My own special effort in the class-room during the first years was in teaching a knowledge of figures. The language of counting in Dakota was limited. The “wancha, nonpa, yamne”—one, two, three, up to ten,—every child learned, as he bent down his fingers and thumbs until all were gathered into two bunches, and then let them loose as geese flying away. Eleven was ten more one, and so on. Twenty was ten twos or twice ten, and thirty ten threes. With each ten the fingers were all bent down, and one was kept down to remember the ten. Thus, when ten tens were reached, the whole of the two hands was bent down, each finger meaning ten. This was the perfected “bending down.” It was “opawinge”—one hundred. Then, when the hands were both bent down for hundreds, the climax was supposed to be reached, which could only be expressed by “again also bending down.” When something larger than this was reached, it was a great count—something which they nor we can comprehend—a million.
On the other side of one the Dakota language is still more defective. Only one word of any definiteness exists—hankay, half. We can say hankay-hankay—the half of a half. But it does not seem to have been much used. Beyond this there was nothing. A piece is a word of uncertain quantity, and is not quite suited to introduce among the certainties of mathematics. Thus, the poverty of the language has been a great obstacle in teaching arithmetic. And that poorness of language shows their poverty of thought in the same line. The Dakotas are not, as a general thing, at all clever in arithmetic.
Before the snows had disappeared or the ducks come back to this northern land, in the spring of 1840, a baby girl had been added to the little family in the upper chamber. By the first of June, Mary was feeling well, and exceedingly anxious to make a trip across the prairie. She had been cooped up here now nearly three years. There was nowhere to go. Lac-qui-parle is the “Lake that speaks,” but who could be found around it? And no one had any knowledge of any great Indian talk held there that might have justified the name. But the romance was all taken out of the French name by the criticism of Eagle Help, that the Dakota name, “Mdaeyaydan,” did not mean “Lake that talks,” but “Lake that connects.” And so Lac-qui-parle had no historic interest. It was not a good place to go on a picnic. She had been to the Indian village frequently, but that was not a place to visit for pleasure. And on the broad prairie there was no objective point. Where could she go for a pleasure trip, but to Fort Snelling?
And so we made arrangements for the journey. The little boy “Good Bird” was left behind, and the baby Isabella had to go along, of course. We were with Mr. Renville’s annual caravan going to the fur-trader’s Mecca.
The prairie journey was pleasant and enjoyable, though somewhat fatiguing. We had our own team and could easily keep in company with the long line of wooden carts, carrying buffalo robes and other furs. It was, indeed, rather romantic. But when we reached the Traverse des Sioux, we were at our wit’s end how to proceed further. That was the terminus of the wagon-road. It was then regarded as absolutely impossible to take any wheeled vehicle through by land to Fort Snelling. Several years after this we began to do it, but it was very difficult. Then it was not to be tried. Mr. Sibley’s fur boat, it was expected, would have been at the Traverse, but it was not. And a large canoe which was kept there had gotten loose and floated away. Only a little crazy canoe, carrying two persons, was found to cross the stream with. Nothing remained but to abandon the journey or to try it on horseback. And for that not a saddle of any kind could be obtained. But Mary was a plucky little woman. She did not mean to use the word “fail” if she could help it. And so we tied our buffalo robe and blanket on one of the horses, and she mounted upon it, with a rope for a stirrup. Many a young woman would have been at home there, but Mary had not grown up on horseback. And so at the end of a dozen miles, when we came to the river where Le Sueur now is, she was very glad to learn that the large canoe had been found. In that she and baby Isabella took passage with Mr. Renville’s girls and an Indian woman or two to steer and paddle. The rest of the company went on by land, managing to meet the boat at night and camp together. This we did for the next four nights. It was a hard journey for Mary. The current was not swift. The canoe was heavy and required hard paddling to make it move onward. The Dakota young women did not care to work, and their helm’s-woman was not in a condition to do it. On the fourth day out they ran ashore somewhat hurriedly and put up their tent, where the woman pilot gave birth to a baby girl. They named it “By-the-way.” One day they came in very hungry to an Indian village. The Dakota young women were called to a tent to eat sugar. Then Mary thought they might have called “the white woman” also, but they did not. She did not consider that they were relatives.
By and by the mouth of the Minnesota was reached, through hardship and endurance. But then it was to be “a pleasure trip,” and this was the way in which the pleasure came.
Since we had last seen him, S. W. Pond had married Miss Cordelia Eggleston, a sister of Mrs. J. D. Stevens. The station at Lake Harriet had been abandoned, the Indians having left Lake Calhoun first. Mr. Stevens had gone down to Wabashaw’s village, and the Pond brothers, with their families, were occupying what was called the “Stone House,” within a mile of the Fort. Mary found an old school friend in the garrison, and so the two weeks spent in this neighborhood were pleasant and profitable.
We now addressed ourselves to the return journey. The fur boat had gone up and come down again. We were advised to try a birch-bark canoe, and hire a couple of French voyagers to row it. In the first part of the river we went along nicely. But after a while we began to meet with accidents. The strong arms of the paddlers would ever and anon push the canoe square on a snag. The next thing to be done was to haul ashore and mend the boat. By and by our mending material was all used up. It was Saturday morning, and we could reach Traverse that day if we met with no mishap. But we did meet with a mishap. Suddenly we struck a snag which tore such a hole in our bark craft that it was with difficulty we got ashore. By land, it was eight or ten miles to the Traverse. The Frenchmen were sent on for a cart to bring up the baggage. But rather than wait for them, Mary and I elected to walk and carry baby Bella. To an Indian woman that would have been a mere trifle—not worth speaking of. But to me it meant work. I had no strap to tie her on my back, and the little darling seemed to get heavier every mile we went. But, then, Mary had undertaken the trip for pleasure, and so we must not fail to find in it all the pleasure we could. And we did it. Altogether, that trip to Fort Snelling was a thing to be remembered and not regretted.
MARY’S STORY.
“Fort Snelling, June 19, 1840.
“We left Lac-qui-parle June 1, and reached Le Bland’s the Saturday following, having enjoyed as pleasant a journey across the prairie as we could expect or hope. We had expected to find at that place a barge, but we could not even procure an Indian canoe. With no other alternative, we mounted our horses on Monday, with no other saddles than our baggage. Mine was a buffalo robe and blanket fastened with a trunk strap. My spirits sank within me as I gave our little Isabella to an Indian woman to carry perched up in a blanket behind, and clung to my horse’s mane as we ascended and descended the steep hills, and thought a journey of seventy miles by land was before us.
“I rode thus nearly ten miles, and then walked a short distance to rest myself, to the place where our company took lunch. There, to our great joy, a Frenchman exclaimed, ‘Le grand canoe, le grand canoe!’ and we found that the Indian who had been commissioned to search had found and brought it down the river thus far. I gladly exchanged my seat on the horse for one in the canoe, with two Indian women and Mr. Renville’s daughters. Our progress was quite comfortable, though slow, as some of our party were invited to Indian lodges to feast occasionally, while the rest of us were sunning by the river’s bank.
“On the fourth day we had an addition to our party. The woman at the helm said she was sick—and we went on shore perhaps three-quarters of an hour on account of the rain, and when it ceased, she was ready with her infant to step into the canoe and continue rowing, although she did not resume her seat in the stern until the next morning. This is a specimen of Indian life.
“We have found Dr. and Mrs. Turner in the garrison here; she was formerly Mary Stuart of Mackinaw.”