Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1872-09-19
ny OLIVE TIIORNS.
I.-LITcLE LIVE CANDLES.

bones, or pOlDCe0 n0llS.
When the Indian gets among the
pretty fish playing in the moonlight,
he sweeps his IRENE ndous comb through
the water with all his strength, bring.
ing it up half full of fish, sticking to
the dreadful teeth. Holding it up over
the canoe, he gives it a rap, and the
dsh fall off,. Thus he keeps on till
his boat 10 full of the silvery little fel.
lows.
The next thing is to dry them, and
this the sqnaws do, by stringing them
to a stick, running it through their
eyes. and hanging them up in the wig.
wan to dry aud smoke.
The upper part of an Indian wigwam
is the best place in the world to smoke
things, for it is always thick with
smoke. When the beautiful little fish
are all dry, and shrivveled up, the
squaws take long wooden needle,
threaded with stringy bark, and draw
it through the fish, from head to tail.
That is for the wick, and The fish is 80
fat it will burn like a CANDLE.
Not all of them are burned, however,
the Indians like them to eat, and when
they have enough laid up for that pur-
pose. they make oil of the rest, by heat
ing and pressing.
Then comes the need of something
to hold oil; and, as have said, they
have only to gather them out of the
sea, to have all the quart bottles they
want. These vegetable bottles are the
hollow stems of q water plant, which
grows very large, and near the root
swells out into natural bottle. The
Indians cut off the stem, fill them with
oil, and cork them up.
This is another article of food the
Indians get from the sea. only the
squaws have to get them, for an Indian
thinks it beneath his dignity to do 80.
1 never heard any of them refusing to
eat them, however.
How do you think it would feel, when
you were lying quietly at home, to
have big stick pushed under you, and
all of sudden I've jerked up through
the top of the house, out into the light,
and then be seized by big giant, and
thrown in to a h0rrid basket, with other
stolen children.
That's just what happens to the poor
little clans, who live in the sand bank
on the sea shore. When the water is
over the sand, Mr.. Clam buries himself
two feet deep. By and by the water
goes back, aud leaves the beach bare.
Now if the clam would only keep quiet,
he could never be found, but he has a
funny fashion of spirting up little jets
of sen water, several inches high.
The squaw takes a long stick and
goes after him. When be spirits up
the water, she pushes the stick under,
and just prizes him out, then grabs him,
and throws HIM in his basket.
don't suppose he's much frightened
at first, for he has a good strong shell,
like an oyster shell, you know, and he
just shuts it. up, certain that no one
can open it. No knife can get in, and
he's almost as safe as if he were
ocketl up in castle.
But that don't worry madame squaw.
She knows q very cunning trick to
make the gentleman open his shell.
She merely lays him carefully upon a
pile of red hot stooes, and sits down
with sharp stick IN her hand, to wait
till he chooses to open.
=. She don't wait long, for the heat soon
goes through his shell, and Mr.. Clam
finds it intolerable close.
Whew," he says to himself, lat
least 1 suppose he does, "this is get
ting little to hot! don't hear any
noise, and I guess the red giant has
gone away. 1 must have sniff of fresh
air."
So he opens his shell little, when
willy Madame Squaw just pushes her
lick into the door, and he can't shut
It up again. Then she takes knife
and gets him out-dead, of course.
When she has pile of them, she
takes long wooden needle, with a
string for thread, strings them Just like
dried apples, and hangs them up to
smoke in her smoke house-the TOP of
the wigwam.
Madame Squaw has to prepare a
good many strings of dried CLAIMS be-
fore summer is over, or else she and
her babies would starve in winter, and
they don't like starving any better than
you do, If they do eat such horrible
looking things.
| suppose you'd almost starve befor.
you could eat the dried CLANS, for white
people, who have tasted them. say they
taste like old rope favored with tar
don't believe you'd like that very
much.
u.-HUaaED TO DEATH.
Can You imagine how spider woult
look, five feet high2
"Ugh !" did you saya Well, you't
say it louder and more emphatically j
you could see the creature that look,
like spider five feet high when h,
takes promenade away down on tn,
bottom of the sea.
I'm sure I'm glad he has to sta,
down IN the ocean, and can't come III
On the land, for I have no wish to sc,
him, it's bad enough to read abou
him.
He isn't obliged to walk he ca,
swim, or climb the straight side of
rock, as a fly can climb a wall, will
perfect ease. He is called by fisher
men a mansucker," though, in til,
books, his name is Octopus.
He is an odd looking creature. I,
the centre is q round body, nearly al
mouth: and sticking ont every wa!
from his body like the rays of q star
Aic eIBuG nOfTlDl0 arms. Line arms ar
Hat, and tough like leather,-indee,
the whole creature hasn't bone il
him believe; and there are thre
rows of suckers the whole lenCl of eacl
arm.
Some Of the suckers are as large o
an egg cup. Wlc, he seizcs nnythin,
with his arm, every sucker fastens it
self tightly to the victim, and there
no way to get them off but to cut Of
the arm itself.
He's too lazy to hunt for his food, 8,
he lies quiet in the water, with hi
body perhaps under q stone, for h
can squeeze himself flat rs u pancake
with his arms floating carclessl,
around.
Then he looks exactly like certai,
? plants that grow in tho sen, anu TIL
fish brush by him -; but the instant on
touches one OF the dreadful arms,
sastcns on him. ,lrags him up to tn
= creatures; month, and Grams him in.
l told y"u he WAS called man suck
or. That is hoQause OF dreadful habi