The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1897-07-24

North Dakota in the spring OF 1892, from an
eastern tour of some years duration, l made a
trip to the new Indian Agency at Elbowoods. On
returning early in May, was caught in a furious
snow storm. and in blindness, myself and pony
near the bluff opening at the Coulee Of -Four
Bears. The domicile was occupied by Medicine
Shield, an hospitable Aricaree and his venerable
helpmate who prided herself in being a sister Of
John Grass, a leader among his people and Chief
Justice of the Sioux nation. This woman had
native intelligence Of a high degree and an ex-
traordinary memory for details, some Of which
have already appeared in various items Of histo-
ric interest, in proceeding pages Of this work for
its readers edihcation.
During my comfortable stay there. shielded
passing information of some local happenings
during my many years absence from the Aric-
arees. Among other particulars the story of
the Reeder family was brought out in detail. and
was told that if would sometime call at the large
school building at Elbowoods, Reeder's grand
daughter could be seen there. On my next visit
to Elbowoods, through courtesy Of $Suiperinten-
dent Gates of the Agency boarding school, l was
shown a pleasant, olive faced little girl, known to
that institute as Lottie Styles, and in a later visit
the Superintendent supplemented his interest in
the writer's curiosity, by having the young Miss,
brush up her hair and stand upon the green for a
glance al the camera.
While watching this blithefull little maid upon
the prairie sward, dressed SO nattily,--all smiles
and all sunshine. my mind went back to the
spring snow storm of two years BEFORE: when
Medicine Shields wife had told me for the first
time the early child life. of Little Bear Woman
and remembering it we'll, felt pleased now to
bear witness to the evolving contrast.
In her story of these intervening days, the
Medicine Shield Woman said deaths at that time
among the Aricarees were both frequent and
numerous. and that the sudden passing away Of
Mrs. Reeder and her daughter Rosa was almost
unnoticed among members of their tribe. The
weasoned and nearly sightless great grandmother
to Rosa's child-herself neglected by her kin
dred, in her old age and decreptitude. and appar
emily forsaken by all the living world-took her
precious charge wrapped in bits of blanket to an
abandoned and almost un,nhabitable dirt covered
lodge situated among the fast disappearing group
of decaying habitations that marked the sight Of
the last village connecting the Mandans, eros
Ventres and Aricarees with the associations of
their dreamy past.
Coopcd in her dark corner, as the days passed
one upon another, this broken belldame with the
precious mite of inheritance bundled in her lap
sat in silence save now and then a %plaintive native
ditty that came from lips of p~arAeshe, to quiet the
restless babe. Her palsied arms swaying to and
fro served as cradle, rocking baby to sleep, in its
fltfull periods of unrest, and anon her flesh
less and withered hands smoothed the fevered
infants cheeks in sickness, or caliced and bony
fingers stroked down its temples in the glow of
health. The tattered couch of discarded rags
that could no longer be- used by the young and
the proud, were idly tossed to her for such
comfort as could be made Of them for herself and
the little pinched faced elf, that she Rugged so
tenderly to her cold bosom. From her nest of
gloom and shabby poverty the old wonlan's mind
often wandered to other scenes Of her own young
girl life at old Fort Clark, or along the faniliaf
banks of the Rees Own River. Through the
cracks and %crevices of her mouldy lodge roof, she
beheld the great armament and found a name for
the nesting %babe-Plenty of Stars,--although the
unkempt hair and dirty face that greeted the
childs first toddling into the presence Of gamins
of adjoining lodges, earned for itself from her
teasers the sobrequet-Little Bear Woman.
AS time sped slowly on giving strength to the
young and bringing weakness to the aged, in
this lowly nome of the Aricaree quarter, there
came a day when out from cold and clammy arms