The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1911-03-30

IN ner CndlT, tneH SHTdHh AWAY lTohi
the look fixed on her. once or twice
she made as if she would speak,
then sank down in the great chair,
helpless and dismayed
The lodge of a chief" the girl
continued in a low bitter voice,
What is the lodge of a chief? A
smoky fire. pot, a bed of skins.
aih-yi, If the lodges of the Indians
were millions, and ] could be head
of all, and rule the land, yet would
rather be a white girl in the hut
of her white man, struggling for
daily bread among the people who
sweep the buffalo out, but open W
the land with the plough, and make
a thousand live where one lived be-
fore. 1t is peace you want, mother,
peace and solitude in which the soul
goes to sleep. Your days of hope
are over, and you want to browse
by the fire | want to see the white
mems cities grow, and the armies
coming over the mill with ploughs
and the reapers and the mowers,
and the wheels and the belts and
engines of the great factories, and
the white woman's life spreading ev-
erywhere, for | am white mans
daughter / cant be both Indian and
white. | will not be like the sun
where the shadow cuts across it and
the land grows dark. i will not be
half-breed. ! will be white or | will
be Indian: and / will be white, white
only Ny heart is white, my tongue
is white, / think, | feel, as white
people think and feel. What they
wish, wish; as they live, l live; as
white women dress. dress
She involuntarily drew up the dark
red skirt she wore, showing white
petticoat and pair of fine stock
ings on an ankle as graceful and
shapely as she had ever seen among
all the white women she knew. She
drew herself up with pride, and her
body had a grace and ease which
the white woman's convention had
not cramped.
Yet with all her protests, no one
would have classed her as English.
She might have been Spanish, or ltal-
ian, or Roumanian, or Slav, though
nothing of her Indian blood showed
in purely Indian characteristics, and
something sparkled in her, gave a ra
dance to her face and figure which
the storm and struggle in her did
not smother. The white women OF
Portage la Drome We're too blind,
too prejudiced, to see all that she
really was, and admiring white men
could do little, for Pauline would
have nothing to do with them till
the women met her absolutely as an
equal; and from the other half
breeds, who intermarried with eacn
other and were content to take a
lower place than the pure whites,
she held aloof, save when any of
them was i'll or in trouble. Then she
recognized the claim of race and
came to their doors with pity and
soft impulses to help them. French
and Scotch and English half-breeds,
as they were they understood how
she was making a fight for all who
We're half-Indian, nalf-white, and
watched her with a furtive devo-
tion, acknowledging her superior
place, and proud of it.
Il will not stay here said the
Indian mother with sullen stubborn
ness. Il will go back beyond the
Warais. My life is my own; i will
do what / like with it,
The girl started, but she became
composed again on the instant. rs
your life all your own, mother" she
said Il did not come into the world
of my own will. If / had ] would
have come all white or all Indian.
am your daughter. and i am here,
good or bad-is your life all your
own?'
"You can marry and stay here,
when l go. You are nineteen. I had
my man, your father, when l was
seventeen. You can marry. There are
men. You have money. They will
marry you-and forget the rest"
With a cry half of rage, half of
misery, the girl sprang to her feet
and started forward, but stopped
suddenly at sound of a hasty knock
ing and a voice asking admittance.
An instant later a huge, bearded.
broad-shouldered man stepped in
side, shaking himself free of the
snow, laughing half-sheepishly as he
did so, and laying his fur cap and
gloves with exaggerated care on the
,.-;pdou-Si1I