[ZINTKA LANUNI ("LOST BIRD").]
BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
The battle of Wounded Knee was fought on Wounded Knee Creek, near Pine Ridge Agency, December 29, 1890. Its only Indian survivor was a baby girl, five months old, found on January 1, 1891, snugly wrapped in her pappoose blanket, and almost covered with snow. The little one lay close to her dead mother, whose body was pierced by two rifle balls. The little waif was adopted by General L. W. Colby of the army, and may be seen at his home in Beatrice, Nebraska. She has been christened Marguerite Elizabeth, but the Indians call her Zintka Lanuni—Lost Bird. Our soldiers did not seek this fight; it was forced upon them by the Indians, who, in their turn, had a fear that they were to be carried away into slavery when disarmed by order of our government.
"Fight!" cried the dusky Chief of the Sioux,
"Fight! it is all we have left to do;
The white man snatches our arms away,
He drives us forth from our tents to-day.
Seize the hatchet, the axe, the brand,
Rise, my braves, for a last great stand.
What if his rifles gird us round,
We'll dare the worst on our own home ground.
These pale-faced warriors soon forget
The promise to which their hands are set;
We may not trust their worthless pledge;
Oh, for the tomahawk's lightning edge!
Fight, my braves!" cried the Chief of the Sioux,
"Fight! 'tis the sole thing left to do."
And women and men rushed madly on
To strive till the winter day was gone.
A hopeless fight from morn till night;
The winter darkness veiled the sight
Of desperate mothers with babes on backs,
Wounded and dying in their tracks;
Of a little band with axe and knife,
Facing bullets in savage strife.
No man could open their eyes to see
That the savage onslaught need not be,
That friends were forced to be deadly foes,
Till the red field hid its shuddering woes,
When night came down, and soft and free
Fell the snows on the plain of Wounded Knee.
Dying and dead, young men and old,
Lying there, stark and grim and cold,
A sorrowful tale, too often told.
Ambush and battle and storm at last
Were ended; the Indian's fears had passed.
Safe to his happy hunting-ground
His way the dusky Chief had found.
The pitying conquerors buried the dead.
A faint, faint cry their footsteps led
To a wee thing nestled under the snow,
Snug, as her mother three days ago,
Had borne her close in her blanket's fold.
But wellnigh perished with hunger and cold,
The poor little Indian baby lay,
Till the dawn of the fourth drear winter day.
Child of the battle, infant waif,
Beside her poor dead mother safe.
Zintka Lanuni, the sweet lost bird,
Lives with her captors to-day, and, stirred
By tenderest love, a gentle heart
Gives her of cup and loaf a part.
She is growing up in the white man's tent,
Daughter and princess, her childhood spent
In learning and knowing the dearest things,
This little lost bird, whose feeble wings,
Too weak to fly, one day were furled
In a rough small nest, by snows impearled.
Zintka Lanuni, all blessings be
With the little lost bird of Wounded Knee.
[THE IMP OF THE TELEPHONE.]
BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.
II.—IN THE IMP'S ROOM.
"Dear me!" ejaculated Jimmieboy, as his eye first rested upon the Imp. "That's you, eh?"