HOW THE INDIANS CAME TO THE
BOY'S TOWN AND JIM LEONARD
ACTED THE COWARD
Jim Leonard was so mad because he lost his chip-hat in the canal basin,
when he fell off the boat (and had to go home bareheaded and tell his
mother all about what happened, though his clothes were dry enough, and he
might have got off without her noticing anything, if it had not been for
his hat) that he would not take any interest in Pony. But he kept on
taking an interest in Indians, and he was the most excited fellow in the
whole Boy's Town when the Indians came.
The way they came to town was this: The white people around the
reservation got tired of having them there, or else they wanted their
land, and the government thought it might as well move them out West,
where there were more Indians, there were such a very few of them on the
reservation; and so it loaded them on three canal-boats and brought them
down through the Boy's Town to the Ohio River, and put them on a
steamboat, and then took them down to the Mississippi, and put them on a
reservation beyond that river.
The boys did not know anything about this, and they would not have cared
much if they had. All they knew was that one morning (and it happened to
be Saturday) three canal-boats, full of Indians, came into the basin.
Nobody ever knew which boy saw them first. It seemed as if all the fellows
in the Boy's Town happened to be up at the basin at once, and were
standing there when the boats came in. When they saw that they were real
Indians, in blankets, with bows and arrows, warriors, squaws, papooses,
and everything, they almost went crazy, and when a good many of the
Indians came ashore and went over to the court-house yard and began to
shoot at quarters and half-dollars that the people stuck into the ground
for them to shoot at, the fellows could hardly believe their eyes. They
yelled and cheered and tried to get acquainted with the Indian boys, and
ran and got their arrows for them, and everything; and if the Indians
could only have stayed until the Fourth, which was pretty near now, they
would have thought it was the greatest thing that ever happened. Jim
Leonard said they belonged to a tribe that had been against the British in
the last war, and were the friends of the Long Knives, as they called the
Americans. He said that he read it in a book; and he hunted round for Pony
Baker, and when he found him he said: "Come here, Pony; I want to tell you
something."
[Illustration: "REAL INDIANS, IN BLANKETS, WITH BOWS AND ARROWS"]
Any other time all the other fellows would have crowded around and wanted
to know what it was, but now they were so much taken up with the Indians
that none of them minded him, and so he got a good chance at Pony alone.
Pony was afraid that Jim Leonard wanted him to run off with the Indians,
and this was just what he did want.
He said: "You ought to get a blanket and stain your face and hands with
walnut juice, and then no one could tell you from the rest of the tribe,
and you could go out with them where they're going and hunt buffaloes.
It's the greatest chance there ever was. They'll adopt you into the tribe,
maybe, as soon as the canal-boats leave, or as quick as they can get to a
place where they can pull your hair out and wash you in the canal. I tell
you, if I was in your place, I'd do it, Pony."
Pony did not know what to say. He hated to tell Jim Leonard that he had
pretty nearly given up the notion of running off for the present, or until
his father and mother did something more to make him do it.
Ever since the boys failed so in trying to get Piccolo to hook his
father's boat for Pony to run off in, things had been going better with
Pony at home. His mother did not stop him from half so many things as she
used to do, and lately his father had got to being very good to him: let
him lie in bed in the morning, and did not seem to notice when he stayed
out with the boys at night, telling stories on the front steps, or playing
hide-and-go-whoop, or anything. They seemed to be a great deal taken up
with each other and not to mind so much what Pony was doing.
His mother let him go in swimming whenever he asked her, and did not make
him promise to keep out of the deep water. She said she would see, when he
coaxed her for five cents to get powder for the Fourth, and she let him
have one of the boys to spend the night with him once, and she gave them
waffles for breakfast. She showed herself something like a mother, and she
had told him that if he would be very, very good she would get his father
to give him a quarter, so that he could buy two packs of
shooting-crackers, as well as five cents' worth of powder for the Fourth.
But she put her arms around him and hugged him up to her and kissed his
head and said:
"You'll be very careful, Pony, won't you? You're all the little boy we've
got, and if anything should happen to you--"
She seemed to be almost crying, and Pony laughed and said: "Why, nothing
could happen to you with shooting-crackers"; and she could have the powder
to keep for him; and he would just make a snake with it Fourth of July
night; put it around through the grass, loose, and then light one end of
it, and she would see how it would go off and not make the least noise.
But she said she did not want to see it; only he must be careful; and she
kissed him again and let him go, and when he got away he could see her
wiping her eyes. It seemed to him that she was crying a good deal in those
days, and he could not understand what it was about. She was scared at any
little thing, and would whoop at the least noise, and when his father
would say: "Lucy, my dear girl!" she would burst out crying and say that
she could not help it. But she got better and better to Pony all the time,
and it was this that now made him ashamed with Jim Leonard, because it
made him not want to run off so much.
He dug his toe into the turf in the court-house yard under the
locust-tree, and did not say anything till Jim Leonard asked him if he was
afraid to go off and live with the Indians, because if he was going to be
a cowardy-calf like that, it was all that Jim Leonard wanted to do with
him.
Pony denied that he was afraid, but he said that he did not know how to
talk Indian, and he did not see how he was going to get along without.
Jim Leonard laughed and said if that was all, he need not be anxious. "The
Indians don't talk at all, hardly, even among each other. They just make
signs; didn't you know that? If you want something to eat you point to
your mouth and chew; and if you want a drink, you open your mouth and keep
swallowing. When you want to go to sleep you shut your eyes and lean your
cheek over on your hand, this way. That's all the signs you need to begin
with, and you'll soon learn the rest. Now, say, are you going with the
Indians, or ain't you going? It's your only chance. Why, Pony, what are
you afraid of? Hain't you always wanted to sleep out-doors and not do
anything but hunt?"
Pony had to confess that he had, and then Jim Leonard said: "Well, then,
that's what you'll do if you go with the Indians. I suppose you'll have to
go on the warpath with them when you get out there; and if it's against
the whites you won't like it at first; but you've got to remember what the
whites have done to the Indians ever since they discovered America, and
you'll soon get to feeling like an Indian anyway. One thing is, you've got
to get over being afraid."