A Day at an Arapahoe School.
Perhaps the Round Table would like to hear of a visit I made to an Arapahoe Indian school here. My sister and I started with our host from his home, in El Reno, about nine o'clock. We rode until two that afternoon. There was a river to ford, and some steep hills to climb. In about fifteen minutes after our arrival the exercises began. It was the time of breaking up for the summer. A chorus of Indian children sang a queer little song, of which I could not understand a word. Then followed recitations, addresses by the directors of the school, and songs by the children. All the Indian girls wore purple calico dresses, with white cotton stockings and heavy shoes, and the boys wore dark jackets and trousers, with white shirts, and the same kind of foot-wear. They speak and recite in a very singsong, monotonous manner.
After the exercises were over, the guests were asked to go through the school. The school-rooms were large and airy, and there were some good specimens of sewing, clay-modelling, etc. Some of the Indian children have curious names. Hilda Two Babies, Myra Long Neck, and Charlie Good Bear were some I heard. After a while we went out into the grounds. All around on the grass chairs were set, and these were occupied by "braves." One brave was standing in the centre of a large circle, talking and gesticulating most energetically. On the grass the squaws had ensconced themselves. Not one of them would sit on a chair. They thought it was too civilized.
The children had scattered, and were sitting with their parents, or hanging round the white people, watching. In about an hour men came around and distributed boiled rice, potatoes, and meat. Each family was provided with a tin dish or old coffee-pot, and each held the receptacle out for a share of the repast. The Indian babies, I think, are very cunning little brown things. The braves of the Arapahoe tribe have long tassels of leather, and sometimes fox-tails, fastened to the ends of their moccasins, at the back. They scarcely lift their heels in walking, and so they have a shuffling gait.
Ruth S. Brooke, R.T.L.
The Bishop's House, Guthrie, Oklahoma.
"Though lost to sight, to memory dear" is the motto for ordinary soaps.
Ivory Soap is always in sight and is not wasting at the bottom of the tub.
The Procter & Gamble Co., Cin'ti.