Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 November 1884 — An Indian’s Honesty. [ARTICLE]

An Indian’s Honesty.

An exchange tells a story _of an ‘'lndian’s Honesty” which carries with it an excellent lesson. The native, or uneducated Indian, you know, was addicted to the use of tobacco; but now that we have the Carlisle Indian School, and the the government is furnishing so many helps to enlighten the red man, with the growth of knowledge all such vices must dissaponr, and the Indian become the g<?od citizen all who read this are aiming to be. Well, an old Indian once asked a man to give him some tobacco for his pipe. The man gave him a loose handful from his pocket. The next day lie came back and asked for the white man. “For,” said he, “1 found a quarter of a dollar among the tobacco ” “Why don’t yon keep it?” asked a bystander. “I've got a good man aid a bad man here,” said the Indian, pointing to his breast, and the good man say, *it is not mine; give it back to the owner.' The bad man say, ‘Never mind, you got it and it is your own now.’ The good man say, ‘No, no! you must not keep it.’ So I don’t know what to do, and I think to go to sleep, but the good and had man keep talking all night, and trouble me; now I bring the money back and I feel good.” And the writer goes on to say that “like the old Indian, we have all a good and a bad man within. The had man is Temptation, the good man is Conscience, and they keep talking for and against things that we do every day.” I have no need to ask you if the bad man or the good man wins, little bright eyes as you read this for yours is the task to put Temptation far away, but do not you meet every day some one who is listening to the bad instead of the good man within? _ ,