Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories: Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas
John Locke · en
The story got out that the Netawaka merchant would sell the Indian a
bill of groceries, put it in a box, and a clerk would obligingly carry
it to the Indian’s wagon—and then, while the Indian was loitering in the
store, the clerk would slip out and rob the box, in the interest of the
merchant. But, if this were true, the Indians seemed to like it. They
followed the Netawaka merchant to Horton when that town got started
in 1886. Also, it was said, a certain white farmer living near the
southwest corner of the reservation, would sometimes ride out from
Netawaka with one of his Indian friends, letting his hired hand follow
up with his own rig. At opportune times, the white man would reach back
and throw out packages for the hired hand to gather up. Methinks Sam
would have had hard luck in fishing out a package of granulated sugar
such as those tied-up by me.
The old, old Indians are, I believe, all dead now. Of the younger
generations, I know little—except that they are the descendants of a
once relatively large tribe, and that their once large domain has
been reduced to thirty sections, and that much of the land within the
boundaries of the reservation is now owned by white people.
H. A. Hogard, Educational Field Agent, and Grover Allen, Indian, were
in Wetmore last Sunday practicing archery with George Grubb and Ollie
Woodman. They told me the Indian population now numbers about 280. There
are about fifty families.
For my first episode I shall tell you about a deer-hunt my father and
I had with the Indians. In a former article I told you about an Indian
with a party of deer-hunters we chanced to meet in the John Wolfley
timber, whom my father named Eagle Eye. His Indian name was far from
that, however.
It was Eagle Eye who had arranged this hunt. He brought along from the
reservation, eight miles northeast of here, two extra ponies—one of
normal size and not too large at that, and a little one for me to ride.
While putting the saddle on the little pony my father asked the Indians
if it were a gentle pony. Eagle Eye said, “Him heap gentle like lazy
squaw.”
It had snowed during the night and was still snowing when the Indians
arrived at day-break. Two deer-runs were to be covered and it would take
a full day to do it. Then, too, our party wanted to, if possible, get
onto the grounds ahead of other hunters. It was not very cold, and my
father was pleased with the snow. Tracking would be good. A natural born
hunter, snow always appealed to him. He had killed a great many deer in
his native Tennessee.
In the old days in Tennessee there was hardly ever enough snow to do a
good job of tracking. However, hunters down there this winter would have
had snow aplenty to track deer—if deer still remain to be tracked. A
foot of snow and thirteen degrees below zero was recorded January 19th
at Nashville—where I was born, the second son of a tanner, at 11:30 p.m.,
December 31, 1861.