The little Moquis girls have wooden dolls of different sizes and degrees. The best have arms and legs, are dressed in one garment of coarse cotton, and instead of hair have feathers sticking out of their heads, like the ends of a feather duster.
A lower grade of Moquis doll has no limbs, but is gaily painted in stripes, and wears beads as big as its fist would be, if it had one. This looks as you would with a string of oranges around your neck. The poorest of all, which has evidently been loved by some poor little Indian girl, has in place of a head a sprig of evergreen. How did the white man get hold of a treasure like this? Is the little owner grown up? Is she laid to sleep under the daisies? Or was this doll left behind in a hurried flight of the Moquis village before an enemy?
It isn't an Edison doll; it can't talk,—so we shall never know.
THE WALKING PURCHASE
BY GEORGE WHEELER
IN the early twilight of a September morning, more than one hundred and sixty years ago, a remarkable company might have been seen gathering about a large chestnut-tree at the cross-roads near the Friends' meeting-house in Wrightstown, Pennsylvania. It is doubtful whether any one of us could have guessed what the meeting meant. Most of the party were Quakers in wide-brimmed hats and plain dress, and if it had been First-day instead of Third-day, we might have thought they were gathering under the well-known tree for a neighborly chat before "meeting." Nor was it a warlike rendezvous; for the war-cry of the Lenni-Lenape had never yet been raised against the "Children of Mignon" (Elder Brother), as the followers of William Penn were called; and in a little group somewhat apart were a few athletic Indians in peaceful garb and friendly attitude. But it evidently was an important meeting, for here were several prominent officials, including even so notable a person as Proprietor Thomas Penn.
In 1686, fifty-one years before this, William Penn bought from the Lenni-Lenape, or Delaware Indians, a section bounded on the east by the Delaware, on the west by the Neshaminy, and extending to the north from his previous purchases "as far as a man can go in a day and a half." No effort was made to fix the northern boundary until the Indians, becoming uneasy at the encroachments of the settlers, asked to have the line definitely marked. On August 25, 1737, after several conferences between the Delawares and William Penn's sons, John and Thomas, who, after their father's death, became proprietors of Pennsylvania, the treaty of 1686 was confirmed, and a day was appointed for beginning the walk. This explains why the crowd was gathering about the old chestnut-tree in the early dawn of that day, September 19, 1737.
"Ready!" called out Sheriff Smith.