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Show THE MIDVAJ,R JOURN AL • rr on by) , EdnaFet•bet• ,._ -( • • lllusi.i•a :tiosu b~1 • 1.-wf.n. My•s•• W.N.U . A linotype machine, that talented Iron monster, now chattered and chittered THE STORY and clanked In the compOsing room of Wigwam. It was the first of its the returned just Cravat, Yance31' kom the newly opened Indian kl~ In the Oklahoma country. telrrttory, relates his experiences Sabra was proud of the linotype. mato a larce cat.herlng of the Venfor It had been ber five years at chine. able family. Yan~ey Is married of the Wigwam that had head tbe to Sabra Venable; Is a criminal lawyer and editor of the Wichita It was she who possible. it made Wlcwam. :f'ancey announces he Is had gone out after job printing con· coins back to the Oklahoma countracts; wbo had educated the local tl'7 with Sabra and their fourmerchants to the value of advertl,. year-old son, Clmarroa. They arrive at Osage, where Yancey Ining. Certainly Yancey, prancing and tends to start a newspaper. Yanprating, had n~v-er given a thought to cey Is determined to ftnd out who substantial foundations on which these killed Editor Pegle~: of the New l)ay. Yancey conaents to conduct the entire business success of the 4a1flne worship on Sunday. Ourpaper rested. They now got out with IDa' the services Yancey anease the dally Wigwam for Ute Osage nounces he has learned who kllled townspeople and the weekly for counPegler. He stoops In time to e·s Yountls. by ftred bullet a cape ty subscribers. Still stooping, Yancey shoots and Five years had gope by-six years kills Yount!.-. Then he announces Yancey's return. Yet, strangely since that Y.ou.ntls k111ed Pegler. Yancey frustrates a bank robbery enough, Sabra n~er had a feeling of and kills two desperadoes. Yansecurity. She never forgot what he cey urges Sabra to join him In the had said about Wichita. "Almost five Run at the opening of the Cheroyears In one place. That's the longest kee stri.P. She refuses. He Is c6ne ftve years. Dixie Lee and stretch I've ever done, honey." Five her &"lrls arouse the Indignation years. And this was well Into the of the wives and mothers of He had plunged h~ad first lnto sixth. be011&11'&. The war with Spain giDll. Yancey returns In the unithe statehood ftght, Into the Indian Dixie form of a Rough Rider. territory situation. The anti-Indian Lee Is on trial as a public nul• factlan was bitterly opposed to the sance. Yancey detenda her and plan for combining the Oklahoma tershe Is acquitted. t'tory and the Indian territory under the single state of Oklahoma. Their slogan was "The White' Man's State CHAPTER X for the White Man.'' -14"Who brought the Indian here to It wu as though Osage and the Whole Oklahoma country now stopped the Oklahoma country In the first aacJ took a deep breath. Well it place?" shouted Yancey In the edl· might. Just ahead of it, all unknown, torial eolumns of the Wigwam. "White waited years of such clangor and strife men. They hounded them from Misaa would make the past years seem souri to Arkansas, from Arkansas to uneventful In comparison. Ever since southern Kansas, then to northern the day of the Run, more than fifteen Kansas, to northern Oklahoma, to soutbern Oklahoma. You white me~t 1~ ago, It had been racing helteratelter, devil take the hindmost ; shoot- sold them the piece of arid and barren IDI Into tbe air, pranctng and yelping land on which they now live in squalor out of sheer vitality and cussedness. and misery. It Isn't fit for a white A. man's country It seemed to be, ruled man to Uve on, or the Indians wouldn't bJ men for men. The women allowed be living on It now. Dep~ed of their them to think so. The word feminism tribal laws. ~rived of their tribal was unknown to the Sabra Cravats, rites, herded together in stockades the Hn. Wyatts, the Mrs. Hetners, the like wild animals, robbed, cheated, Jlesdames Turket and Folsom and kicked, hounded from place to place, Sipes. Prim, good women and cour- give them the protection of the counageous, banded together by their good- try that bas taken tbelr country away . . . and b7 their common resolve to from them. Give them at least. the tame the wilderness. Their power right to become citizens of the state wu the more tremendous because they of Oklahoma." He was Ob11fSed by lt. He traveled did not know they had it. They never Washington In the hope of lobb,.. to onee saJd, during those tl.fteen years, for lt. Roosevelt was characterlng '"We women will do this. We women eordial to his old campaign istically will ebange that." Quietly, fndomlt· ably, relentleasly, without even a fur- comrade. Washington ladles were captive 11ance of understandin g ex- tivated by the flowery speecht>s of eha.Dged between them, but secure in this romantic, this story-book swag1helr common knowledge of the senti- gerer out of the Southwest. It was rflmored on good authority mental American male, they went he was to be appointed the next that ahead with their plans. of the Oklahoma territory. governor Yancer had come home from the "Oh, Yancey," Sabra said, "do be Spao&ab-Amerlcan war a hero. Other mea from Osage had been In the careful. Governor of the territory I It PbilJ»pines. One had even died there would mean so much. It would help (cJ;yseutery and ptomaine from bad oCim In the future. Donna, too. Their tinned beef). But Yancey was the father a governor." She thought, "Pertown'l Rougb Rider. He bad charged haps all that I've gone through in the up San Juan bill with Roosevelt. last ten years will be worth It, now. He'JI settle ()up, knowing Yancey and never hav- Perhaps It was this. can't say Mamma IDI" seen Roosevelt, assumed that Yan- down. and Venables the all and cet Cravat-the Southwest Cimarron now . • • the and -lutd led the way, an lvory-and-sllver- the Vlans and the Goforths Diollllnted slx·shooter In either hand, Greenwoods. • . ." She had had to the great bu1falo head lowered with endure their pity, even from a disneh menace that the enemy had fled tance, all these years. The rumor took on substance. My ln terror. His return had been the occasion husband, Yancey Cravat, governor of for such a celebration as the town had the territory of Oklahoma. And then, :Del'er known and never WC\Uid know when statehood came, as It must In qala, they llSSured each other, be- the next few years, perhaps governor nteen drinks, until the day when ot the state of Oklahoma. Why not! At which point Yancey blasted any •tehood should come to the territory. of his appointment to the possibility Be returned a captain, unwounded, but thin and yellow, with the llvery rovernorshlp by hurling a red-h9t ediloot thllt contl.rmed the stories one torial Into the columns of the Wighad heard of putrid food, typho1d, dys- wam. The gist of It was that the enteey, and mosquitoes more deadly, hundreds of thousands of Indians now .In tlllB semi-tropica l country, than bul- living on reservations throughout the United States should be allowed to lets or cannon, where they pleased, at liberty. live PoiSoned and enfeebled though he of the Oklahoma territory whites The was. bla return seemed to energize the territory, with an InIndian the and crude Httle town. Wherever he might be he ltt'ed In a nlrl of events that dian population of ·about one hundred drew Into Its eddy all that came with- and twenty thousand of various tribes Cherokees, Chickasaws, Sa Ita radlUSc Hi, Yancey I HI, Clint I -Poncas, Kiowas, Comanches, Osages, Creeks, bat cocked the and Be died the"kbakl Seminoles, and a Choctaws, Kaws, the In again ud aetuaiiJ appeared , emitted a roar others-read of score Al~lllar white sombrero, Prince the paper brandishing and rage, of bl,ri. and high-heeled boots. Osage cursstreets, the Into screaming ran ln'eathed a •lgb of satisfaction. His Cravat. Yancey of name the ing tcelletlon was forgiven, the rumors Much that he wrote was true, peraltout t.lm forgotten-o r allowed to abelde, at least. Again the editorial haps. Yet the plight of the Indian eOtamDa of the Oklahoma Wigwam was not as pitiable as Yancey palijted lt. Be east over them the glamor of 'lllsed with b:yperbole. It wu bard !or Sabra to take sec- his own romantic nature. The truth 011.4 p~e (or to appear to take second was that they themselves eared little place) ln the otHce ot the Wigwam. -except a few of their tribal leaders, She Ncl 80 long ruled there illone. more intelligent than the rest. They ller word hAd been law to the waver- hunted a little, fished, slept, visited ing Jene lt~ey and to the worsblplng from tribe to tribe, the Poncas vlsltCUff lleans. And now to say, "You'd fnl the Osages, the Osages the Poneas. gossiping, eatln~. hol4Jng powbetter ask Mr. Cravat." wo•s. went He's you. to ''Be 88.11 leave It Sabra picked Ull the proof sheet of out." edltortat. stUI damp from the press, the Y1lncey did a good deal or going out. walked Into Yancey's otHce. Her and ~. after aU, still dld most of the was white, !let. face orlt of the PllJ'II!r without having the golq to rnn this, Yanc91!" "You're -.r,lllfiG«ion .., ~~tatlng its pollq. -r-.• "You'll nev• be covernor of the territory." "Never.• She stood a moment, her faee wort· lng. She erushed the galley proof bl her hand 80 that her knuckles stood' out, white. "I've forgiven · yoa many, maDJ things, God knows, In the last ten years. I'll never forgive yoa tor this. Never." "Yes, you will, honey. Never Is a long time. Not while I'm alive, ma7• be. But some day, a long time froDJ now--though not so very long, maybe -you'll be able to 'turn back to the old files of the Oklahoma Wigwam and lift this editorial of mine rlgbt out of it, word for word, and run It as your own." "Never. • • • Donna • • • Clm. . ." "I can't live m1 children's lives for them, Sabra honey. 'l"bey've got to live their own. I believe what I believe. This town Is rotten-the territory-the whole country. Rotten." "You're a fine one to say what 11 or Isn't rotten. You with your whisky and your Indians and your women. I despise you. So does every one In the town-In the territory." "'A prophet Is not without honor, save in his own country and in his own home.'" A trifle sonorously. She never really knew whether he had done this thing with the very purpose of making his governorship lm· possible. It was like him. Curiously enough, the editorial, while It maddened the white popula· tlon of the territory, gained the paper .-,.. ... I The)' Cheweft Tobacco and Spat. many readers. The Wigwam pros· pered. Osage blossomed. It was no longer a camp; It was a town. It behalls. gan to build schools, church Sol Levy's store--the Levy ercantlle company-h ad two waxen ladles in the window, their features only slight· ly affected by the burning southwest suo. Yancey boomed Sol Levy for mayor of Osage, but he never had a chance. It was remarkable how the Oklahoma Wigwam persisted, though Its position In most public questions was violently unpopular. Perhaps It, like Yancey, had a vitality and a charm that no one could withstand. Although Sol Levy was still the town Jew, respected, prosperous. the town had never quite absorbed this oriental. A citizen of years' standing, he still was 11 stranger. He mingled little with his fellow townsmen outHe was sf\V of ~!lde business hours. the town women though the women or the town found him kindly, passhmate, The business men and generous. liked him. They put him on COIDJIIit· tees. Occasionally Sabra or lllome other woman who knew him ~ll enough would say, half playfully, llalf seriously, "Why don't you get married, Sol? A nice fellow like you. You'd make some girl happy.'' Sometimes he thought vaguely of goIng to Wichita or Kansas City or enn Chicago to met some nice J ewlsb girl there, but he never did. It never entered his head to marry a Gentile. Between him and Yancey there existed a deep sympathy and understandIng. Yancey campaigned for Sol Levy In the mayoralty race--if a thing so one-sided could be called a race. The Wlgw.am extolled him. "Why, the very Idea!" snorted the redoubtable virago, Mrs. Tracy Wyatt, whose husband was the opposing candidate. "A Jew for mayor of Orage! They'll be having an Indian mayor next. Mr. Wyatt's folks are real Americans. They helped settle Arkansas. And as for me. why, I ean trace my ancestry right back to William Whipple, who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence." Sol Levy never had a chance for public honor. He, In fact, did -practically nothing to further his own possible election. He seemed to regard the whole matter with a remoteness slightly tinged with Ironic hun:jor. Yancey dropped Into Sol's store to bring him this latest pronouncem ent ot the bristling 1\lrs. Wyatt. "Declaration of Independenc e I" Sol exclaimed, thoughtfully . "Tell her pne of my ancestors wrote the Ten COmmandments. Fella name of Moses." Yancey, roaring with laughter, used this In the Wigwam, and It naturally helped as much as anything to defeat the already defeated candidate. The town went by-Indians, cowboys up from Texas, plainsmen, ranch· era. They stili squatted at the curb. as in the early days. They chowed tobacco and spat. The big sombrero persist~ and even the boots and spurs. There was talk of paving Pawhuska avenue, but thla did not come for years. The town actuaiiJ boasted a waterworks. The .Wigwam oftlee stiU stood on. Pawhuska. but It now occupied the entire house. Two 7ears after Yancey's return they had decided to build a home on Kihekab street, where there actuallJ were trees now almost ten yeara old. Sabra buut a white frame house In the style of the day, with turrets, tow· ers, minarets, cupolas, and scroll work. There was a stained glass window In the hall, In purple and red and green and yellow, which, confronting the entering caller, gave him the look of being suddenly stricken with bubonic plague. There were parlor, sitting room, dining room, kitchen on the first fioor ; four bedrooms on the second tl.oor, and a bathroom, actually, with a full-size bathtub, a toilet, and a marble washstand with varicose veins. In the cellar 'there was a hot air furnace. "As long as we're building and furnishing," Sabra said, "It might as well be the best." She had gone about planning the house, a~ furnishing it, wltb her customary energy and capability. With lt.all she found time to do her work on the Wigwam-fo r with· out her the paper would have been run to the ground in six months. O;;age had long since ceased to consider 1t queer that she, a woman, aad the wife of one of Its most· promInent citizens, should go to work every morning like a man. Sabra, In common with the other well-to-do housewives of the community, employed an Indian girl as a house servant. There was no other kind of help available. After her hideous experience with Arita she had been careful to get Indian girls older, more settled, though this was difficult. She preferred · Osage girls. These married young, often before they had finished their studies at the Indian school. Ruby Big Elk had been with Sabra now for three years. A curious, big, silent girl of about twenty-two -almost handsome-o ne of six childrena large family for an Osage. Sabra was somewhat taken aback, after the girl had been with her for some months, to learn that she already had been twice married. "What became of your husbands, Ruby?" "Died." She had a manner that bordered on the Insolent. Sabra put it down to Indian dignity. When she walked she scuft'ed her feet ever so little, and this, for some Inexplicable reason, seemed to add Insolence to her bearing. "Oh, do lift your feet. Ruby I Don't scuftle when you walk." The girl made no Went on scuffling. E!abra disrep~. covered tbat she was lame; the left leg was slightly shorter than the right. She did not limp-or, rather, hid the ~dency to limp by the Irritating slid· Her walk was straight, 1~ sound. l'isurely measured. Sabra was terribly embarrassed ; apologized to the Indian girl. The girl only looked at 1\er an4 said nothing. Sabra repressed a llttl~ shivver. She ho:d never got accustomed to the Indians. Ruby's father, Big Elk, had been chief of the Osage tribe by election for ten years, and though he no longer ll.eld this highest office, was a maD mueh looked up to In the Osage nation:. He had sent his six chlidren an4 actually his fat wife to the In· school, but he himself steaddl fa tly refused to speak a word of gUsh, though_ he knew enough of t e language. He conversed In Osage, ap.d when necessary used an lnterl)'l'eter. It was a kind of stubborn In•ian prllfe In him. It was his enduring challenge to the white man. "You have not defeated me." It slowly dawned on Sabra that young Clm was always to be found lolling In the kitchen, talking to Ruby. Ruby, she discovered to her horror, ·was teaching Clm to speak Osage. A difficult language to the white, he seemed to have a natural aptitude for it. She came upon them, their beads close together over the kitchen table, laughing imd talking and singIng. Ratller, Ruby Big Elk was singing a soli~ with a curious rhythm, and (to 'abra's ear, at least) no melody. Clm was trying to follow the strange gutturals, slurs, and accents, his eyes fixed on Ruby's face, his own expression utterly absorbed, rapt. "What ar you doing? What Is this?" The Indian rl's face took on Its ssion of proud discustomary e dain. She r t. "Teach um song," she said ; whl h was queer, for she spoke English jerfectly. "Well, I must say, Cimarron Cravat I When you kno ;rour father is expecting you down t the otHce--" She stopped. Her q i~k eye had leaped to lay the little round the table wh cal button which peyote disk or is the hashish of t Indian. She had heard out It; knew how prevalent amon the Indian tribes wn to Mexlcd had from Nebraska 1931 Thursday, become the habit of eatin• th1s Uttle buttonlike top of a Mexican cactus plant. In shape a disk about aD Inch and a half In diameter and a quarter of an Inch thick, the mescal or peyPte gave the eater a strange feeling of lightness, dispelled pain and fatigue, caused visions of marvelous beaut7 and grandeur. The use of it had become an Indian religious rite. Like a fury Sabra advanced to the table, snatched up the little round button of soft green. "Peyote I" She whirled on Clm. ",What are you doing with this thing?" Clm's eyes cast down sullenly. Hia hands In his pockets, he leaned against the wall, very limp, very bored, ver, infuriating and insolent. "Ruby was just teaching me one of the Mescal ceremony songs. Darned lqterestlng. It's the last song. They sing It at sunrise when they're just about all ln. Goes like this." ' To Sabra's horror he began an eerie song as he stood theN! leaning against the kitchen wall, his eyes half closed. "Stop It I" screamed Sabra. With the gesture of a tragedy queen she motioned him out of the kitchen. He obeyed with very bad grace, his goin1.1 more annoying, in Its manner, than bla staying. Sabra followed him, silently. Suddenly she realized she bated his walk, and knew why. He walked wltll a queer little springing galt, on the · very soles of his feet. It came oveP her that It always had annoyed her. She remembered that some one had laughingly told her what Pete Pltchlyn, the old Indian scout, lounging on his street corner, had said about youna Clm: "Every time I see that young Cimarron Cravat a-comln' down the street I expect to hear a twig snap. Walks like a story-book Injun." In the privacy of the sitting room Sabra confronted her son, the bit of peyote still crushed In her hand. "So you've come to this ! I'm ashamed of you !" "Come to what!" She opened her hand to show the button of pulpy green crushed in her palm. "Peyote. A son of mine. I'd rather see you dead-" "Oh, for heaven's sake, mom, don't get Biblical, like dad. To hear you ~ person would think you'd found me drugged In a Chinese opium den." "I think I'd almost rather.". "It's nothing but a miserable little piece of cactus. And what was I doIng but sitting In the kitchen listening to Ruby tell how her father-" "I should think a man of almost eighteen could find something better to do than sit In a kitchen in the middle of the day talking to an In· cpan girl. Wbere's your pride I" Clm's eyes were still cast down. He still lounged Insolently, his hands In his pockets. "How about these stories you've told me all your Ute about the love you southerners had tor your servants and how old Angle was like a second mother to you?" "They were different. They knew their place." He raised the heavy eyelids then and lifted his ftne head with the menacing look that she knew so well In his father. "You're right, They are dlft'erent. In the first place, Ruby Isn't an Indian hired girl. She Is the daughter of an Osage chief." "Osage fiddlesticks! What of It?" "Ruby Big Elk Is just as Important a l>erson in the Osage nation as Alice Roosevelt Is in Washington. '' "Now, listen here, Cimarron Cravat I I've heard about enough. A lot of dirty Indians I Just you march yourself · down to the Wigwam office, young man, and don't you ever again let me catch you talking In that disrespectfu l manner about the daughter of the President of the United States. And If I ever hear that you've eaten a bite of this miserable stuff"-she held out her hand, shaking a little, the mescal button crushed in her palm-"1'11 have your father thrash you within an Inch ot your life, big as you are. As it Is, he shall hear of this." But Yancey, on being told, only looked thoughtful and a little sad. "It's your own fault, Sabra. You're bound that the boy shall live the life you've planned for him Instead of tho one he wants. So he's trying to escape Into a dream life. Like the In· dians. It's all the same thing.'' "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't think you know, either.'' "The Indians started to eat peyote after the whites had taken their religious and spiritual and decent physi· cal life away from them. 'Man cannot live by bread alone.' He has got to have dreams, or life Is uneudurable . So the Indian turned to the peyote. He finds peace and comfort and beauty in his dreams." A horrible suspicion ·darted through Sabra. "Yancey Cravat, have you ever-" He nodded his magnificent head slowly, sadly. "Many times. Many times." . ,.. . Worri ed Husba nds Do YOUll own weariness, your Wife'• unhappiness and "nerves", leave yoq no peace of mind? 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The Immediate Audience "Future generations will applaud )'our speeches," remarked the sincere admirer. "I'm not trying to reach that far," replied Senator Sorghum. "I'm sat· isfled if . I can be correctly quoted in my home town newspapers. '' Ten Gauge, Double "And how was your father-In-law looking last time you saw him?" "Straight down the barrel I" Perhaps parents should pretend to somewhat object to daughter's young man. It adds excitement to the courtship. (TO BBl CONTINUB:D. ) ******* U I lliflftill llif**ll llllll*****l l llll II ll******** **ll llll X**ll K II I Lizards F aat Royally on Eggs of Crocodi le I have sometimes watched monitors, or African water llz rds, at tbelr work nests of their of .robbing crocodl eggs, C. R. S. Pitm q writes, In Asia Magazine. The anti s of these prehistoric looking creat s, which are usually about four feet long, are most entertaining. On more than one occasion when I have· been lying In eaneealment, ob~~ervlog the behavior of the guardian females on the breeding grounds, I have seen a monitor .llberately pro,·oke a crocodile until tt rD$hes o1f In pursuit into the water. In the meantime the monitor's mate arrlvea on e nelt with the scene, excavates great haste and begins gQbbllng up the eggs. Soon it Is joined by No. 1, which had only taken to the water as a rulft. They usually succeed in disposing of the greater portion of the eggs before the return of the rightful owner. Even when forced to withdraw, they will decamp each with an egg In Its mouth. Life Expectancy The average life expectancy at birth In this country is 56.42 years, this figure being based on the 1920 United States census for the whole population. For males the figure 111 65.33 and for females, 57.62. IMps& Seller .. w N. N. U., Salt Lake Cit)'~ ec......... No. 84-1131. |