lsed them with angry
gestures, when one of them made a sudden swoop, and possessed himself of
a handful.

She tried to rise, to pursue him, but was unable to do more than clutch
the remainder and utter the most unearthly screams of rage. At this
instant the boys raised their eyes and perceived us regarding them. They
burst into a laugh, and with a sort of mocking gesture they threw her
the half-dollars, and ran back to the pay-ground.

In spite of their vexatious tricks, she seemed very fond of them, and
never failed to beg something of her Father, that she might bestow upon
them.

She crept into the parlor one morning, then straightening herself up,
and supporting herself by the frame of the door, she cried, in a most
piteous tone,--"Shaw-nee-aw-kee! Wau-tshob-ee-rah Thsoonsh-koo-nee-noh!"
(Silver-man, I have no looking-glass.) My husband, smiling and taking up
the same little tone, cried, in return,--

"Do you wish to look at yourself, mother?"

The idea seemed to her so irresistibly comic that she laughed until she
was fairly obliged to seat herself upon the floor and give way to her
enjoyment. She then owned that it was for one of the boys that she
wanted the little mirror. When her Father had given it to her, she found
that she had "no comb," then that she had "no knife," then that she had
"no calico shawl," until it ended, as it generally did, by
Shaw-nee-aw-kee paying pretty dearly for his joke.

* * * * *

When the Indians arrived and when they departed, my sense of "woman's
rights" was often greatly outraged. The master of the family, as a
general thing, came leisurely bearing his gun and perhaps a lance in his
hand; the woman, with the mats and poles of her lodge upon her
shoulders, her pappoose, if she had one, her kettles, sacks of corn, and
wild rice, and, not unfrequently, the household dog perched on the top
of all. If there is a horse or pony in the list of family possessions,
the man rides, the squaw trudges after.

This unequal division of labor is the result of no want of kind,
affectionate feeling on the part of the husband. It is rather the
instinct of the sex to assert their superiority of position and
importance, when a proper occasion offers. When out of the reach of
observation, and in no danger of compromising his own dignity, the
husband is willing enough to relieve his spouse from the burden that
custom imposes on her, by sharing her labors and hardshi