Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1914-05-29
SKIN LIKE PARCHMENT,
SIGHT AND HEARING GOOD
Refuses to Sleep in Bed and Curls Up
in Blanket on FIoor-knew Sitting
Bull and Others Of Early Days IN
Northwest-"Too Many Wagons
Bother Him.

eNlslence. DIS d poS' A1o see'iS shSo A-
vouched for by government records. is
in Minneapolis, to see, for himself, be-
fore hs dies. the great city that has
risen in his lifetime where once prim-
eval wilderness was unbroken. The
last of the great Indian chieftains OF
the country, bent and shrunken by age
! still is able to walk about, and all his
faculties have been retained.
Noise Of City Distur5s Him.
| Two small bright eyes in the depths
of face SO scanned and wrinkled and
withered that no words can visualize 1t
looked out, from the second floor win
| dow Of the old chiefs room in the
Cliff hotel in High street, upon the
| Mississippi river. great stone pipe
and a large cloth wrapped supply OF
! "kinnickinnic" were at his hand. The
noise and rumble Of great city dis
turbcd him, and in the night he rose at
times from the blanket on the floor
! where he slept and sat at the window.
Today the bed was untouched.
Too many wagons said the old
chief. The solitude of the northern
/ woods called him and he suffered from
inconsistencies. To Charlie brunelL OF
| Little Cloud" who. with his wife and
i 6-month old baby, came along with
/ the old chief. he compla lned of the
noise. James Lydick and John Smith,
an adopted son, all Of Cass Lake. came
with the old man who was afraid TO
I trust himself alone in city.
"My People Are Going"
old OLD" he said in English. But
he lapsed into the Chippewa tongue
and spoke thru an interpreter when
be said:
My people are going. Soon I will
go. | came to see Minneapolis before
die
The lines that cross the old mans
face have worn so deep. and cross lines
of great age never seen in the ordi-
nary human countenance have inter-
sected, until the face is like the trac-
ing of brown net and purpIlsn color
that fades to deepest brown runs thru
it.
Sight and Hearing Good.
The chin and nose have drawn to-
gether and what must once have been
the features of an Indian of the high
est physical type make but 4 shapeless
mass beside which two great ears
stand out like fans as age has thinned
the back Of the head and drawn away
the flesh from the high cheek bones.
But the eyes are bright, the hearing
acute and the brain alert.
The whole great story OF the wilder
ness tina, was. and of the white mans
coming, and the wars. and al that fol-
lowed, seemed wrapped up in the per-
son of the little withered old man on
the blanket.
Into the elevator at the union sta
Brunell and James Lyd:cs on either
| side. when the train had arrived, but
when the floor began to rise under his
feet he called out hoarsely in protest
and alarm. An automobile was waiting
| at the door, but the old chief. unlike
two or three others, rushed by and re-
| fused to enter the car.
Turns From Bed in Disgust.
Blanket" he said. He was tired
from the long journey, So they got
| him room at the Cliff Hotel, and he
looked in infinite disgust at the bed
! and spread his blanket on the floor.
Then he got hungry and ate some
beefsteak, two eggs and some potatoes.
| The sight Of butter disturbed him and
| ~ was ldhcIl d" dS. luTEeu III lOT
the night. But too many wagons
went by on Hennepin avenue and he
could not sleep as peacefully as in his
| tepee in the woods.
Seventy years ago. the old man said,
in the great battle at Red Lake be-
tween the Sioux and Chippewa Indians,
he fought, and for sixty years he was
a warrior for his people in the combat
! for the hunting grounds. In the fall OF
! S4o he led his Chippewas to victory
| in dozen bloody fights, but hunger
and disease eventually wrecked the
Chippewas and they retreated to near
where ST. Cloud now stands.
! Saved Whites in Massacre.
In the great Indian uprising Of the
year 1852, the most historic warfare
incident in Minnesota, he with other
runners went north after the New Ulm
massacre, to warn the white people
of their danger Other runners fell,
pierced by Sioux arrows, but Wa-be-
ma gew-wes got thru and his friend
Illness for the whites and his efforts
in their behalf mark a part Of the his
tory of that time.
| Now my people are dying, my
youth is gone" he said today. And
he Is very sensitive on one point, for
last winter while hunting he froze his
nose. Blood run cold like squaw,''
he said. "Old, DID," and it was ap-
parent that he did not like to think
about it.
Tells How He Lived SO Long.
How any man so bent and withered,
still can stand erect and still can hear
the slightest noise and see a small OBJ
ject at great distance, is the Won
der of the old mans appearance, but
many things contributed to it. Like
the working of piece Of old and mot
tied rubber was his face, when Charlie
Brunell asked what he believed most
j contributed to his long life, the small
bead Hike eyes began to twinkle away
back in the head, the tip Of the nose
bent down to meet the chin. the mouth
opened and the great contributing
cause came out in one loud English
word:
Poker"
And then he laughed. Gone is thu
theory that the Indian does not laugh
1-oFsn to bits the idea that solemnit,