LITTLE INDIANS.
Perhaps there are little children in some of the beautiful homes in the cities who cannot understand that the Indians are not all born grown up, with feathers on their heads and tomahawks in their hands. One little blue-eyed girl once said to me with a very long O-o-o-o and her hand over her mouth, “Oh, o-h! I did not know there were little Indian boys and girls!” but let me tell you, little Golden Hair, there are Indian boys and girls.
They have some very funny names, too. But there is one thing pleasant about it; their names are given to them because they mean something. As I write this article, I look out from my window and see an Indian boy with a roughly-made sled drawing his little sister up the hill so that she can slide down again behind him. Little Indians are not wholly unlike little white boys and girls. They eat and sleep, laugh and cry, but they do not fight. That comes with civilization.
I can from my window watch the boys and girls playing on the hillside every day as long as the snow lasts, and I never have heard a child cry nor have I seen one child hurt another. I can hear them laugh and shout and cheer when one tumbles off the sled, but no angry or bad words are ever used. They are very merry and happy when we remember that there is no Indian child that does not know what it is to be hungry and have the mother say there is no food.
When a little baby comes into an Indian home, he is wrapped up in a blanket and it is tied all about him so that he cannot use his arms or legs, and he looks very much like a rag doll, but he cries and laughs just like a real flesh and blood and bones baby. But, little Golden Hair, let me whisper to you one secret of the Indian baby’s happy life: he never gets spanked! They leave that to the uncivilized white mother. So, after all, the white boy does not have all the good in life; does he? Only think of sliding down hill a whole morning without even a board between the smooth snow and the trousers, going home with wet and worn clothes and not getting whipped; not even sent to bed!
Indian children are never punished; but, after all, they are not bad. The boys like to hunt the snowbirds with bows and arrows. They kill a great many too. The little girls play with corn-cob dolls and little tents and travois, or toshoes, as they call them, sometimes drawn by dogs.
The Indian children have hard lives after all. They cannot live to grow up unless they are pretty strong. A great many little ones die for want of good, wholesome food, and many for want of fresh air and warm clothes. We want all the little boys and girls in Christian homes to remember the little Dakotas. There is much good in them; and if they had the advantages you have, perhaps they would be fully as well behaved, and as true and faithful to God, as are you. Will you help us to save the little Indians?
MARY C. COLLINS.