Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1910-02-26

SO1OAS1 SudTl6S Z. u OrQdn
red-skinned wife. And when one con
siders the list of names of other IA
nous Squaw men, and the fact that
the children of their Indian wive:
have taken no pains to chop down and
/ burn the ancestral tree, but have
pointed to it with pride. and are still
/ pointing, one must admit that the case
for the squaw man is not so hopeless
in the social court. Besides. wherev
er one looks deep down into the an
cestral springs of our American race
! one is likely to see here and there the
rising jets of Indian blood mingling
with the clear stream of white gen
GRAFTON, and the whole flowing away
so quietly that a superficial observer
rarely suspects the mixture To what
| social and intellectual attitudes Indian
| blood has risen in this country is seen
when one learns of the high officials
at Washington, the writers, doctors
lawyers, who have in them an aboric
/ inal strain.
Though it is. happily. true that the
tie of civilized wedlock is generally
recognized by the white men who have
taken the hands of Indian maidens in
marriage. there are sad exceptions.
Some pioneers. government officials,
and army officers of high rank and low
morals have never acknowledged as
/ their wives the devoted Indian women
united to them by solemn tribal rites.
And here and there an Indian girl
Tpoo Cd nj hoI
good reason to sing with her far
Eastern sister the song of the Shall
mar That such instances are excep-
tions among the Sioux is partly due
to strict paternaI discipline. The girls
are wise in their generation, they not
only insist on civilized marriage. but,
as a rule. they will not marry any
white man who drinks or CANDLES.
or is not worth a thousand dollars.
One of the pathetic exceptions came
in my way in an auto journey across
a reservation l shall venture to tell
about it with somewhat irrelevant de-
tails. since it shows one of the gravest
dangers that menace the Indians.
1 picked up in the auto an agency
doctor, who was going to treat an In
dian girl threatened with pneumonia.
Against the government rule. the poor
young thing had married at 10. the le-
gal age being Is. She was now %
and had four children, but no husband.
He had run off with a white school
mistress from Yankton.
It's a pretty tough case said the
doctor. "as you'll see if you want to
look at it."
1 didn't particularly want to look at
it, but I ventured into the squalid log
house long enough to get an idea or
two. 1 saw the young mother, with
her four half-breed children, three
boys and one girl. living in a 16 by
"a cabin with a dirt roof and a dirt
floor, down in a lonely coulee. The
woman's older sister. her mother. and
her blind old father were staying with
her Before we entered the cabin
shifted cigaret smoke and on going
in found that the inside air was full
of it, 1t was a chilly October day,
and all the windows were closed tight,
while every crack that might have af-
forded ventilation was sealed with
dried adobe. The children were larlling
and kicking up the dust All the in
mates of the house were coughing,
and from the small inner room, where
the sick woman lay, came an occasion
al moan. On entering the doctor left
the outside door open. but it was i'm
mediately closed by the patients sis
ter, who pulled her cigaret in my face
as she offered me one with the air of
an adept l didn't take the cigaret.
Soon afterward 1 saw the little girls
aunt light and stick it between the
baby lips. The infant smoked away
in serene contentment.
DO you allow that, doctor?'' l ask
ed in a protesting tone.
NO; but what's the use?'' he said
with a cynical laugh They'd do it
anyway. Want to see the patient?"
l peeped into the deserted wife's
room with a sacrilegious feeling that
l haven't got over yet, and was sur
prised to see, instead of the pale emac-
lated creature had pictured, a round
faced girl of distinctly Indian features,
and eyes at which you could have light
ed candle. But her cheeks had an
uncanny redness that was not rouge
nor grease.paint. The doctor talked
to her with professional cheeriness,
and she replied huskily. He took her
shook his head. and thea |
tried to raise the window; but it was
nailed tight, So he picked up one of
the women's wrinkled shoes from the /.
floor. and knocked the heel of it |
against a pane As it crashed and |
-inkled down outside. the woman in
he bed pulled the blankets over her /
head
at doesn't do any good" said the |
nan of medicine sadly. when he re-
Joined me outside I've left two big |
bottles of dope which she'll drain to !