The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1905-11-09

knew no word of English, but who
could do better beadwork than any
squaw in the tribe, went to live with
Warren Rodney when he finished his
cabin on Elder creek. That was before
the gold fever reached the Black Hills,
and Rodney built the cabin that he
might fish and hunt and forget the
east and why he left it. There were
reasons why he wanted to forget his
identity as white man in his play at
being an Indian. In the first flare of
youth and the Joy of having come into
her woman's kingdom the half breed
squaw was pretty. She was proud, too.
of her white man, the house he had
built her and the girl papoose with
blue eyes. Furthermore, she had been
taught to serve man meekly. for he
was the lord of creation.
Rodney talked Sioux to her. He had
all but forgotten he was white man.
The girl papoose ran about the cabin
brown and bare but for the bead
Jacket Singing Stream had made for
her in the pride of her maternity.
Rodney called the little girl judith"
Her Indian mother never guessed the
significance Of the strange name that
she could not say. but made 1T least
ten soft singing syllables of, in the In
dian way: The little Judith greeted
her father in strange lispings; Warren
Rodney was far from unhappy in play
ing at primitive man. This occasional
r,,sSr,,
"seven SHOWS" as the Indian tongue
hath it. Then the squaw began to
break, after the manner of the women
of her fathers people. She had begun
her race with time a decade after
Warren Rodney, and she had outdis-
tanced him by a decade '7.s
And then the Tumlins came from
Tennessee to the Black Hills. They
came in an OK cart, and the days of
their journey were more than two
years. They had stopped in Ohio and
again in Illinois; they had travelled on
and on across half continent in the
wake Of a vanishing sky line The
vague westward impulse was Turing
them to California, but they waited in
Dakota that their starved stock might
fatten, and while they rested them
selves from the long journey Warren
Rodney made the acquaintance Of Sal
~ Tumlin, who rallied him on being a
''sQuaw man." ..>
Warren Rodney had almost forgotten
the sorceries of the women of his peo-
pie; he had lived so long with brown
woman, who spread no silken snares
Sallie's bushes stirred a multitude of
dead things-the wiles Of pale women.
all strength in weakness, fragile fow-
ers for tender handling - the squaw
had grown as withered as raisin.
Now, Sally Tumlin had no convic-
tons about life but that the world
owed her "a home of her own Her
mother had forged the bolt Of this
particular maxim at an early date, and
Sally saw from precocious observa-
ton that the business Of women was
home getting, to which end they must
be neat and sweet and sparing Of
speech. After the home was forthcom-
ing then indeed might a woman take
ease in slippers and wrapper, and it
is surely a wife's privilege to speak
her mind. Sally knew that she hated
travelling westward after the crawling
oxen. Her father and oafish brother
loved the makeshifts Of the wagon
life. The cabin on Elder creek had Il
tight roof; Warren Rodney had money
In the bank. He had had uncommon
luck at trapping. His talk to Sally
was largely Of his prospects.
Sally knew that the world owed her
"a home of her own" and why should
she let a squaw keep her from it.?
Sally's mother giggled when consulted.
She plainly regarded the squaw as a
rival of her daughter. The ethics of
the case, as far as Mrs. Tumlin was
concerned, was merely question of
white skin against brown and which
should carry the day. Singing Stream
knew not one word of the talk, much
OF which occurred in her very pres
ence, that threatened to pull her home
about her ears, but she knew that
Sally was taking her man from her,
The white skinned woman wore white
ruft1es about her neck and calico
dresses that were the color of the wild
roses that grew among the willows at
the creek. Sally Tumlin's pink calico
gowns sowed a crop of nettles in the
mind of the squaw. It was the rain
bow things, she felt, that were rob-
bing her of her man. All her barbaric
craving for glowing colors asserted it.
self as means toward the one great
end of keeping him. Singing Stream
began to scheme schemes. One day
Rodney was splitting wood at the
Iumlin camp, though why he should
split wood where there were two wo-
men puzzled the squaw, but the ways
OF the palefaces were beyond her ken.
She only knew that she must make
herself beautiful in the eyes of War
rem Rodney, like this devil woman,
and then perhaps the papoose that
she expected with the first snowfall
would be man child, and she hoped