Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/271

 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 263 My wife was on nettles and the peddler exhibited the gold watch conspicuously. ' ' Hpld on there, ' ' I said, ' ' let the boy have his choice. ' ' He did, and Charlie delightedly snatched up a bolt of very bright, deep-red ribbon an inch and a half in width, to the utter disgust of the peddler, who said: "I'll be damned if you don't know an Indian from the ground up." ' ' Charlie, this is your day. Ogle that ribbon until you are tired out." With my wife 's assistance there were festoons upon his arms and legs, a band with bows around his black head, and from his neck to his heels flowed streamers that fluttered in the breeze. Fashionable white people put on finery to please others, but Charlie had no thought of pleasing others ; it was purely self-satisfaction; enjoyment coming with the exercise of faculty, and I believe an innate love of bright colors. What philosopher will show how such ecstasy can come from the vibrations of red upon the Indian's optic nerve? Are white children so affected and is it a phenomenon peculiar to child- hood? If so, mature Indians are never more than children, for the preference for red never fades. There were various patterns and colors in the calicos of the annuity goods, but the squaws preferred the red. After my brother's marriage, Charlie was taken to live with him in the little town of Phoenix in Rogue River Valley, an unfortunate change for Charlie. There he was in company with white boys who loved his company and who rallied him for obeying my brother's wife. His early repugnance to feminine control was revived to such an extent as to threaten her safety, and Charlie was turned over to Captain Truax of the Oregon Volunteers. He was taken to Fort Walla Walla, and there, falling in with those of depraved habits, became diseased and died miserably while a mere youth. But others with white skins did the same. The American Army, I be- lieve, is not a moral reform institution. One company re-