The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-08-14

But did you see that melOn-pink moon last week? Our cOrnfields were cracking with cOOns during that spell of supreme moonlight. We saw one old coon that had been delayed. He was so fat his tumny dragged on the ground and he scarcely noticed the bull- frog that he was carrying home to the missus just to prove he hadn't been out with the boys.
 E. P Roland, Green Bay, Wis .conSin, complains: Out in the town of Hobart :. that used to be part of the Oneida Indian Reservation there are still quite a number of Indians who, up to the time relief took over, were willing to work and able to make their own living. Within 30 days after the relief set in, it put the Oneida Indians back about 25 years. One of the w. P. A projects which I have in mind is about F big fat lazy In- dians sitting up at the Episcopal Hall for about 2 years supposed to be writing the Oneida Indian language. After they had it written, they didn't know what to do with it, so they continued with that same project, or a new one, to write 8 dictionary of the In- dian language; each one of them getting $70 a month. (Now can you tell me who wants to learn the Indian language, and what they are going to do with the dic- tionary?)"
 Roland continues: "Then we have several projects over in our courthouse. A bunch of loafers are sitting around tables blocking the railways, supposed to be working on old records or trying to clear mp the family tree of lot of old, early French frog catchers and muskrat hunters who lived along the Fox River in early days in little shanties."
 The trouble with MT. Roland is, he doesn't appreciate research when he sees 1t. If we had a rec ord of the muskrat cycle along the Housantonic, think how irn- portant 1t would be to men like Nate Evarts who make their liv- ing trapping? If we had dic- tionary of the Pootatuck Injun lingo, think how easy it would be to discover what really happened to the tribe, and how simple it would be to decipher the code they used on their earthenware pots trying to tell future genera tions how they were traded out of their lands?
 We read that, There was a tribe of Indians residing on the HOusatcnic river at Pootatuck. They had their village on the hill nOrtherly of the present dwelling of Elizur Mitchell's, where they built their council fires, held pow VOWS and performed their vari- Ous superstitious rites incident to savage life. In the sale of their lands, they reserved a large tract at the southwest corner, since known as South Purchase, which they retained for 8 number of years, but finally sold it to the said proprietOrS, reserving nothing but their homestead, their beloved PoOtatuck, which they disposed of in 8 few years and then disap- peared, like the leaves of autumn, no one knows where"
 There's a mystery story for you. Disappeared no one knows where" Think! Did the Poota- tucks lose their vast holdings in 8 blackjack game with one of our good churchmen, or did they trade it off for felt boot cider or an aluminium frying pan? Gosh! If we'd only had a w. P. A. Poota- tuck Injun dictionary, we would unravel that mystery and find out whether or not our Tnjuns got an even break on the clean-up.