We feel sure that our readers will be pleased by the announcement on the next page of a serial story by their friend Mr. W. O. Stoddard. The story is a long one, and will contain a chapter of intensely interesting reading for each week of the coming winter.
Sometimes when we open the Post-office Box, and read the letters you send us, we try to imagine how you look, and wonder whether we would know you if we happened to meet you going to school, or riding your gentle ponies over the hills, or perhaps busy feeding your pets, and helping along at home. We fancy we would recognize our own Young People by their bright faces and straightforward speech and polite manners. Though we can not print all the letters, we like to read them, and we think just as much of the letters we can not publish as of those which appear in these columns. Remember this, Hannah and Joe, Theodore and Bessie, and write to us again.
Please use black ink, boys and girls, and, to spare our eyes, do not use red ink nor a lead-pencil.
Fort Reno, Indian Territory.
Would you like to hear about an Indian dance, or "medicine," which I saw a little while ago? It was in a very large tent composed of several "tepees," or tents of the kind the Indians live in. The dancers were almost naked, painted black or yellow with white marks, and most of them had willow wreaths on their heads, wrists, and ankles. They jumped up and down, blowing on whistles made of the bone of an eagle's wing. In one corner of the tent was a "tom-tom," or big drum, which was beaten by five or six Indians, who sang at the same time, or at least did what they called singing, though it sounded more like howling in my ears. After much drumming and singing, the "medicine-man" and two or three others came forward and stood near the middle pole. One took down two ropes, while another sat down. The "medicine-man" then picked up a knife and some sticks and went up to the side of the man who was sitting down, and pinching up some of the skin on either side of his breast, ran the knife through it, and then taking one of the sticks, he put it through the hole. Then he and another man slipped the ropes over the sticks and went away. The tortured Indian got up and jumped first to one side and then to the other, trying to break loose. The skin stood out about four and a half inches, but would not break: at last it gave way, and the man went head first into the fire which was behind him. After this several others were tied up in the same way. The dance continued several days.
I like "The Cruise of the 'Ghost,'" "The Brave Swiss Boy," and "Across the Ocean," but "Toby Tyler" is my favorite. I have taken Young People from the first number, and could hardly do without it. I am just eleven years old.
William Wirt L.