Page:Life Among the Piutes.djvu/98

 The last time sister and I were on a visit to our people at our old home, just before I was married, we stopped with a white lady named Nichols, at Wadsworth, Nevada, on Pyramid Lake Reservation, the head-farmer named Mushrush, and the sub-agent at Walker River Reservation in Nevada. Some one tried to break through our bedroom door, and my sister cried out to them, saying, “Get away from that door or I will shoot!” At my sister’s words they went away. The name of the sub-agent is Louis Veviers, who has been with my people about eight years. All my people call him dog, because there is nothing too bad for him to say to them. After I was married, I went to let my people see my husband. While we were there we staid with my brother Tom. On New Year’s evening we heard a great noise coming towards the house. They were trying to make a noise like my people who had just lost a son, and were crying. They were mocking them as they came on. There were four men,— the doctor, the carpenter, the blacksmith, and one of their friends. My brother’s wife gave them some pine-nuts. By-and-by one of them gave my husband a bottle of fire-water, and asked him to pass it round. My husband replied, “Pass it round yourselves.” They said, “Give some to your brother-in-law.” My husband said, “Give it to him yourself.” This is the kind of people, dear reader, that the government sends to teach us at Pyramid Lake Reservation.

My people wanted to cut the hay, but they were not allowed to sell it until within five years. My cousin, Captain Bill, and his brother, had borrowed some seed by promising to divide the wheat after harvest, which they did; and then the farmer, who never showed them how to sow their grain, came to Bill, and said, “You must pay me for the use of the government land.” “What for?” said Bill