The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1871-12-15
THE PRINCESS BOB AND HER
FRIENDS.
BY BRET HARTE.

tween her claim as daughter of Chief
and gratitude to her earliest white pro-
tector, whose name, after the Indian
\ fashion, she had adopted. Bob 4"
Walker had taken her from the breast
of her dead mother at time when the
sincere volunteer soldiery of the Cali
tornia frontier We're impressed with the
belief that determination was the mani
fest destiny of the Indian race. He
had with difficulty restrained the noble
zeal OF his compatriots long enough to
convince them that the exemption Of
one Indian baby would not invalidate
this theory. And he took her to his
home-a pastoral clearing on the banks
of the Salmon everywhere she was
cared for after frontier fashion.
Before she was nine years old, she
had exhausted the scant kindliness of
the thin, overworked Mrs. Walker. As
playfellow Of the young Walkers she
was unreliable; as nurse for the baby
she was inefficient She lost the former
IN the trackless depths Of a redwood
forest; she basely abandoned the latter
in an extemporized cradle, hanging like
a chrysalis to convenient bough. She
lied and she stole-two objectionable
sins in a frontier community, where
truth was necessity, and provisions
were the only property. Worse than
this, the outskirts of the clearing were
sometimes haunted by blanketed latter
donations with whom she had secret
condolences. Mr.. Walker more than
once regretted his indiscreet humanity;
but she presently relieved him of re-
sponsibility, and possibly of blood
outlines, by disappearing entirely.
When she reappeared, it was at the
adjacent village Of Logport, in the capa-
city Of housemaid TO traders wife,
who, joining some little culture to con-
siderable conscientiousness, attempted
to instruct her charge. But the Princess
proved an unsatisfactory pupil to even
so liberal teacher. She accepted the
alphabet with great good humor, but
always as pleasing and recurring nov
city, in which all interest expired at
the completion of each lesson. She
found thousand uses for her books
and writing materials other than those
known to civilized children. She made
curious necklace of bits of slate
pencil, she constructed miniature
canoe from the pasteboard covers of her
primer, she bent her pens into fish
hooks, and tattoed the faces Of her
younger companions with blue ink
Religious instruction she received as
good and learned to pro-
nounce the name of the Deity with a
cheerful familiarity that shocked her
perceptress. Nor could her reverence
be reached through analogy; she knew
nothing of the Great Spirit, and ex-
pressed entire ignorance of the Happy
Hunting Grounds. Yet she attended
divine service regularly, and IS regu-
larly asked for a hymn-book, and it was
only through the discovery that she had
collected twenty-five of these volumes
and hidden them behind the wood pile
that her connection with the First Bap-
fist Church Of Logport ceased. She
would occasionally abandon these civil
lied and Christian privileges, and dis
appear from her home, returning after
several days Of absence with an odor of
bark and fish, and a peace-ofiering to
her mistress in the shape Of venison or
game.
To add to her troubles, she was now
IA, and according to the laws of her
race, a woman. | do not think the
most romantic fancy would have called
her pretty. Her complexion de6ed
most of these ambiguous SMILES through
which poets unconsciously apologize for
any deviation from the Caucasian
standard. 1t was not wine or amber.
colored; if anything, it was smoky.
Her face was tattoed with red and white
lines on one cheek, as if fne-tooth
comb had been drawn from cheek bone
to jaw; and, but for the good humor
that beamed from her small, berry-like
eyes and shone in her white teeth,
would have been repulsive She was
short and stout. In her scanty drapery
and unrestrained freedom she was
hardly statuesque, and her more un-
studied attitudes were marred by a
sinlian habit of softly scratching her
left ankle with the toes of her right
foot, in moments Of contemplation.
| think have already shown enough
to indicate the incongruity of her ex.
istence with even the low standard OF
civilization that obtained in Logport in
the year 1860. 1t needed but one more
fact to prove the far-sighted political
: sagacity and prophetic ethics of those
sincere advocates of determination, to
whose virtues | have done but scant
Justice in the beginning of this article
This fact was presently furnished by
the Princess. After one of her periodi
cal isappearances-this time unusually
prolonged-she astonished Logport by
returning with half baby of 6
week old in her arms. That night
meeting of the hard-featured serious
matrons of Logport was held at Mrs
Browns. The immediate banishmen
of the Princess was demanded. Soft
hearted Mrs. Brown endeavored vainly
to get mitigation or suspension of the
sentence. But, as on former occasion
the Princess took matters into her owl
hands. A few mornings afterward ;
wicker cradle, containing an Indiar
baby, was found hanging on the handle
of the door of the First Baptist Church
II was the Parthian arrow of the fyin,
princess. From that day Logport knew
her no more.
II had been bright clear day on tn
INLAND. so clear that the ramparts o