s me got all the prize cards at
Sunday-school. How comes it, honey, that you ain't forgot to talk like
civilized beings?"

"Red Feather, him always put me with squaw that know English--that been
to school on the reservation. Never let me learn talk like the
Indians. Him always say some day take me to my own people. But never
said 'BIG HAIR.'"

"Did he tell you your mother died two years ago?"

"Yes--father, him dead, too. Both died in the plains. Father was shot
by robbers. Mother was left in big wagon--you bury her near this
mountain."

"Oh, ho! So your father was killed at the same time your mother was,
eh?"

"Yes."

"Well--all right. And now you got nobody but me to look after you--but
you don't need no more; as long as I'm able to be up and about, nothing
is going to hurt you. Just you tell me what you want, and it'll be
did."

"Want to be ALL like white people; want to be just like mother."

"Well, I'll teach you as fur up as I've been myself. Your style of
talk ain't correct, but it was the best Red Feather could do by you.
Him and you lay down your words like stepping-stones for your thoughts
to step over; but just listen at me, how smooth and fine-textured my
language is, with no breaks or crevices from the beginning of my
periods to where my voice steps down to start on a lower ledge. That's
the way white people talks, not that they got more to say than Injuns,
but they fills in, and embodies everything, like filling up cabin-walls
with mud. I'll take you by the hand right from where Red Feather left
you, and carry you up the heights."

She examined him dubiously: "You know how?"

"I ain't no bell-wether in the paths of learning, honey, but Red
Feather is some miles behind me. What's your name?"

"Lahoma."

"Born that way, or Injunized?"

"Father before he died, him all time want to go settle in the Oklahoma
country--settle on a claim with mother. They go there two
times--three--but soldiers all time make them go back to Kansas. So me,
I was born and they named me Oklahoma--but all time they call me
Lahoma. That I must be called, Lahoma because that father and mother
all time call me. Lahoma, that my name." She inquired anxiously, "You
call me Lahoma?" She leaned forward, hands upon knees, in breathless
anxiety.

"You bet your life I will, Lahoma!"

"Then me stay all time with you--all time. And you teach me talk
right, and dress right, and be like mother and my white pe