Dear Uncle Sam: You know me. I am George Washington Ug, a very sibbleized good Indian; wear derby hat; go church; say prayers; don’t fight. Now this Patsy Duffy, bad white man, took my pig, General Grant, and I don’t know how he get that way. Please send large gunboats and make Patsy Duffy give back my pig please.
Your loving neffew,
George,
Flatfoot.
Doubts, worries, irritations melted away as Ug read and reread his letter. It was all up with Patsy Duffy now. Uncle Sam could not resist that letter, even if it did involve less than one million pigs. It involved an injustice to his ward, and Uncle Sam would not permit that. Ug smiled as he wrote on the envelop in his big, round scraggly hand, “Uncle Sam, Washington, D. C.”
The reply came more promptly than replies to any of his other letters; Ug knew it would. He picked up the official envelop almost reverently. He carried it past the other Indians in his hand. He wanted them to see that he, Ug, had received a letter from his Uncle Sam. He postponed the pleasure of opening it, just as a child saves the best cake till last. He opened it after some blissful reverie in his own cabin. As he read it the brown face of Ug became like a cup of coffee to which a great deal of milk has suddenly been added. The letter was short, formal. It was from the Post Office Department, and it read:
No such person as Uncle Sam is known in Washington, D. C. In the future please give full name and street and number.
Ug felt as if he had been tomahawked. He took himself, his dismay and his café-au-lait face to the teacher.
“What is Uncle Sam’s last name?” he asked.
The teacher didn’t know. Ug had caught him in an unguarded moment; the admission had slipped out; the teacher flushed, flustered.