_This introduction is a genuine one, for all the boys who appear in these sketches have really lived and played a part in the incidents herein recorded. Each little actor, including the writer, made his entrance upon the stage of life in the "tee-pee" or in the dome-shaped earth lodge; for, in the years when we boys were born, only the aboriginal dwellings were in use among our people, the Omaha tribe of Indians. Like all the infants for countless generations in the line of our ancestry, we too had to pass through the cradle-board period while our bones "ripened," as the Indians say, and grew strong enough to bear the weight of our bodies. When at last our mothers gave us liberty to creep and to toddle about, we promptly used that freedom to get into all sorts of mischief as we explored the new and wonderful world in which we found ourselves._ _Among my earliest recollections are the instructions wherein we were taught respect and courtesy toward our elders; to say "thank you" when receiving a gift, or when returning a borrowed article; to use the proper and conventional term of relationship when speaking to another; and never to address any one by his personal name; we were also forbidden to pass in front of persons sitting in the tent without first asking permission; and we were strictly enjoined never to stare at visitors, particularly at strangers. To us there seemed to be no end to the things we were obliged to do, and to the things we were to refrain from doing._ _From the earliest years the Omaha child was trained in the grammatical use of his native tongue. No slip was allowed to pass uncorrected, and as a result there was no child-talk such as obtains among English-speaking children,--the only difference between the speech of old and young was in the pronunciation of words which the infant often failed to utter correctly, but this difficulty was soon overcome, and a boy of ten or twelve was apt to speak as good Omaha as a man of mature years._ _Like the grown folk, we youngsters were fond of companionship and of talking. In making our gamesticks and in our play, we chattered incessantly of the things that occupied our minds, and we thought it a hardship when we were obliged to speak in low tones while older people were engaged in conversation. When we entered the Mission School, we experienced a greater hardship, for there we encountered a rule that prohibited the use of our own language, which rule was rigidly enforced with a hickory rod, so that the new-comer, however socially inclined, was obliged to go about like a little dummy until he had learned to express himself in English._