An Indian Boy's Story

by Ah-nen-la-de-ni [Daniel La France]

  While waiting for a new situation after the young lawyer had gone away, I heard of the opportunities there were for young men who could become good nurses, and of the place where such training could be secured. I desired to go there, and presented this ambition to the superintendent, who at first encouraged me to the extent of giving a fair recommendation. But when the matter was laid before the Head Directress in the shape of an application for admission ready to be sent by me to the authorities of the Nurses' Training School she flatly refused it consideration without giving any good reason for so doing.

  She, however, made the mistake of returning the application to me, and it was amended later and sent to the Training School in Manhattan. It went out through a secret channel, as all the regular mail of the institution's inmates, whether outgoing or incoming, was opened and examined in the office of the superintendent.

  A few days before the 4th of July, 1899, the answer to my application arrived in the form of notice to report at the school for the entrance examination. This communication found me in the school jail, where I had been placed for the first time in all my life at the institution.

  I had been charged with throwing a nightgown out of the dormitory window, and truly it was my nightgown that was found in the school yard, for it had my number upon it. But I never threw it out of the window. I believe that one of the official underlings did that in order to found upon it a charge against me, for the school authorities had discovered that I and other boys of the institution had gone to members of the Indian Rights Association and had made complaint of conditions in the school, and that an investigation was coming. They, therefore, desired to disgrace and punish me as one of the leaders of those who were exposing them.

  I heard about the letter from the Training School, and was very anxious to get away, but my liberation in time to attend that entrance examination seemed impossible. The days passed, and when the 4th of July arrived I was still in the school jail, which was the rear part of a stable.

  At one o'clock my meal of bread and water was brought to me by the guard detailed to look after my safe keeping. After he had delivered this to me he went outside, leaving the door open, but standing there. The only window of that stable was very small, very high on the wall and was protected by iron bars--but here was the door left open.

  I fled, and singularly enough the guard had his back turned and was contemplating nature with great assiduity. As soon as I got out of the inclosure I dashed after and caught a trolley car, and a few hours later I was in New York.

  That was the last I saw of the Institute and it soon afterward went out of existence, but I heard that as a result of the demand for an investigation the Superintendent of Indian Schools had descended on it upon a given day and found everything beautiful-- for her visit had been announced. But she returned again the next day, when it was supposed that she had left the city, and then things were not beautiful at all, and much that we had told about was proven.

  I had $15 in the Lincoln Institute bank when I ran away, but I knew that was past crying for and I depended on $3 that I had in my pocket and with which I got a railroad ticket to New York.

  I was assisted in my escape and afterward by a stedfast friend and had comparatively plain sailing, as I passed the entrance examination easily and was admitted to the Training School on probation.

  The Institute people wrote and wrote after me, but could not get me back or cause the Training School to turn me out, and they soon had their own troubles to attend to. The school was closed in 1900 as the Government cut off all appropriations.

  When I first entered the Training School on probation I was assigned to the general surgical ward and there took my first lessons in the duties of a nurse, being taught how to receive a patient--whether walking or carried--how to undress him and put him in bed, to make a list of his property, to make a neat bundle of his clothes, to enter his name and particulars about him in the records, and how to properly discharge patients, returning their property and clothes, and all about bed making, straightening out the ward, making bandages and scores of other details. I studied all books on nursing and attended all the lectures. Bed making, as I soon found, was an art in itself and a most important art, and so in regard to other details, all of which may look trivial to an outsider, but which count in sanitation.

  This new life was very much to my liking. I was free, for one thing, and was working for myself with good hope of accomplishing something.

  Our evenings were our own after our work was done, and tho we had to return to the nurses' quarters at 10.30 o'clock at the latest, that was not a hardship and we could enjoy some of the pleasures of the city. While in the Training School I received my board and $10 a month pay, a very decided gain over the Institute. Besides, the food and quarters were far better.

  After I had been for twelve months in the Training School I was allowed to go to our reservation for a ten days' vacation. It was the first time in nine years that I had seen my old home and I found things much changed. My mother and grandmother were dead, and there had died also a little sister whom I had never seen. My father was alive and still wandering as of old. Many of my playmates had scattered and I felt like a stranger. But it was very pleasant to renew acquaintance with the places and objects that had been familiar in my childhood--the woods, the streams, the bridge--that used to look so big and was now so small to me--the swimming hole, and with the friends who remained.

  I found that our people had progressed. The past and its traditions were losing their hold on them and white man's ways were gaining.

  During the visit I lived at the house of my brother, who is ten years older than me and is a farmer and manufacturer of snow shoes and lacrosse sticks. The ten days passed all too quickly.

  Since that time I have paid one other and much longer visit to the reservation and have quite renewed touch with my own people, who are always glad to see me and who express much astonishment at the proficiency I show in my native tongue. Most of the boys who are away from the reservation for three or four years forget our language, but, as I have said, there were some of us at the Institute who practiced in secret.

  What I saw in the reservation convinced me that our people are not yet ready for citizenship and that they desire and should be allowed to retain their reservation. They are greatly obliged to those who have aided them in defeating the Vreeland bill. The whole community is changing and when the change advances a little further it will be time to open the reservation gates and let in all the world.

  Of course, so far as the old Indians are concerned, they will not and cannot change. They have given up the idea that the Mohawks will ever again be a great people, but they cannot alter their habits and it only remains for them to pass away. They want to end their days in comfort and peace, like the cat by the fireside--that is all.

  To the white man these old people may not seem important, but to us young Indians they are very important. The family tie is strong among Indians. White people are aggravated because so many young Indians, after their schooling, go back to their reservations and are soon seen dressed and living just like the others. But they must do that if they desire to keep in touch with the others.

  Supposing the young Indian who has been to school did not return to his father's house, but stayed out among the white men. The old folks would say "He won't look at us now. He thinks himself above us." And all parents who observed this would add: "We won't send our children to school. They would never come back to us."

  The young Indians are right to go back to the reservation and right to dress and act like the others, to cherish the old folks and make their way easy, and not to forget their tribe. It is a mistake to think that they soon lose all that they have learned in the school. Compare the school Indians with those who have not been at school and a very marked difference is found. You find on their farms improved methods and in their houses pianos, which their wives, who have also been at school, can play. All these boys and girls who have been
to school are as missionaries to the reservation.

  The schools are doing a great deal of good to the Indians and are changing them fast, and there is another force at work occupied with another change. On all the reservations the pure blooded Indians are becoming rarer and rarer, and the half and quarter breeds more and more common--technically they're Indians. Thus tho the tribe is increasing, the real Indians are decreasing. They are becoming more and more white. On our reserve now you can see boys and girls with light hair and blue eyes, children of white fathers and Indian mothers. They have the rosy cheeks of English children, but they cannot speak a word of English.

  After returning to the Training School I completed the two years' course and afterward took a special course in massage treatment for paralysis.

  I have since been employed principally in private practice. I like the work and the pay, tho the former is very exacting. The nurse must be very clean and very regular in his habits; he must be firm and yet good-tempered--able to command the patient when necessary. He must maintain a cheerful attitude of mind and demeanor toward a patient, who is often most abusive and ill tempered. He must please the doctor, the patient's family, and to as great an extent as possible the patient himself. He must be watchful without appearing to watch. He must be strong and healthy. Nursing is tiresome and confining. Nevertheless I console myself with the remunerations, financial and educational, and with the thought that my present occupation, assisting in saving lives, is an advance on that of scalp taking ancestors.

  I have been asked as to prejudice against Indians among white people. There is some, but I don't think it amounts to much. Perhaps there were some in my Training School class who objected to being associated with an Indian. I never perceived it, and I don't think I have suffered anywhere from prejudice.

  I have suffered many times from being mistaken for a Japanese.

  Some people when they find I am an Indian seek me out and have much to say to me, but it is generally merely for curiosity and I do not encourage them. On the other hand, I have good, stedfast, old-time friends among white people.

  When I first began to learn I thought that when I knew English and could read and write it would be enough. But the further I have climbed the higher the hills in front of me have grown. A few years ago the point I have reached would have seemed very high. Now it seems low, and I am studying much in my spare time. I don't know what the result will be.

  Some ask me whether or not I will ever return to my tribe. How can I tell? The call from the woods and fields is very clear and moving, especially in these pleasant summer days.

  NEW YORK CITY.