Kansas University Weekly.
311
Every evening when she mounted her pony and galloped away across the prairie to the great hill to the eastward, where she gazed into the distance, longing, hoping against hope, thinking of the seven white stone buildings around the quadrangle, the west wind sang a funeral song and the willows waved their branches mournfully. Then she would ride back, slowly and hopelessly, and return to her drudgery, to her slavery, to indignities and to insults.
Such had been her life since leaving the Indian school, and such she knew it would ever be; for what could the Indian girl do? She had no friends, she cared for none. She hated everything and everybody around her—everything but the shaggy pony to which she confided all the pent-up longings of her heart. She hated her drunken father who lounged about the house from morning until night, too lazy to do anything but drag himself away at evening only to return at daybreak more drunken than ever. She hated her rude brothers who swore and gambled and made boisterous jests about her, calling her Proud-Heart, and Pale-Face-Ape. Why shouldn't she think and feel as white women did? Surely, she had a heart and a soul just as her fairer sisters had. She hated the men who frequented their miserable home once she had used her knife but no one ever knew, for the cowardly, sneaking brute who had insulted her, never told. Oh! how she hated them all! Yet, she must stay, stay on and on, while her future grew blacker and blacker. The world was hard enough on white women, but it was harder still on Indian girls.
The bees, lured out by the warm sunshine buzzed lazily about the door yard, but above the hum of the bees came the sound of voices.
"Heap good girl," she heard her father grunt, "Heap good girl, make good squaw."
Toya jumped to her feet,her eyes flashing and her fingers working at the folds of her gown where the hilt of a knife peeped forth.
"Me giv'er you for horse-one horse-two horse."
shook with rage and defiance,—but then,would it not be better? Would it not be better than this miserable home? Would not anything be better than this place she called home?
She saw her father coming towards the house, a young brave by his side. Her lithe form
With a startled little cry, she thrust the knife back into its hiding place, and greeted the visitor sullenly. Meekly and humbly, she submitted to all arrangements, and even smiled when her father told her that he had received two fine horses for his "dear, beautiful daughter, the light of his life, and the joy of his old age;" but her eyes were more unfathomable than ever, and that night when she rode out to the hilltop, she threw her arms around her pony's neck—her only friend—and sobbed as if her heart would break.
"Oh! Fleetfoot, I am ruined," she cried, "They have sold me for a horse and to a snake! Is there nothing I can do? Nothing? Nothing?"
She threw herself upon the ground, and dug her fingers into the hard, sun-baked sod. But, there was no sympathy for the Indian girl, nothing but the funeral song of the west wind.
"Why did they take me away from my home, and make me realize the misery of it all? I there be a God in Heaven, as they have taught me there is, save me from this fate!" It was the same prayer she had been praying day and night for a whole year, but she had never expressed it in words before.
She arose, and listlessly rode home, while the west wind sang wilder and wilder, and the willows tossed their branches in anguish.
The next morning Toya seemed almost happy as she made her simple preparations for the wedding feast,—but her eyes were as unfathomable as before. Depraved as her father was, he was nevertheless determined that the wedding ceremony should be strictly observed, but perhaps it was more on account of the meat and drink that should be served at the feast, than for his daughter's sake.
Slowly, the morning gave way to afternoon, and the afternoon to evening. The sun was reddening the western sky,and the time was almost at hand when Toya and her young brave