Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1899 — Aboriginal and Original. [ARTICLE]

Aboriginal and Original.

Whatever else may be true of Indians as waiters, after reading the following grimly amusing story, taken from the Chicago Times-Herald, it cannot be said that they are of the painfully obsequious type: In a small town in Nebraska the girl waiters at the tavern all left td go to a new hotel In a neighboring town, and as no other help was available the landlord was forced to do the waiting himself until he thought of the Indians at the reservation. He promptly hired four of them, but as the Indian has no idea of time they did not get round to the tavern the next day until the breakfast hour was over, and all the guests save one had eaten. He was a drummer for a New York house, and Is known in the West as a great grumbler. When he appeared in the dining room : the landlord urged forward the man be had been training. “Take this order, Jim,” he said, “and give him a glass of ice water.” The Indian managed to take the order correctly, and carried it In and served it; then he took his stand at the back of the guest’s chair, as he bad been Instructed to do. But the drummer was In a bad temper, and declared in no complimentary way that he would not be served by an Indian. At that the grim statue at his back whipped out a savage looking dirk, and holding it over the head of the grumbler, he said, with Choctaw brevity: “You eat.” And eat the drummer did, flesh and fowl, not daring to move a muscle, while the unwavering arm held the dirk within an inch of his head; and it was not until he had eaten everything in sight that his predicament was discovered and he was rescued in a state verging on collapse.