The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1898-02-12

long. black hair, and the look Of almost
fierce animation which took possession of
her face as she pleaded her cause.
Perhaps you heard her in New York at
the Cooper Union and possibly You list
ened to her eloquent words as, like pious
Joan of Arc, she told her dreams in Handel
hall.
Well wherever you heard her, you will
which was raised in supplication to the
white man, asking him, for the sake Of a
common Maker, to be just and kind to the
Indian, and to be as his elder brother. For
Starlight is dead, having lived only long
enough to disprove her own philanthropic
doctrine The Starlight that you knew
was not the Starlight who died in Dakota
last year-died there at the hands
of drunken Indian whose squaw she was
and who had inherited all that beauty and
grace and learning and polish which Prof
Gerrald's wife had attained in-hut per-
haps it will be best to tell the whole story.
x
Starlight, born of Indians and sharing
a dirty blanket with a dog which was
destined for a future meal, passed through
q chrysalis of barbarism and emerged an
intellectual, an inspired woman. After q
kindly patron had sent her to Carlisle for
education, and after Prof. Gerald Lad
become her husband and the sharer in her
dreams, you would have looked deeply into
her life without fading anything sugges-
tive of the dog and the blanket and tho
teepee beside the frozen creek. Starlight
as Mrs. Gerald became the admired friend
of men and women of great learning, and
her portrait was printed in the newspapers,
and the addresses which she delivered were
all fully reported When she lectured her
advertising matter always announced that
the speaker would be Mrs. Gerald, wife
Of Prof Gerald, known in Sioux as Star
light" and thousands came to listen. Still
if her life was quite different from the lives
Of those Sioux squaws who still lived be-
side the creek and chopped wood and per-
formed other duties of a similar sort such
as fall to the lot of conscientious squaw,
Starlight did not forget the people of her
birth Her lectures were all calculated
for the advancement Of her red race, and
with a measureless depth of learning she
would plead the cause of the Gisinherited
Sh, 1-ol h.,
hearers to accord him his day in court-to
give him a chance, and to try to believe
that the stories of Unborn vengefulness and
bloodthirst were untrue. She sought to
uplift and save her race, and Prof. Gerald,
loving his wife and loving anthropological
inquiry, supported her fully in her earnest
efforts to show that if given an opportunity
the man Of the moccasin might yet become
the man of the market and the yardsticll
and the dollar sign. Starlight was in
demand. Women's clubs called for her,
and many chapters of Indian Rescuers were
formed because Of her persuasive words
and her sweet face.
Whenever the question of Indian aid was
up, Starlight was invited to give her views,
as fair example of what an Indian can
become il civilized and btfriended She
was considered as an authority on Indian
matters-she and her husband, for his
researches were quite as productive of
knowledge as was her experience. That
is why the two of them were sr'- to the
Dakotas when the last uprising occurred
You remember, (do you not p the prayers
which followed Starlight and her good and
learned husband, and the many predictions
that these two would be able to settle the
whole thing, and possibly by some masri-
ficent coup civiize the entire Sioux nation
over night?
1t is my intention to pass over the
details of their settlements in tie camp of
one band of the hostiles. Starlight, acting
as living passport, conveyed the Professor
readily into the village of the men of bad
heart, and tepee was given over to their
uses | am almost tempted to tell of the
hundreds of good things the Professor was
able TO do to endear himself to the Indian
rebels and to prove that the way of the
whites are not necessarily the ways of
harshness,
should like to speak of the ministra-
tions OF Starlight herself, and of the mes.
sage of peace and enlightenment which she
carried to the stern and painted men, but
must forego such recital and hasten to the
day after the battle.
You know the white mans end of the
story, for you have read the newspapers,
and certainly there were many daring
spirits among the correspondents who rode
out with the general that December morn.
ing. But you have not heard the Indian,
part Of it, You have not heard how on.
fainting messenger came rushing into til,
faraway camp gasping in inarticuate sen
tence about blood and bullets and deatl
aud horror, to be followed little later b,
another messenger, who, besides being in :
fainting condition from eXertion was ais,
wounded, and who told OF the killing q
women and OF pap0oses. You have no