The Watertown news. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1917-1919, 1917-05-28
AN ARIZONA POILU
Frenchman Makes Interesting
Discovery in Redskins Cabin.
Learns Story of How Son Of Hopi In
dian Squaw Crossed Great Water
to Fight for His Fathers
People.

IL is IN order to sell their products
to a passing public that the Hopi In
dians, one of the tribes Of Arizona,
the most marked for it's nobleness and
dignity of type, have established at
the station Of the Grand canyon a
sort of shop, furnished within, as it is
modelled without, after the manner Of
their dwellings of the desert, AnatOle
lie Braz writes in The Outlook. Cubes
of rough adobe, placed side by side or
superimposed one on the other, consti-
tute the abode, and serve as home for
several families, who wait here, in the
habitual attitude Of taciturn and mel
ancholy disdain, the line of white
visitors.
When had penetrated into the first
room, dimly lighted by small open
ing high up in the wall, it was some
time before I was able to discern in
the half-catacomb light the indistinct
figure of a woman seated on the bare
earth, before a screen of vertical
threads, among which her fingers,
moving in and out, were weaving the
pattern of a mysterious design.
My entrance did not cause her to
raise her head. But disturbed in his
musing an old bronze sachem, who in
dicated by gesture a collection of OBJ
iects, more or less rude, ranged on
shelves the length of one of the walls
or partitions, while from half open
lips he muttered in English the Gus
tOmary salutation:
you're welcome. str" which mani
festly to his mind, being interpreted,
meant:
"You are not worthy, o paleface,
to appreciate the work of our hands,
but because times are hard for the de-
posed rulers of the prairie we accord
you nevertheless the privilege to buy"
In response to his greeting had be-
gun to examine the display Of articles,
when my eye fell on a frame of colored
straw in which perceived the photo
graph Of a soldier. Approaching near
er, exclaimed, in spite Of myself:
"God bless me, he is French!'
It was quite true. There before my
sands of miles from the battlefield,
where at that very moment, no doubt,
he was fighting for his country, was
the picture of one of our soldiers, in
the uniform of the daring impetuous
Chasseurs Alpins, or it may be of the
foreign legion. To examine 1t better,
I had taken it in my hands.
'"The frame alone is for sale," inter-
posed the o. Indian, abruptly.
"All right" I said, 81 will take it.
But should like to know how the pic
ture found its way here"
He motioned toward the woman
weaving.
''It is that Of my daughters son.
He has sent it to us from the other
side of the world"
"He is, then, in FranceT
EYES,"
"How Is that?"
"His father, good miner, was born
in the land Of the French. When he
came among us he married that
squaw. He died in the desert. But
his spirit having spoken in the blood
of his child, the boy has crossed the
great water to fight the enemies of
his fathers people,"
1 could not resist the temptation to
take his hand.
''Bravo!" cried. And that he might
not be astonished at this somewhat
brusque demonstration, If one could
suppose that an Indian worthy the
name ever could be astonished at any
thing, 1 fastened to add: For ], too,
Eronnb -