Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 March 1910 — INDIANS AND WORK. [ARTICLE]

INDIANS AND WORK.

Indians and work are tenms that are not associated together. The ideas are not even neighborly. Nevertheless, one can get a large amount of work done by an Indian if the task assigned to him tdkes the form carrying a canoe over a portage, or of setting traps for beaver, or of following a moose through a trackless forest, with snow two feet deep and no snowshoes. This is what a white man would call work, but it is the Indian’s recreation. What the savage is at farming is told in the pages of J. W. Sanborn’s book on the Seneca Indians, One day in May, making calls Upon the Indians, I observed three young men of about 25 years plowing. To be more exact, the Indians lay In the shade of an apple-tree, the plow slept in the furrow, and the horses stood nodding. Returning an hour later, there was no change of Base. The thought occurred to me, “Here is a chance to give those lazy fellows a lesson they will not forget.” So hitching my horse, I jumped the rail fence, took the reins, started the team, and finished plowing the piece. Then, turning to the aggravating indifferent three, as they “reclined beneath the branches of a wide-spread tree,” I volunteered the following advice : “Boys, if you want to get on in this world you must not spend much time in the shade.” The Indians, delighted to know that, the job was finished, cried out to ask *lf the missionary would not be kind enough to unhitch the team!” I did unhitch my own horse, and drove off at a high rate of speed, reflecting on the doctrine of total der pravlty.