“The dresses which my white sister gave my child were her dead child’s clothes, so they should be burned.” I began to cry, because I did not want them burned. He said to me,—
“Don’t cry, my child; you will get nicer ones than these if you learn to love my white sister.”
Of course the clothes were burned, and after I got well my grandpa took great delight in taking us all to see his white brothers and sisters, and I knew what he meant when he said “my little girls; “I knew he meant me and sister, and he also would say “my little boys,” when he was talking about my brothers.
He would say, pointing to my brother, “my Natchez;”[1] he always said this. So the white people called one of my brothers Natchez, and he has had that name to this day.
So I came to love the white people. We left Stockton And went on farther to a place called San Joaquin River. It took us only one day to go there. We only crossed that river at that time.
One of my grandpa’s friends was named Scott, and the other Bonsai. After we got there, his friend killed beef for him and his people. We stayed there some time. Then grandpa told us that he had taken charge of Mr. Scott’s cattle and horses, and he was going to take them all up to the mountains to take care of them for his brothers. He wanted my uncles and their families and my mother and her two sons and three daughters to stay where they were; that is, he told his dear daughter that he wanted her two sons to take care of a few horses and cows that would be left. My mother began to cry, and said,—
“Oh, father, don’t leave us here! My children might get sick, and there would be no one to speak for us; or
- ↑ Natchez means boy.
