earnest, questioning look with which Jim regarded him. To turn his train of thought he said, ”There is the old eagle's nest on the ledge still, Charles Sumner. Can you climb up there to-day as nimbly as you did four years ago?”
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