Page:Life Among the Piutes.djvu/35

 bad hearts against my white brothers. I have eaten some sugar-bread, and so have you, and all the rest of us, and we did not get sick. Dear daughter, you should have blessed the strange food before you gave it to your child to eat; maybe this is why she is sick.”

It is a law among us that all strange food is blessed before eaten, and also clothing of any kind that is given to us by any one, Indians or white people, must be blessed before worn. So all my people came together and prayed over me, but it was all in vain. I do not know how long I was sick, but very long. I was indeed poisoned, not by the bread I had eaten, but by poison oak. My face swelled so that I could not see for a long time, but I could hear everything. At last some one came that had a voice like an angel. I really thought it must be an angel, for I had been taught by my father that an angel comes to watch the sick one and take the soul to the spirit land. I kept thinking it must be so, and I learned words from the angel (as I thought it). I could not see, for my eyes were swollen shut. These were the words, “Poor little girl, it is too bad!” It was said so often by the pretty sweet voice, I would say it over and over when I was suffering so badly, and would cry out, “Poor little girl, it is too bad!” At last I began to get well, and I could hear my grandpa say the same words.

Then I began to see a little, and the first thing I asked my mother, was, “What was the angel saying to me?” Oh, how frightened my poor mother was! She cried out,—

“Oh, father, come here! My little girl is talking to the angels,—she is dying.”

My sister and brothers ran to her, crying, and for the first time since I was sick I cried out, “Oh, don’t, don’t cry! I am getting well,—indeed I am. Stop crying, and give me something to eat. I was only asking you what the angel meant by saying ‘Poor little girl, it is too bad!’”