Stories of American Life and AdventureEggleston, Edward
History
Stories of American Life and Adventure
Eggleston, Edward
Readers -- History; United States -- History -- Juvenile literature
When the buffaloes on the point came to the ice, they paused and turned
back. They were soon running in the other direction, but the lazy
Indian and his wife faced the animals as they came. They waved their
ragged blankets at the buffaloes. They shouted in Indian fashion,
"Yow-wow, yow-wow, yow-wow!" They ran to and fro, waving and shouting.
Once more the buffaloes stopped and looked. Lazy-man and his wife now
ran at them, throwing their blankets in the air, and yelling more
wildly than ever. The scared buffaloes turned about again. They were so
badly frightened this time that they ran out on the ice on the lake.
The ice was as smooth as glass. The buffaloes could not stand up on it.
One after another they slipped and fell. The lazy Indian was not lazy
that day. He saw a chance to get out of his poverty. He ran about on
the ice, killing the buffaloes.
For many days he and his squaw worked. They skinned the buffaloes, and
dried the skins. They prepared the stomachs of the buffaloes, and
stuffed them with the chopped meat, making it look like great sausages
as big as pillows. They put a few cranberries in with the meat to give
the pemmican a good taste. Then they poured the smoking fat of the
buffalo into this great sausage. The fat filled up the small spaces.
When it got cold, the pemmican sack was almost as hard as a stone. It
could be cut only by chopping it with a tomahawk.
At last spring came, and the tribe came home from the hunt. You may
suppose that Lazy-man was proud that day. Instead of being the poor
beggar whom everybody laughed at, he was now one of the rich men in the
tribe. He had more buffalo robes and more pemmican than any other man
in the village. He exchanged his buffalo robes for ponies. After that
he always went on the hunt, and lived like the other Indians. He did
not wish to sink into laziness and poverty again.
PETER PETERSEN.
A STORY OF THE MINNESOTA INDIAN WAR.
Peter Petersen was a very little boy living in Minnesota. He lived on
the very edge of the Indian country when the Indian War of 1862 broke
out.
Settlers were killed in their cabins before they knew that a war had
begun. As the news spread, the people left their houses, and hurried
into the large towns. Some of them saw their houses burning before they
got out of sight. The roads were crowded with ox wagons full of women
and children.
Peter Petersen's father was a Norwegian settler. When the news of the
Indian attack came, Peter's father hitched up his oxen, and put his
wife and daughters and little Peter into the wagon. They drove the oxen
hard, and got to Mankato in safety.
The town was crowded with frightened people. Many were living in
woodsheds and barns. In their hurry, these country people had not
brought food enough with them. Before long they began to suffer hunger.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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