COOKING FOR A LARGE FAMILY.
My experience of camp life was of such a character, that I would rather
be a maid-of-all-work in any position than slush in an Indian tepee,
reeking as it is, with filth and poisonous odors. There is no such a
thing as an health officer among that band of braves. They have a half
spiritualized personage whom they desiginate the Medicine Man; but he is
nothing more or less than a quack of the worst kind. As in every other
part of their life, so in the domestic they were unclean.
One evening, just as we had everything ready for our meal, in rushed the
Big Bear's, gobbling up everything. After they had gone, I set to work
to wash the dishes. Mrs. Pritchard thereat became quite angry, and would
not allow me, saying that we would be glad to do more than that for the
Indians yet. I went without my supper that night; I would rather starve
than eat after that dirty horde.
One day, Pritchard brought in a rabbit for dinner. I thought we were
going to have a treat as well as a good meal; we were engaged at other
work that day, and Mrs. Pritchard did the cooking herself, but I had
occasion to go in the direction of the fire, and there was the rabbit
in the pot boiling, it was all there, head, eyes, feet, and everything
together. My good dinner vanished there and then. I told Mrs. Delaney
there was no rabbit for me. I only ate to keep myself alive and well,
for if I showed signs of sickness I would have been put with the
Indians, and they would have put an end to me in a short time.
We had fifteen in our tent to bake for, besides the Indians, that came
in to gorge, about thirty at a time. We cut wood and carried water and
did Mrs. Pritchard sewing for her nine children; making their clothing
that came from our own house. She took some muslin that Mrs. Delaney
had bought before the trouble, and cut it up into aprons for her little
baby, and gave me to make, and then she went to the trunk that had all
my lace trimming that I had made through the winter, and brought some
for me to sew on the aprons. I made them up as neatly as I possibly
could, and when finished, she thanked me for it. The little children
played with keepsakes that my _mother_ had given to me when a little
girl, and I had to look and see them broken in pieces without a murmur,
also see my friends photographs thrown around and destroyed. I gathered
up a few that were scattered around in the dirt and saved them when no
one was looking.
If Big Bear's braves would say move camp immediately, and if we should
be eating and our tent not taken down just then, they would shout in
the air and come and tear it down. In travelling, the Indians ride, and
their squaws walk and do all the work, and they pack their dogs and have
"travores" on their horses, upon which they tied their little children,
and then all would move off together; dogs howling, and babies crying,
and Indians beating their wives, and carts tumbling over the banks of
the trail, and children falling, and horses and oxen getting mired down
in the mud, and squaws cutting sacks of flour open to get a piece
of cotton for string, and leaving the flour and throwing away the
provisions, while others would come along and gather it up. We rode on
a lumber waggon, with an ox team, and some of the squaws thought we
did not work enough. Not work enough, after walking or working all day,
after dark we were required to bake bannock and do anything else they
had a mind to give us. They wanted to work us to death.