Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/309

Rh everything, in pleasure and in need; where good parents prepare even the daughters of the house for a life of independent activity and happiness, for the possession of a world, an object which is beyond the circumscribed boundary of the dwelling-house, no longer a buffalo-hide-enveloped wigwam. I bethought me of her right, and the possibility of her acquiring a sphere of action in the intellectual world, which would make the torments of civilised life, whether small or great, seem like cloudlets in a heaven otherwise bright; bethought me of my own Swedish home, of my good mother, my quiet room, my peace and freedom there, as on the maternal bosom, with space and view limitless as infinity. And I thanked God for my lot!

But these poor women here! Three families resided in this wigwam; there were only three husbands, but there were certainly twelve or thirteen women. How many bitter, jealous feelings must burn in many a bosom assembled here, day and night, around the same fire, partaking of the same meal, and with the same object in life!

I visited the other wigwams also. Each one presented the same scene with but little variation. Two or three men by the fire, several women sitting or lying upon blankets or embroidered cushions round the walls of the hut, and occupied with nothing for the moment. The men carved red-stone pipes which they sell to the whites at very high prices; the work however in this hard stone is not easy; this red stone is obtained from quarries situated far up the Missouri. I cannot but admire the hands of these men; they are remarkably beautiful and well-formed, and are evidently, even as regards the nails, kept with great care; they are delicate and slender, resembling rather the hands of women than men.

I saw in one wigwam a young woman, who, as she sate with her rich unbound hair falling over her shoulders,