six children. It was six yards, and I was told to say to her she must make clothes for the children out of what was left after she had made her own! At this my people all laughed. Some of the men who worked hardest got blankets, some got nothing at all; a few of the hats were issued, and the good minister, Father Wilbur, told me to say he would issue again later in the fall, that is, blankets. After the issue was over, my people talked and said,—
“Another Reinhard!—don’t you see he is the same? He looks up into the sky and says something, just like Reinhard.” They said, “All white people like that are bad.” Every night some of them would come and take blankets off from sleeping men and women until all were gone. All this was told to the agent, but he would not help my poor people, and Father Wilbur’s civilized Indians would say most shameful things about my people. They would tell him that they were knocking their doors in, and killing their horses for food, and stealing clothes. At one time they said my people killed a little child. Their Indian minister, whose name was George Waters, told me one of my women had been seen killing the child. He said the child’s head was cut to pieces. I said to brother Lee,—
“We will go and see the child.”
I asked the white doctor to go with us to see it. I told him what had been said. They had him all wrapped up, and said they did not want anybody to see him. George was there. I said,—
“We must see him. You said our people had killed him, and that his head is cut in pieces.” So the doctor took off all the blankets that were wound round him. There was no sign of anything on him. He had fallen into the river and had been drowned.
On May 29, my poor little sister Mattie died. Oh, how she did suffer before she died! And I was left all alone.
