said, “When I tell you to do anything I don’t want any of you to dictate to me, but to go and do it.”
When I told them what he said, they all jumped up and went away. The next morning men, women, and boys went to work. Some went into the fields to. cut the grain, some to mow hay, and some to cut rails for fences. Some went to cut wood, and some to haul it in. Everybody was busy all the week. Saturday, at half past six o’clock, my people came right from their work to get their pay, men, women, and boys; thirty-eight women, forty-three boys, and nineteen hundred and nine men. We all went to the agent’s office. I went in first and said, “All my people have come to get their pay.” “Well, tell them to come in.” Then he began to write: Blankets, six dollars; coats, six dollars; pants, five dollars, shoes, three dollars; socks, fifty cents; woollen shirts, three dollars, handkerchiefs, fifty cents; looking-glasses, fifty cents; sugar, three pounds for one dollar; tea, one dollar per pound; coffee, two and a half pounds for one dollar; shawls, six dollars; calico, ten yards for one dollar; unbleached muslin, four yards. “The rations they have had are worth about four dollars a week, and then they have two dollars left to get anything they want out of the storehouse.” Some of my men said, “Let us go; why do we fool with such a man?” A good many got up and left. Egan, the sub-chief, got up and said, “Why do you want to play with us? We are men, not children. We want our father to deal with us like men, and tell us just what he wants us to do; but don’t say you are going to pay us money, and then not do it. If you had told us you wanted us to work for nothing, we would have done it just as well if you had said, ‘I will pay you.’ We did not ask you to pay us. It is yourself that said you would see that government paid us, and we would like to have you pay us as you said. You did not say anything
