The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-10-20


cook it into mush, and sometimes they
make it into kind of big cakes like tor
tillas.
l guess III have to stop to explain to
you how happen to know so much about
what the Indians do.
You see we went on an excursion one
day to place they call Sand Canyon.
It's an awful place. Sand Canyon-the
worst ever saw. It's where just few
Indians live that have been driven away
from the oak groves and the brooks and
springs.
The Indians that we saw in Sand Canyon
were starving. We had a few things left
from our lunch and we gave them to the
little children that came down the trail to
meet US.
When the old squaws saw the papooses
eating they ent down on their knees and
stretched out their awful bony arms,
laWbling to US in their crazy languages to
give them something. too. There wasn't a
crumb left, and | almost never felt SO sorry
about anything in all my life.
thought If l could ever get out where
Gimp all those mountains with one on my
back and give it to them.
There was kind OF mudhole in the bot
tom OF the canyon, and all the water those
people had they dipped up out of there.
We were pretty thirsty when we came to
the rancheria that's what they call All In
dian settlement-but we were not thirsty
enough to drink that water.
1t was in beautiful basket-iug though,
that some sduaw had woven out of tu1es,
and made water-tight.
My uncle wanted to buy that jug, of
course. He most always wants to buy
everything, and besides he knows a lady
that Just loves Indian baskets. Uncle
DICK pulled out about handful of dollars
and Offered them tn tho tb jI,r-
she looked at the basket, and guess she
thought it looked pretty.
She looked down at the mudhole, and l
suppose she wondered how they were GO
Ing TO get any more water up the hill with
out that jug.
Then the squaw looked at that handful
OF money and the tears rolled down her
cheeks.
She reached out her hand just as slow,
and she gave up the basket and took the
money. Then she turned her back on us
and went into her wikiup, and we didn't
see her any more.
Uncle Dick says she probably cried be-
cause her husband would take that money
away from her as soon as he heard of it
and ride twenty miles to saloon to get
drunken than he ever was before.
| hope he didn't do it.
These Indians had two kinds of houses
summer houses and winter houses. Both
OF them were something like baskets and
l should think a high wind would blow
away the whole village.
vi course, the sqGaws made everything.
They are just about like white people
about that, l guess.
Tie women seem to do all the work,
while the men are gone to town.
The summer houses were pretty.
They were made of branches of trees,
with the leaves left on, woven together
in to roof.
The roof is held up by stakes driven into
the ground, and sometimes there are
sidewalks made like the roof The leaves
get dry, but they don't fall off, and they
stay.
When you see all those big things up
there in the mountains, the big trees, the
big rocks and the big hills, you can't help
thinking of giants. / used to dream about
people who were so tall and had such long
legs they could step from the top of one
mountain to the top of another just at one
step. One night l dreamed that my little
sister and | got lost.
| thought we walked over to the other
side of a mountain, and we came to q
splendid marble palace that had hundreds
| OF rooms a mile wide and mile high.
My sister and were little bit lonesome
there, and she was afraid, because she's
only girl, you know.
l took hold OF her hand, and we walked
| ilOl-S lOSStHS1 IOOhlIS dt VIC pictures OF
people big enough to match the trees out
| side.
The house was full of splendid things,
and there was a table spread as if for a
feast. We wanted to drink, my sister and
l, but the gold cups were SO heavy we
could not lift them, even when we had
climbed upon the chairbacks, which made
good ladders till we could see the tops OF
the tables.
We found closets filled with wonderful
gowns, silks and satins and Iaces.
My sister could hardly go away and
leave these things. But she couldn't even
wear one of the lace handkerchiefs for q
shawl, because it was too big.
Alter while, though. we found room
that was smaller than the rest, and in
there we found lot OF pretty things that
must have been dolly clothes in the giants
! time.
Phyllis put on silk dress with pink
roses all over it and q lot of lace rutf1es.
The gown tTalled behind her for yards and
yards, and even when | was asleep / could
see that tickled my little sister most to
death. Just as | was leading Phyllis
down the marble steps to gold carriage
that was waiting for US, band began to
play and woke me up.
Ever since that time I've thought that
if | could really be just what pleased, I'd
choose to be giant of long ago.
That dream hasn't anything to do with
the secret was going to tell you about how
they make ranches grow. This is the way
they do it. The man who owns all that
grafit--it really belongs to one old woman
now-has to have lot of hired men you
| know.
The ranch is a cattle range, and they
hire Mexican vaqueros to take care of the
stock. They have to hire lot of them.
The vaqueros live in rough little cabins out
among the hills.
! Nobody else can go there to take up land
because they wouldn't be allowed to cross
the grant to get to their own claims.
So then the owners of the grant Just get
their hired men to take up homestead
claims in there, and to sell the claims to
them for just about nothing at all.
OF course the poor Mexicanos have to
swear to few lies, but they are only
| 'greaserS' anyway, and [ suppose they
don't know much about what they are do
ing.
They know how to ride horseback
though those Mexicanos.
Before We came away they had the big
rodeo that happens once year. Vaqueros
rode over the Mills for about a week herd
ing up the cattle
They coaxed them with salt, and they
called them with big halloes.
almost thought the yaqueros and the
cattle understood each others language.
The cowboys would call and call, and the