St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-06-26
Philanthropic Endeavor Per-
sisted in Through Cold
and VeXation.
Divsrting Visits From Indi-
ans the Only Relief to
Cankering Care.
A Huge Drunk, With Lemon
Extract as the Exciting
Element.

plOyer was one of the most confldlng
men | ever met. In our first converse
ton | learned all about his business and
much of his private history. He in
formed me that he stood next" to the
member of congress from his district,
and, younger than am now,f was duly
impressed with his Importance. He had
been a school teacher, and had saved
enough from his salary to purchase the
''-- independent with all that
went with it. Like great many other
people, he was sure that he knew how
to run newspaper without learning.
nothing to enable me to do good work.
We settled on fifty dollars month as
the stipend was to receive for my dis
tingulshed services.
Through the influence of his member
of congress. Mr.. Kasson enough this
was not his name) enjoyed fat clerk
ship under the state government. His
railroad lads" gave him ali annual pass,
which enabled him to spend his Sun
days at home with his family.
In the evening of the day first met
Mr.. Kasson | left with him for my new
field Of labor. The following morning-a
Sunday met him by appointment at
the hotel where | had remained over
night, and we went over to inspect his
plant. 1t was fearfully cold morning
in fact. the winter was an exception
ally cold one ali through-and
l had an opportunity to look
the town over as we passed
along. Everything looked cold and
"a 60, I fnIf In, 4,
homesick. The North wind soughed
and rocky banks OF the river most dis
mally, and the dark and sullen waters
of the stream looked oninous. When
we arrived at the office, l found that
my predecessor had left the forms
locked UP on the 'StOne," ''dead'' to
the world, in more senses than one. He
had not even taken the pains to clean
the ink off the type. which he had
soaked with water and then left to
freeze. The press was an old "WaSh-
ington." 1t was different from any
had ever seen, and l am inclined to the
theory that
1t Must Have Been a Cross
between the original press used by the
Guttenbergs and cheese press. The
try district school house. 1t was devoid
OF plaster. and the few pine slabs that
were nailed up in lieu of sheeting were
fiat failure rs cold eXcuders. The
temperature of that room was like unto
that which prevailed on the ill-fated
Polaris. The wind gently sighed
through the cracks, and,aS afterwards
learned, the SNOW found ready entrance
through these same apertureS.
After we had completed our iuyesti-
CATION, was introduced to his family
and accompanied them to church. for |
was to cultivate the good people all |
possibly could. That afternoon I was
indicted into my new boarding
place. The next day Mr.. Kass0n rushed
me around and introduced me to every
body of prominence in the place-an
almost useless undertaking, for forgot
their names directly after being pre-
scented. The residents of the town were
mostly iron miners and lumbermen,
and just outside the village limits was
Chippewa reservation.
| have intinated that the winter |
spent at this town was cold, and so it
was. | slept i'll cold room, ate where
an overcoat most of the time | was at
work in the Office. 1t seemed as though
l never would get thawed out. The
sheet iron stove in the room would have
answered the purposes of a refrigerator
most admirably. During that winter,
out of wagon load of "jack-pine" knots
succeeded in burning about two knots.
| think this kind of wood would make
excellent fire-proof building material.
1t was hard job to get out my first
number, but accomplished it. | had
few tri1ing vexations to overcome,
though. One corner of the press bed
was an inch and half tout of plumb"
While. fixing this up the compound
lever fell to pieces. The devil" set
the kerosene lamp on the forms, which
oiled them beautifully In spots, and
they declined to take the ink. AS
cons equence, when l tried to print a
sheet, instead of its beinga newspaper,
| only succeeded in producing what
closely resembled map of Africa, with
the desert of Sahara showing up
prominently in large white spot, with
numerous little white deserts all over
the sheet. But | succeeded in over
running about 200 papers.
MY second week things came much
easier. 1t was little disheartening to
compete with the opposition paper,
which had steam plant, but I did my
very best. Occasionally the Indians
would drop i'll and say "BoZhoo." for
How do You do,'' and was never able
to make clear to them the mystery of
The .sTalking Paper"
as they called the "Independent." One
day an old Chippewa came in and Or
dered some hand bills struck off adver-
81 II, h;
side of two days. He always considered
and treated me ever after with yenera-
ton and respect. During my expert
ence with the Ghippewas | picked up
number of their words and phrases.
With these people | found that every
thing, in their limited vocabulary, was
either ''Shick" or ''She-sick," equiva-
lent to ''good' and mo good" They
call fire ''pah-jail," and water "nee-
nah."
One afternoon buck came into the
office. He was thirsty, and asked for
water by saying ''neenah," and shrug-
ging his shoulders suggestively. lpdi-
ans generally are rather cautious of
what they put into their mouths, and
seldom partake of food or water with
out cycling it closely and smelling OF it
carefully. Ipointed out an old iron
kettle in the corner of the room behind
the press, in which kept concentrated
lye for cleansing the forms. The
moccasined feet of the warrior
noslessly carried him to the
kettle, whose contents, When
agitated, smelled little bit worse than
anything know Of. There was about
two quarts of the corrosive liquid in the
pot, which was completely lined with
white lye CRYSTALS. artistically colored
with iron rust. The noble red man. true
to his racial instincts. smelled of the
dipper. His suspicious were awakened.
He brought it out to the window and
examined it. 1t is seldom that an In
dian smiles, bnt this one certainly did.
He looked at me grinningly, aud simply
said:
"She-shich pah-jah neenah" good
fire water.
have said Indians seldom smile, nor
do they. However it may have been
with the old-time sachems, the modern
red man finds life altogether too serious
a matter to fritter it away in smiles.
His speciality does not'lie in mathemat-
les. He doesn't know how 10 make his
1.