JL
6 TTbc Conservative.
if yon can over forgot thorn. The old
men nro the iinosfc , but there arc beauties
unions the young men as well. There is
one who , with lofty form , lean face ,
sloping forehead , high cheek-bones and
eagle nose , might have come bodily out
of the old picture books. He would be a
handsome man in evening-dress , but in
his gorgeous native trappings he is a
tiling to remember.
Neither are the women uninteresting
to observe. One may conjecture that
the elderly ladies
TUB WUMBX.
cnmc because their
husbands did , but that some of the
younger ones might have been selected
for good looks. Many will recall one
young squaw , whoso dense black hair ,
cut just short enough to clear her shoul
ders , hung all around her head save for
nn oval opening in front , through which
showed a plump brown face , by no
means ill to look at. But , young or old ,
they are with one accord hostile to the
white man , and you need not o.xpect
any but sour looks in return to your re
spectful address ; except from some
young persons in Wild West costumes ,
who talk perfect English and have mon
strous bead things to sell , or , standing
a short distance from an archery target ,
made in Chicago , shoot arrows at it with
no startling degree of skill.
But he must be hard to amuse who
does not find pleasure in the youngsters.
They are hero of
Tim m.
n agcs ;
about as young as any body gets ,
strapped to boards , each with a gay
hoop standing out about his head ; some
just able to balance silting in the doors
of the lodges , watching the passing show
with apparent satisfaction ; some with
slight locomotive power , inching about
over the ground ; some crawling with
surprising speed , and some able to run
about on tottering bow-legs , but not big
enough to join the band of boys and
girls that play about the stack of baled
hay near where the buil'nlo stands in
his pou , which you must not approach
too closo. All babies are pretty , but
some are cleaner than others. And as
white babies cry when their faces are
washed , so a copper-colored baby cries
when his mother scours his face with
the skirt of his garment.
Hero is ono playing by herself. She
has some apparatus , however , in which
there are infinite possibilities ; a spool
and a scrap of strawboard. You roll
your spool off your board , and it goes
off fast across the ground , with you
after it as fast , in order to arrive before
you tumble down. "See her scoot ! "
says a little boy to his mother. Ho is
eating a white boy's lunch , out of the
regulation shoe-box ; the little savage
sees and desires the broad and butter ,
the layer cake , the Concord grapes ; her
stomach prevails , and she staggers up to
little boy , offering him , manibua plcnis ,
spool and strawboard. Little boy is
much abashed at the sudden publicity ,
but makes out to do the generous thing.
Hero are four , busy in the shade of an
Assiniboino tent , making a play-house
with sticks and strings , as children no
doubt do all the world over ; but it is a
curious house that the little Indians are
engaged upon. There is a circular
stockade , in the centre of which is a
square sanctuary , made of chips split
off with the butcher-knife , and having
a roof and a door-way ; this door-way
faces the opening in the stockade , which
has a tall post on cither side , with a
lofty cross-bar or lintel overhead ; the
walls of the stockade are continued out
ward from this entrance , so as to form a
confined avenue of approach to it. It is
not likely that those little Indians over
saw a dwelling-placo like that ; and still
it is very much like the Indian forts de
picted in the old Virginia histories ; and
there are writers who claim that the
games of the children of today arc the
representations of grown-up people's
labors of yesterday. Those children's
be the tradition
play-house may surviving
tion of the village structure of their
forefathers , before the arrival of the
pony gave them the means of moving
freely about.
The older youngsters seem to be more
numerous than they were earlier in the
season , and decid-
TIII : IK > VS AND umus.
odly lww bashful )
as regards cither garments or manners.
Under the former head may bo cited an
unhandsome youth of the Crows , who is
wandering about the grounds all morn
ing and attends the war dance in the
afternoon , always alone , as if he could
find no birds of his feather to flock to.
He attracts attention by reason of his
shirt , which would appear to have
shrunk. Out of deference to modesty ,
however , he has painted his legs red ,
and adorned his long black hair with
some very fetching ribbons. As a rule
the boys wear leggings and moccasins ,
which are often handsomely beaded and
fringed. The leggings are made separ
ate , rights and lofts ; this accounts for
an occasional youth being seen wearing
only ono. The intention is always to
have two ; they are pulled up as high as
possible and tied together and around
the wearer's waist with a string. Over
this then descends the loose shirt or
blouse.
As to their manners , while they do
not appear impudent , to judge from
their faces , yet they are certainly not
retiring. In some parts of the grounds
the solitary investigator is sxiddenly sur
rounded by a picturesque band , while a
number of small brown palms are ex
tended towards his face and a chorus of
small voices is hoard crying "zhink-
aneo ? " Others call fov cand' , and others
for ponn' ; and it is quite possible that
they know more English than appears.
Ono who likes to see youngsters grin
cannot do better than to provide himself
with some small candies , which he can
got from the pious Mussulman on the
Midway , or lay in a few pennies in ad
vance. The young marauders are hard
to satisfy , however , and when the trib
ute is no longer forthcoming they have
no objection to going through your
pockets themselves to see if you have
forgotten anything. But this is not ap
proved by their ciders , and a shout from
the nearest ledge presently sends them
all scattering.
This is a great year for America. The
most flattering news yet is that there is
a movement in Franco for choosing an
American pope , when that desirable
position next becomes vacant. Of
course we have never tried , but there is
no reason to doubt that we could pro
duce a good article of popes. At first
glance , wo cannot see why Mr. John
Wanamaker would not answer every
requirement , with possibly some little
assistance from the Ladies' Home Jour
nal.
An anti-treating league is being ac
tively boomed by officials of some
eastern railroads , its members to wear a
badge , and neither give nor receive
treats. This is certainly a move towards
temperance and economy , as it limits a
drinking man's consumption to what he
wants and can pay for. But it is no
novelty ; there was a wide-spread P. Y.
O. B. club pay your own bills among
bicycle-riders ten years ago or more.
It is a long way indeed to the scene of
our speculation in the Philippines.
Harper's Weekly of September J 7 prints
letters from its correspondent there ,
dated July 1(5 ( , when they were still
wondering what the Gorman fleet was
going to do. That seems a long time
ago.
ago.Tho
The same number contains a full and
very interesting letter from Santiago do
Cuba , giving the most explicit report
that wo have soon of the process of mak
ing this ztn American city. The paper
is on file at the Public Library.
All through the war , while the mills
of the gods ground out the fate of na
tions , two unfailing springs of United
States fiction never ceased their trick
ling in the Harper publications. Mr.
Howells is still rambling on and on
through ono of his amiable narratives in
the Weekly , and Mr. Stockton's ingen
ious paradoxes continue to da/o those
who like that sort of thing , in the
Ba/ar.
People who visit the Omaha exposi
tion and write it up for choir papers on
returning homo , seldom fail to mention ,
among their statistics , that Chicago ,
Kansas City and South Omaha do the
most of the pig-killing of the country.
And still , to the funny men of the
Now York papers , Cincinnati is head
quarters for pork-packing , and their
jokes for the next hundred years will no
doubt continue to bo based on that
belief.
