Zey are la," and she pointed to the wall, where,
in very truth, tied up with a bundle of dried fish, were the articles
in question. Not simply boots and corsets, but high-heeled Louis
Quinze slippers and French corsets. I learned afterward how they
were worn. When she went shopping to the H. B. Co. store she had
to cross the "parade" ground, the great open space; she crowded her
brown broad feet into the slippers, then taking a final good long
breath she strapped on the fearfully tight corsets outside of all.
Now she hobbled painfully across the open, proudly conscious that
the eyes of the world were upon her. Once in the store she would
unhook the corsets and breathe comfortably till the agonized
triumphant return parade was in order.
This, however, is aside; we are still in the home of the queen. She
continued to adduce new evidences. "I am just like a white woman.
I call my daughter darrr-leeng." Then turning to a fat, black-looking
squaw by the fire, she said: "Darrr-leeng, go fetch a pail of
vaw-taire."
But darling, if familiar with that form of address, must have been
slumbering, for she never turned or moved a hair's-breadth or gave
a symptom of intelligence. Now, at length it transpired that the
social leader wished to see me professionally.
"It is ze nairves," she explained. "Zere is too much going on in
this village. I am fatigue, very tired. I wish I could go away to
some quiet place for a long rest."
It was difficult to think of a place, short of the silent tomb,
that would be obviously quieter than Fort Smith. So I looked wise,
worked on her faith with a pill, assured her that she would soon
feel much better, and closed the blue door behind me.
With Chief Squirrel, who had been close by in most of this, I now
walked back to my tent. He told me of many sick folk and sad lodges
that needed me.
It seems that very few of these people are well. In spite of their
healthy forest lives they are far less sound than an average white
community. They have their own troubles, with the white man's maladies
thrown in. I saw numberless other cases of dreadful, hopeless,
devastating diseases, mostly of the white man's importation. It is
heart-rending to see so much human misery and be able to do nothing
at all for it, not even bring a gleam of hope. It made me feel like
a murderer to tell one after another, who came to me covered with
cankerous bone-eating sores, "I can do nothing"; and I was deeply
touched by the simple statement of the Chief Pierre Squirrel, after
a round of visits: "You see how unhappy we are, how miserable and
sick.
