These children are proud of the fact that they live in the United States, and call their country “The land of the free and the home of the brave.” Their people have come from many lands. French, German, Irish, Polish and Jewish boys and girls, besides those of many other countries, sit side by side in the schoolrooms and play happily together with their tops and dolls.
The United States of America, for that is the full name of this country, reaches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Canada on the north to Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico on the south. It is a country of high mountains, fertile valleys, broad plains and mighty rivers. Its children know neither the terrible cold of the far north nor the burning heat of the equator, for they live in the temperate belt of the earth. No season of the year is long enough to tire them, for spring follows close upon the winter, and is soon followed by the pleasant warmth of summer. Then comes the autumn when the leaves change their color and Mother Nature makes ready for her winter’s rest. At last the snow falls and covers the earth with her white mantle.
The Mound Builders.
In the long ago a strange people lived in the United States. They left no books to tell their story, but here and there through the country mounds of earth which they built are still standing. Some of them are shaped like birds with wings outspread, others have the forms of fishes, snakes, and human beings. Still other mounds show that they must have been used as altars upon which sacrifices were burned, and others, again, contain tools, dishes, idols and ornaments. Some of the ornaments and dishes were decorated with the finest carvings. Heads of people, frogs and birds are still to be seen on the pipes that have been preserved in the mounds all these years. Tools have been found to show the mound-builders, as we call these people, knew how to work metal, and other things tell the story that the men of that long ago were wise in many ways and could not have been savages. There are earthworks near some of the mounds that seem to have been built as forts, so they probably fought in wars. Yet we can only guess as to their life, for no one knows their history.
The Indians.
When the first white men visited America they found Indians living throughout the country, along the banks of the rivers and on the shores of the ocean. Their homes were for the most part tents covered with bark or the skins of animals. When the boys were still tiny little fellows they learned to use bows and arrows so that as they grew up they would be good hunters and warriors like their fathers.
In some parts of the country the girls helped their mothers tend fields of maize which to this day is called Indian corn. Cakes were made of this and eaten with the fish and game killed by the men.
In other places the women and children gathered the wild rice that grew in the shallow ponds. This, together with the berries picked by the girls, the honey taken from the nests of wild bees by the boys, and the sap from the maple trees, added a good deal to the daily fare of meat and fish.
The red children were taught to bear cold and hunger without complaining. There were days when they feasted and had all the good things to eat they could wish for. But their parents did not understand the need of looking ahead. During the summer the berries and the honey, the fish and the game were plentiful, and the people did not seem to remember that winter would soon follow when the earth’s mantle of snow and the ice on the rivers would make it harder for them to get food. So there were times when they and their little ones went hungry to bed and woke up in the morning with no breakfast before them.
The boys grew up with a love of war, and looked admiringly at the men when they went away from the village with hideous, painted faces, and with tomahawks and hatchets at their sides, to take other unfriendly tribes by surprise and to scalp as many of their enemies as possible.