“And going home Charlie and I rode most of the time in the baggage car with Sport, and we were so busy taking care of him that we were not sick a bit and didn’t get any cinders in our eyes.”
THE LAST INDIAN
“Last summer,” began Alice one evening when the children came to Grandma’s room, “when we were in the country we went to the valley where the last Indians in this county were seen—the last wild Indians, I mean.”
“Were there any wild Indians around when you were a little girl, Grandma?” asked Bobby eagerly.
“Well, no,” said Grandma thoughtfully. “But my Father remembered very well when bands of Indians went through the country on hunting expeditions. They were thought to be of the Delaware tribe, but were called Cornplanter Indians, probably because they cultivated large fields of corn as well as hunted and fished for their living. It was customary, during the winter, for bands of these Indians to hunt deer and other game in the forests. They would follow the chase for weeks at a time. Father said that as each deer was killed it was carefully dressed and hung high in some near-by tree, beyond the reach of wolves and dogs. At the close of the hunting season the carcasses were gathered together and taken to the Indian camp.
“But though the Indians were gone when I was a little girl, there were many things left to remind us of them. Old trees, blazed to mark Indian trails, still stood, and arrowheads and darts were often ploughed up in the fields. My brothers had quite a collection of them, and they also had a tomahawk that looked very much like a hatchet.
“And there was one Indian left, too. I almost forgot about him—old John Cornplanter. He was supposed to have belonged to the Cornplanter Indians, but no one knew much about him. He lived alone on an unsurveyed piece of land and was seldom seen except when he brought his skins to sell or came to the store for occasional supplies. He lived as his forbears had lived, by hunting and fishing, and, like them, he had a cornfield.
“He made few friends because he was gruff and short of speech and surly in manner. He had a quick temper which flared up at the least thing, and some of the men and boys teased him on purpose to make him angry. Father said it wasn’t right.