_RESPECTING CERTAIN SAVAGES_.
When young Mr. Spooner, Judge Twiddler's nephew, left college, he made
up his mind to enter the ministry and become a missionary. One day he
met Captain Hubbs; and when he mentioned that he thought of going out
as a missionary, Captain Hubbs asked him, "Where are you going?"
_S_. "To the Navigator Islands. I sail in October."
_Capt_. (shaking his head mournfully). "Pore young man! Pore young
man! It is too bad--too bad indeed! Going to the Navigator Islands!
Not married yet, I reckon? No? Ah! so much the better. No wife and
children to make widows and orphans of. But it's sad, anyway. A
promising young fellow like you! My heart bleeds for you."
_S_. "What d'you mean?"
_Capt_. "Oh, nothing. I don't want to frighten you. I know you're
doing it from a sense of duty. But I've been there to the Navigator
Islands, and I'm acquainted with the people's little ways, and
I--well, I--I--the fact is, you see, that--well, sooner'n disguise the
truth, I don't mind telling you straight out that the last day I was
there the folks et one of my legs--sawed it off an' et it. Now you can
see how things are yourself. Those Navigators gobbled that leg right
up. It was a leg a good deal like yours, only heavier, I reckon."
_S_. "You astonish me!"
_Capt._ "Oh, that's nothing. They did that just for a little bit of
fun. The chief told me the day before that they never et anything but
human beings. He said his family consumed about three a day all the
year round, counting holidays and Sundays. He was a light eater
himself, he said, on account of gitting dyspepsia from a tough
Australian that he et in 1847, but the girls and the old woman, so he
said, were very hearty eaters, and it kept him busy prowling around
after human beings to satisfy 'em. The old woman, he said, rather
preferred to eat babies, on account of her teeth being poor, but the
girls could eat the grizzliest sailor that ever went aboard ship."
_S_. "This is frightful."
_Capt_. "And the chief said sometimes the supply was scarce, but
lately they had begun to depend more on imported goods than on the
home products. And they were better, anyhow, for all the folks
preferred white meat. He said the missionary societies were shipping
them some nice lots of provender, and the tears came in his eyes when
he said how good they were to the poor friendless savage away on a
distant island. He said he liked a missionary not too old or too
young. But let's see; what's your age, did you say?"
[Illustration: MR. SPOONER IS ALARMED]
_S_. "I am twenty-eight."
_Capt._ "I think he mentioned twenty-seven; but howsomedever, he liked
'em old enough to be solid and young enough to be tender. And he said
he liked missionaries because they never used rum or tobacco and
always kept their flavor. I know I seen one young fellow who came out
there from Boston. He got up a camp-meeting in the woods; and while
he was giving out the hymn, one of the congregation banged him on the
head with a club, and in less than no time he was sizzling over a fire
right in front of the pulpit. They lit the fire with his hymn-book and
kept her going with his sermons. He was a man just about your build--a
little leaner'n you, maybe. And they like a man to be stoutish. He
eats more tender."
_S_. "I had no idea that such awful practices existed."
_Capt_. "I haven't told you half, for I don't want to discourage you.
I know you mean well, and maybe they'll let you alone. But I remember,
when I told the chief that there was a whole lot of you chaps studying
to be missionaries, he laughed and rubbed his hands, and ordered the
old woman to plant more horseradish and onions the following year. He
was a forehanded kind of a man for a mere pagan. He said that if they
would only give his tribe time, if they would send him along the
supplies regular, so's not to glut the market, they could put away the
entire clergy of the United States and half the deacons without an
effort. He was nibbling at a missionary-bone when he spoke, and the
old woman was making a new club out of another one. They are an
economical people. They utilize everything."
_S_. "This is the most painful intelligence that I ever received. If I
felt certain about it, I would remain at home."
_Capt_. "Don't let me induce you to throw the thing up. I wouldn't a
told you, anyway, only you kind of drew the information out of me. And
as long as I've gone this far, I might as well tell you that I got a
letter the other day from a man who'd just come from there, and he
said the crops were short, eatable people were scarce, and not one of
them savages had had a square meal for months. When he left, they
were sitting on the rocks, hungry as thunder, waiting for a
missionary-society ship to arrive. And now I must be going.
Good-bye. I know I'll never see you again. Take a last look at me.
Good-morning."
Then the captain hobbled off.
Mr. Spooner has concluded to stay at home and teach school.
* * * * *
Another rather more enthusiastic friend of the savage is Mr. Dodge. He
came into the office the _Patriot_ one day and sought a desk where a
reporter was writing. Seating himself and tilting the chair until
it was nicely balanced upon two legs, he smiled a serene and
philanthropic smile, and said,
"You see, I'm the friend of the poor Indian; he regards me as his
Great White Brother, and I reciprocate his confidence and affection
by doing what I can to alleviate his sufferings in his present
unfortunate situation. Young man, you do not know the anguish that
fills the soul of the red man as civilization makes successive inroads
upon his rights. It is too sacred for exhibition. He represses his
emotion sternly, and we philanthropists only detect it by observing
that he betrays an increased longing for firewater and an aggravated
indisposition to wash himself. Now, what do you suppose is the _last_
sorrow that has come to blast the happiness of this persecuted being?
What do you think it is?"
"I don't know, and I don't care."
"I will tell you. It is the increasing tendency of the white man to
baldness. As civilization pushes upward, the hair of the pale face
recedes. Eventually, I suppose, about every other white man will be
bald. I notice that even you are gradually being reduced to a mere
fringe around the base of your skull. Now, imagine how an Indian feels
when he considers this tendency. Is it any wonder that the future
seems dark and gloomy and hairless to him? The scalping operation
to him is a sacred rite. It is interwoven with his most cherished
traditions. When he surrenders it, he dies with a broken heart. What
then, is to be done?"
"Oh, do hush up and quit."
"There is but one thing to be done to meet this grave emergency. We
cannot justly permit that grand aboriginal man who once held sway over
this mighty continent to be filled with desolation and misery by
the inaccessibility of the scalps of his fellow-creatures. My idea,
therefore, is to bring those scalps within his reach, even when they
are baldest and shiniest. But how?"
"That'll do now. Don't want to hear any more."
"Here my ingenuity comes into play. I have invented a simple little
machine which I call 'The Patent Adjustable Atmospheric Scalp-lifter.'
Here it is. The device consists of a disk of thin leather about six
inches in diameter. In the centre is a hole through which runs a
string. When the Indian desires to deal with a man with a bald head,
he proceeds as follows--observe the simplicity of the operation: He
wets the leather, stamps it carefully down upon the surface of the
scalp, slides his knife around over the ears, gives the string a jerk,
and off comes the scalp as nicely as if it had been Absalom's. In
fact, you will see at once that it is an ingenious application of the
'sucker' used by boys to raise bricks and stones. I know what you are
going to say--that a white man who is to be manipulated by an Indian
needs succor worse than the red man. It is an old joke, and a good
one; but my desire is to bring joy to the wigwam of the Kickapoo and
to make the heart of the Arapahoe glad."
"Oh, do dry up and go down stairs."
"You catch the idea, of course; but perhaps you'd like to see the
apparatus in operation. Wait a moment; I'll show you how splendidly it
works."
Then, as the reporter resolutely continued at his task with his nose
almost against the desk, the friend of the disconsolate red man
suddenly produced a moist sucker and clapped it firmly upon the bald
place on the reporter's head, and then, before the indignant victim
could offer resistance, the Great White Brother, with the string in
his hand, careered around the office a couple of times, drawing the
helpless journalist after him. As he withdrew the machine he smiled
and said,
"Elegant, isn't it? Could pull a horse-car with it. I wish you'd come
to Washington with me and lend me your head, so's I can show the
Secretary of the Interior how the thing works. You have the best scalp
for a good hold of any I've tried yet."
But the reporter was at the speaking-tube calling for a boy to go for
a policeman, and he didn't seem to hear the suggestion. And so Mr.
Dodge folded up the machine, placed it in his carpet-bag, and went
out smiling as though he had been received with enthusiasm and been
promised a gratuitous advertisement. He passed the policeman on the
stairs, and then sailed serenely out of reach, perhaps to seek for
another and more sympathetic bald man upon whom to illustrate the
value of his invention.
* * * * *
Reference to the Indians reminds me of the very ungenerous treatment
that Mr. Bartholomew, one of our citizens, received at the hands of
certain red men with whom he trafficked in the West.
A year or two ago Mr. Bartholomew was out in Colorado for a few
months, and just before he started for the journey home he wrote to
his wife concerning the probable time of his arrival. As a postscript
to the letter he added the following message to his son, a boy about
eight years old:
"Tell Charley I am going to bring with me a dear little baby-bear that
I bought from an Indian."
Of course that information pleased Charley, and he directed most of
his thoughts and his conversation to the subject of the bear during
the next two weeks, wishing anxiously for his father to come with
the little pet. On the night which been fixed by Bartholomew for his
arrival he did not come, and the family were very much disappointed.
Charley particularly was dreadfully sorry, because he couldn't get the
bear. On the next evening, while Mrs. Bartholomew and the children
were sitting in the front room with the door open into the hall, they
heard somebody running through the front yard. Then the front door was
suddenly burst open, and a man dashed into the hall and up stairs at a
frightful speed. Mrs. Bartholomew was just about to go up after him to
ascertain who it was, when a large dark animal of some kind darted in
through the door and with an awful growl went bowling up stairs after
the man. It suddenly flashed upon the mind of Mrs. Bartholomew that
the man was her husband, and that that was the little baby-bear. Just
then the voice of Bartholomew was heard calling from the top landing:
"Ellen, for gracious sake get out of the house as quick as you can,
and shut all the doors and window-shutters."
[Illustration: THE LITTLE BABY-BEAR]
Then Mrs. Bartholomew sent the boys into Partridge's, next door, and
she closed the shutters, locked all the doors and went into the
yard to await further developments. When she got outside, she saw
Bartholomew on the roof kneeling on the trap-door, which he kept down
only by the most tremendous exertions. Then he screamed for somebody
to come up and help him, and Mr. Partridge got a ladder and a hatchet
and some nails, and ascended. Then they nailed down the trap-door, and
Bartholomew and Partridge came down the ladder together. After he had
greeted his family, Mrs. Bartholomew asked him what was the matter,
and he said,
"Why, you know that little baby-bear I said I'd bring Charley? Well, I
had him in a box until I got off the train up here at the depot, and
then I thought I'd take him out and lead him around home by the chain.
But the first thing he did was to fly at my leg; and when I jumped
back, I ran, and he after me. He would've eaten me up in about a
minute. That infernal Indian must have fooled me. He said it was a cub
only two months old and it had no teeth. I believe it's a full-grown
bear."
It then became a very interesting question how they should get the
bear out of the house. Bartholomew thought they had better try to
shoot him, and he asked a lot of the neighbors to come around to help
with their shot-guns. When they would hear the bear scratching at one
of the windows, they would pour in a volley at him, but after riddling
every shutter on the first floor they could still hear the bear
tearing around in there and growling. So Bartholomew and the others
got into the cellar, and as the bear crossed the floor they would fire
up through it at about the spot where they thought he was. But the
bombardment only seemed to exasperate the animal, and after each shot
they could hear him smashing something.
Then Partridge said maybe a couple of good dogs might whip him; and he
borrowed a bulldog and a setter from Scott and pushed them through the
front door. They listened, and for half an hour they could hear a most
terrific contest raging; and Scott said he'd bet a million dollars
that bull-dog would eat up any two bears in the Rocky Mountains. Then
everything became still, and a few moments later they could hear
the bear eating something and cracking bones with his teeth; and
Bartholomew said that the Indian out in Colorado told him that the
bear was particularly fond of dog-meat, and could relish a dog almost
any time.
At last Bartholomew thought he would try strategy. He procured a huge
iron hook with a sharp point to it, tied it to a rope and put three
or four pounds of fresh beef on the hook. Then he went up the ladder,
opened the trap-door in the roof and dropped in the bait. In a few
moments he got a bite, and all hands manned the rope and pulled,
when out came Scott's bull-dog, which had been hiding in the garret.
Bartholomew was disgusted; but he put on fresh bait and threw in
again, and in about an hour the bear took hold, and they hauled him
out and knocked him on the head.
Then they entered the house. In the hall the carpet was covered with
particles of dead setter, and in the parlor the carpet and the windows
had been shot to pieces, while the furniture was full of bullet-holes.
The bear had smashed the mirror, torn up six or seven chairs,
knocked over the lamp and demolished all the crockery in the pantry.
Bartholomew gritted his teeth as he surveyed the ruin, and Mrs.
Bartholomew said she wished to patience he had stayed in Colorado.
However, they fixed things up as well as they could, and then Mrs.
Bartholomew sent into Partridge's for Charley and the youngest girl.
When Charley came, he rushed up to Bartholomew and said,
"Oh, pa! where's my little baby-bear?"
Then Bartholomew gazed at him severely for a moment, looked around to
see if Mrs. Bartholomew had left the room, and then gave Charley the
most terrific spanking that he ever received.
The Bartholomew children have no pets at present but a Poland rooster
which has moulted his tail.