but that
they would not go home, waiting outside to hear of her.

During her convalescence, I found that they could "rejoice with those
that rejoice" as well as "weep with those that wept." The fearful
disease was abating in our family, and "Old Harper," as she is called
in the Fort, offered to sit up and attend to the fire. We allowed her to
do so, for the many who had so kindly assisted us were exhausted with
fatigue. Joy had taken from me all inclination to sleep, and I lay down
near my little girl, watching the old Sioux woman. She seemed to be
reviewing the history of her life, so intently did she gaze at the
bright coals on the hearth. Many strange thoughts apparently engaged
her. She was, of her own accord, an inmate of the white man's house,
waiting to do good to his sick child. She had wept bitterly for days,
lest the child should be lost to her--and now she was full of happiness,
at the prospect of her recovery.

How shall we reconcile this with the fact that Harper, or Harpstinah,
was one of the Sioux women, who wore, as long as she could endure it, a
necklace made of the hands and feet of Chippeway children? Here, in the
silence of night, she turned often towards the bed, when the restless
sleep of the child broke in on her meditation. She fancied I slept, but
my mind was busy too. I was far away from the home of my childhood, and
a Sioux woman, with her knife in her belt, was assisting me in the care
of my only daughter. She thought Dr. T. was a "wonderful medicine man"
to cure her; in which opinion we all cordially coincided.

I always listened with pleasure to the women, when allusion was made to
their religion; but when they spoke of their tradition, I felt as a
miser would, had he discovered a mine of gold. I had read the legends of
the Maiden's Rock, and of St. Anthony's Falls. I asked Checkered Cloud
to tell them to me. She did so--and how differently they were told! With
my knowledge of the language, and the aid of my kind and excellent
friend Mr. Prescott, all the dark passages in her narration were made
clear. I thought the Indian tone of feeling was not rightly
appreciated--their customs not clearly stated, perhaps not fairly
estimated. The red man, considered generally as a creature to be carried
about and exhibited for money, was, in very truth, a being immortally
endowed, though under a dispensation obscure to the more highly-favored
white race. As they affirmed a belief in the traditions of