Among the Delawares

Quindaro was a straggling but pretty little town built among the groves of the west bank of the Missouri. Here the emigrants found a store or trading-post, well supplied with the goods they needed, staple articles of food and the heavier farming-tools being the first required. The boys looked curiously at the big breaking-plough that was to be of so much consequence to them in their new life and labors. The prairies around their Illinois home had been long broken up when they were old enough to take notice of such things; and as they were town boys, they had never had their attention called to the implements of a prairie farm.

“It looks like a plough that has been sat down on and flattened out,” was Oscar’s remark, after they had looked the thing over very critically. It had a long and massive beam, or body, and big, strong handles, suggestive of hard work to be done with it. “The nose,” as Sandy called the point of the share, was long, flat, and as sharp as a knife. It was this thin and knife-like point that was to cut into the virgin turf of the prairie, and, as the sod was cut, the share was to turn it over, bottom side up, while the great, heavy implement was drawn along by the oxen.

“But the sod is so thick and tough,” said Oscar, “I don’t see how the oxen can drag the thing through. Will our three yoke of cattle do it?”

The two men looked at each other and smiled. This had been a subject of much anxious thought with them. They had been told that they would have difficulty in breaking up the prairie with three yoke of oxen; they should have four yoke, certainly. So when Mr. Howell explained that they must get another yoke and then rely on their being able to “change work” with some of their neighbors who might have cattle, the boys laughed outright.

“Neighbors!” cried Sandy. “Why, I didn’t suppose we should have any neighbors within five or ten miles. Did you, Oscar? I was in hopes we wouldn’t have neighbors to plague us with their pigs and chickens, and their running in to borrow a cupful of molasses, or last week’s newspaper. Neighbors!” and the boy’s brown face wore an expression of disgust.

“Don’t you worry about neighbors, Sandy,” said his uncle. “Even if we have any within five miles of us, we shall do well. But if there is to be any fighting, we shall want neighbors to join forces with us, and we shall find them handy, anyhow, in case of sickness or trouble. We cannot get along in a new country like this without neighbors, and you bear that in mind, Master Sandy.”

The two leaders of this little flock had been asking about the prospects for taking up claims along the Kansas River, or the Kaw, as that stream was then generally called. To their great dismay, they had found that there was very little vacant land to be had anywhere near the river. They would have to push on still further westward if they wished to find good land ready for the pre-emptor. Rumors of fighting and violence came from the new city of Lawrence, the chief settlement of the free-State men, on the Kaw; and at Grasshopper Falls, still further to the west, the most desirable land was already taken up, and there were wild stories of a raid on that locality being planned by bands of Border Ruffians. They were in a state of doubt and uncertainty.

“There she is! There she is!” said Charlie, in a loud whisper, looking in the direction of a tall, unpainted building that stood among the trees that embowered the little settlement. Every one looked and saw a young lady tripping along through the hazel brush that still covered the ground. She was rather stylishly dressed, “citified,” Oscar said; she swung a beaded work-bag as she walked.

“Who is it? Who is it?” asked Oscar, breathlessly. She was the first well-dressed young lady he had seen since leaving Iowa.

“Sh-h-h-h!” whispered Charlie. “That’s Quindaro. A young fellow pointed her out to me last night, just after we drove into the settlement. She lives with her folks in that tall, thin house up there. I have been looking for her to come out. See, she’s just going into the post-office now.”

“Quindaro!” exclaimed Sandy. “Why, I thought Quindaro was a squaw.”

“She’s a full-blooded Delaware Indian girl, that’s what she is, and she was educated somewhere East in the States; and this town is named for her. She owns all the land around here, and is the belle of the place.”

“She’s got on hoop-skirts, too,” said Oscar. “Just think of an Indian girl a squaw wearing hoops, will you?” For all this happened, my young reader must remember, when women’s fashions were very different from what they now are. Quindaro that is to say, the young Indian lady of that time was dressed in the height of fashion, but not in any way obtrusively. Charlie, following with his eyes the young girl’s figure, as she came out of the post-office and went across the ravine that divided the settlement into two equal parts, mirthfully said, “And only think! That is a full-blooded Delaware Indian girl!”

But, their curiosity satisfied, the boys were evidently disappointed with their first view of Indian civilization. There were no blanketed Indians loafing around in the sun and sleeping under the shelter of the underbrush, as they had been taught to expect to see them. Outside of the settlement, men were ploughing and planting, breaking prairie, and building cabins; and while our party were looking about them, a party of Delawares drove into town with several ox-carts to carry away the purchases that one of their number had already made. It was bewildering to boys who had been brought up on stories of Black Hawk, the Prophet, and the Sacs and Foxes of Illinois and Wisconsin. A Delaware Indian, clad in the ordinary garb of a Western farmer and driving a yoke of oxen, and employing the same curious lingo used by the white farmers, was not a picturesque object.

“I allow that sixty dollars is a big price to pay for a yoke of cattle,” said Mr. Howell, anxiously. He was greatly concerned about the new purchase that must be made here, according to the latest information. “We might have got them for two-thirds of that money back in Illinois. And you know that Iowa chap only reckoned the price of these at forty-five, when we traded with him at Jonesville.”

“It’s no use worrying about that now, Aleck,” said his brother-in-law. “I know you thought then that we should need four yoke for breaking the prairie; but, then, you weren’t certain about it, and none of the rest of us ever had any sod-ploughing to do.”

“No, none of us,” said Sandy, with delightful gravity; at which everybody smiled. One would have thought that Sandy was a veteran in everything but farming.

“I met a man this morning, while I was prowling around the settlement,” said Charlie, “who said that there was plenty of vacant land, of first-rate quality, up around Manhattan. Where’s that, father do you know? He didn’t, but some other man, one of the New England Society fellows, told him so.”

But nobody knew where Manhattan was. This was the first time they had ever heard of the place. The cattle question was first to be disposed of, however, and as soon as the party had finished their breakfast, the two men and Charlie sallied out through the settlement to look up a bargain. Oscar and Sandy were left in the camp to wash the dishes and “clean up,” a duty which both of them despised with a hearty hatred.

“If there’s anything I just fairly abominate, it’s washing dishes,” said Sandy, seating himself on the wagon-tongue and discontentedly eyeing a huge tin pan filled with tin plates and cups, steaming in the hot water that Oscar had poured over them from the camp-kettle.

“Well, that’s part of the play,” answered Oscar, pleasantly. “It isn’t boy’s work, let alone man’s work, to be cooking and washing dishes. I wonder what mother would think to see us at it?” And a suspicious moisture gathered in the lad’s eyes, as a vision of his mother’s tidy kitchen in far-off Illinois rose before his mind. Sandy looked very solemn.

“But, as daddy says, it’s no use worrying about things you can’t help,” continued the cheerful Oscar; “so here goes, Sandy. You wash, and I’ll dry ’em.” And the two boys went on with their disagreeable work so heartily that they soon had it out of the way; Sandy remarking as they finished it, that, for his part, he did not like the business at all, but he did not think it fair that they two, who could not do the heavy work, should grumble over that they could do. “The worst of it is,” he added, “we’ve got to look forward to months and months of this sort of thing. Father and Uncle Charlie say that we cannot have the rest of the family come out until we have a house to put them in a log-cabin, they mean, of course; and Uncle Charlie says that we may not get them out until another spring. I don’t believe he will be willing for them to come out until he knows whether the Territory is to be slave or free. Do you, Oscar?”

“No, indeed,” said Oscar. “Between you and me, Sandy, I don’t want to go back to Illinois again, for anything; but I guess father will make up his mind about staying only when we find out if there is to be a free-State government or not. Dear me, why can’t the Missourians keep out of here and let us alone?”

“It’s a free country,” answered Sandy, sententiously. “That’s what Uncle Charlie is always saying. The Missourians have just as good a right here as we have.”

“But they have no right to be bringing in their slavery with ’em,” replied the other. “That wouldn’t be a free country, would it, with one man owning another man? Not much.”

“That’s beyond me, Oscar. I suppose it’s a free country only for the white man to come to. But I haven’t any politics in me. Hullo! there comes the rest of us driving a yoke of oxen. Well, on my word, they have been quick about it. Uncle Charlie is a master hand at hurrying things, I will say,” added Sandy, admiringly. “He’s done all the trading, I’ll be bound!”

“Fifty-five dollars,” replied Bryant, to the boys’ eager inquiry as to the price paid for the yoke of oxen. “Fifty-five dollars, and not so very dear, after all, considering that there are more people who want to buy than there are who want to sell.”

“And now we are about ready to start; only a few more provisions to lay in. Suppose we get away by to-morrow morning?”

“Oh, that’s out of the question, Uncle Aleck,” said Oscar. “What makes you in such a hurry? Why, you have all along said we need not get away from here for a week yet, if we did not want to; the grass hasn’t fairly started yet, and we cannot drive far without feed for the cattle. Four yoke, too,” he added proudly.

“The fact is, Oscar,” said his father, lowering his voice and looking around as if to see whether anybody was within hearing distance, “we have heard this morning that there was a raid on this place threatened from Kansas City, over the border. This is the free-State headquarters in this part of the country, and it has got about that the store here is owned and run by the New England Emigrant Aid Society. So they are threatening to raid the place, burn the settlement, run off the stock, and loot the settlers. I should like to have a company of resolute men to defend the place,” and Mr. Bryant’s eyes flashed; “but this is not our home, nor our fight, and I’m willing to ‘light out’ right off, or as soon as we get ready.”

“Will they come to-night, do you think?” asked Sandy, and his big blue eyes looked very big indeed. “Because we can’t get off until we have loaded the wagon and fixed the wheels; you said they must be greased before we travelled another mile, you know.”

It was agreed, however, that there was no immediate danger of the raid certainly not that night; but all felt that it was the part of prudence to be ready to start at once; the sooner, the better. When the boys went to their blankets that night, they whispered to each other that the camp might be raided and so they should be ready for any assault that might come. Sandy put his “pepper-box” under his pillow, and Charlie had his trusty rifle within reach. Oscar carried a double-barrelled shot-gun of which he was very proud, and that weapon, loaded with buckshot, was laid carefully by the side of his blankets. The two elders of the party “slept with one eye open,” as they phrased it. But there was no alarm through the night, except once when Mr. Howell got up and went out to see how the cattle were getting on. He found that one of the sentinels who had been set by the Quindaro Company in consequence of the scare, had dropped asleep on the wagon-tongue of the Dixon party. Shaking him gently, he awoke the sleeping sentinel, who at once bawled, “Don’t shoot!” to the great consternation of the nearest campers, who came flying out of their blankets to see what was the matter. When explanations had been made, all laughed, stretched themselves, and then went to bed again to dream of Missouri raiders.

The sun was well up in the sky next day, when the emigrants, having completed their purchases, yoked their oxen and drove up through the settlement and ascended the rolling swale of land that lay beyond the groves skirting the river. Here were camps of other emigrants who had moved out of Quindaro before them, or had come down from the point on the Missouri opposite Parkville, in order to get on to the road that led westward and south of the Kaw. It was a beautifully wooded country. When the lads admired the trees, Mr. Howell somewhat contemptuously said: “Not much good, chiefly black-jacks and scrub-oaks”; but the woods were pleasant to drive through, and when they came upon scattered farms and plantations with comfortable log-cabins set in the midst of cultivated fields, the admiration of the party was excited.

“Only look, Uncle Charlie,” cried Sandy, “there’s a real flower-garden full of hollyhocks and marigolds; and there’s a rose-bush climbing over that log-cabin!” It was too early to distinguish one flower from another by its blooms, but Sandy’s sharp eyes had detected the leaves of the old-fashioned flowers that he loved so well, which he knew were only just planted in the farther northern air of their home in Illinois. It was a pleasant-looking Kansas home, and Sandy wondered how it happened that this cosey living-place had grown up so quickly in this new Territory. It looked as if it were many years old, he said.

“We are still on the Delaware Indian reservation,” replied his uncle. “The Government has given the tribe a big tract of land here and away up to the Kaw. They’ve been here for years, and they are good farmers, I should say, judging from the looks of things hereabouts.”

Just then, as if to explain matters, a decent-looking man, dressed in the rude fashion of the frontier, but in civilized clothes, came out of the cabin, and, pipe in mouth, stared not unkindly at the passing wagon and its party.

“Howdy,” he civilly replied to a friendly greeting from Mr. Howell. The boys knew that “How” was a customary salutation among Indians, but “Howdy” struck them as being comic; Sandy laughed as he turned away his face. Mr. Bryant lingered while the slow-moving oxen plodded their way along the road, and the boys, too, halted to hear what the dark-skinned man had to say. But the Indian for he was a “civilized” Delaware was a man of very few words. In answer to Mr. Bryant’s questions, he said he was one of the chiefs of the tribe; he had been to Washington to settle the terms of an agreement with the Government; and he had lived in that cabin six years, and on the present reservation ever since it was established.

All this information came out reluctantly, and with as little use of vital breath as possible. When they had moved on out of earshot, Oscar expressed his decided opinion that that settler was no more like James Fenimore Cooper’s Indians than the lovely Quindaro appeared to be. “Why, did you notice, father,” he continued, “that he actually had on high-heeled boots? Think of that! An Indian with high-heeled boots! Why, in Cooper’s novels they wear moccasins, and some of them go barefoot. These Indians are not worthy of the name.”

“You will see more of the same sort before we get to the river,” said his father. “They have a meeting-house up yonder, by the fork of the road, I am told. And, seeing that this is our first day out of camp on the last stage of our journey, suppose we stop for dinner at Indian John’s, Aleck? It will be a change from camp-fare, and they say that John keeps a good table.”

To the delight of the lads, it was agreed that they should make the halt as suggested, and noon found them at a very large and comfortable “double cabin,” as these peculiar structures are called. Two log-cabins are built, end to end, with one roof covering the two. The passage between them is floored over, and affords an open shelter from rain and sun, and in hot weather is the pleasantest place about the establishment. Indian John’s cabin was built of hewn logs, nicely chinked in with slivers, and daubed with clay to keep out the wintry blasts. As is the manner of the country, one of the cabins was used for the rooms of the family, while the dining-room and kitchen were in the other end of the structure. Indian John regularly furnished dinner to the stage passengers going westward from Quindaro; for a public conveyance, a “mud-wagon,” as it was called, had been put on this part of the road.

“What a tuck-out I had!” said Sandy, after a very bountiful and well-cooked dinner had been disposed of by the party. “And who would have supposed we should ever sit down to an Indian’s table and eat fried chicken, ham and eggs, and corn-dodger, from a regular set of blue-and-white plates, and drink good coffee from crockery cups? It just beats Father Dixon’s Indian stories all to pieces.”

Oscar and Charlie, however, were disposed to think very lightly of this sort of Indian civilization. Oscar said: “If these red men were either one thing or the other, I wouldn’t mind it. But they have shed the gaudy trappings of the wild Indian, and their new clothes do not fit very well. As Grandfather Bryant used to say, they are neither fish nor flesh, nor good red herring. They are a mighty uninteresting lot.”

“Well, they are on the way to a better state of things than they have known, anyhow,” said Charlie. “The next generation will see them higher up, I guess. But I must say that these farms don’t look very thrifty, somehow. Indians are a lazy lot; they don’t like work. Did you notice how all those big fellows at dinner sat down with us and the stage passengers, and the poor women had to wait on everybody? That’s Indian.”

Uncle Charlie laughed, and said that the boys had expected to find civilized Indians waiting on the table, decked out with paint and feathers, and wearing deerskin leggings and such like.

“Wait until we get out on the frontier,” said he, “and then you will see wild Indians, perhaps, or ‘blanket Indians,’ anyhow.”

“Blanket Indians?” said Sandy, with an interrogation point in his face.

“Yes; that’s what the roving and unsettled bands are called by white folks. Those that are on reservations and earning their own living, or a part of it, for the Government helps them out considerably, are called town Indians; those that live in wigwams, or tepees, and rove from place to place, subsisting on what they can catch, are blanket Indians. They tell me that there are wild Indians out on the western frontier. But they are not hostile; at least, they were not, at last accounts. The Cheyennes have been rather uneasy, they say, since the white settlers began to pour into the country. Just now I am more concerned about the white Missourians than I am about the red aborigines.”

They were still on the Delaware reservation when they camped that evening, and the boys went into the woods to gather fuel for their fire.

They had not gone far, when Sandy gave a wild whoop of alarm, jumping about six feet backward as he yelled, “A rattlesnake!” Sure enough, an immense snake was sliding out from under a mass of brush that the boy had disturbed as he gathered an armful of dry branches and twigs. Dropping his burden, Sandy shouted, “Kill him! Kill him, quick!”

The reptile was about five feet long, very thick, and of a dark mottled color. Instantly, each lad had armed himself with a big stick and had attacked him. The snake, stopped in his attempt to get away, turned, and opening his ugly-looking mouth, made a curious blowing noise, half a hiss and half a cough, as Charlie afterward described it.

“Take care, Sandy! He’ll spring at you, and bite you in the face! See! He’s getting ready to spring!”

And, indeed, the creature, frightened, and surrounded by the agile, jumping boys, each armed with a club, seemed ready to defend his life with the best weapons at his command. The boys, excited and alarmed, were afraid to come near the snake, and were dancing about, waiting for a chance to strike, when they were startled by a shot from behind them, and the snake, making one more effort to turn on himself, shuddered and fell dead.

Mr. Howell, hearing the shouting of the boys, had run out of the camp, and with a well-directed rifle shot had laid low the reptile.

“It’s only a blow-snake,” he said, taking the creature by the tail and holding it up to view. “He’s harmless. Well! Of course a dead snake is harmless, but when he was alive he was not the sort of critter to be afraid of. I thought you had encountered a bear, at the very least, by the racket you made.”

“He’s a big fellow, anyhow,” said Oscar, giving the snake a kick, “and Sandy said he was a rattlesnake. I saw a rattler once when we lived in Dixon. Billy Everett and I found him down on the bluff below the railroad; and he was spotted all over. Besides, this fellow hasn’t any rattles.”

“The boys have been having a lesson in natural history, Charlie,” said Mr. Howell to his brother-in-law, as they returned with him to camp, loaded with firewood; Sandy, boy-like, dragging the dead blow-snake after him.