In the Forest | Page 5

sticks and
logs on the ground, in the middle of the wigwam, and lie or sit all
round it; the smoke goes up to the top and escapes. Or sometimes, in
the warm summer weather, they kindle their fire without, and their
squaws, or wives, attend to it; while they go hunting in the forest, or,
mounted on swift horses, pursue the trail of their enemies. In the winter,
they bank up the wigwam with snow, and make it very warm."
[Illustration: INDIAN WIGWAMS]
"I think it must he a very ugly sort of house, and I am glad I do not live
in an Indian wigwam," said the little lady.
"The Indians are a very simple folk, my lady, and do not need fine
houses like this in which your papa lives. They do not know the names
or uses of half the fine things that are in the houses of the white people.
They are happy and contented without them. It is not the richest that are
happiest, Lady Mary, and the Lord careth for the poor and the lowly.
There is a village on the shores of Rice Lake where the Indians live. It
is not very pretty. The houses are all built of logs, and some of them
have gardens and orchards. They have a neat church, and they have a
good minister, who takes great pains to teach them the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ. The poor Indians were Pagans until within the last
few years." "What are Pagans, nurse?"
"People, Lady Mary, who do not believe in God and the Lord Jesus
Christ, our blessed Saviour."
"Nurse, is there real rice growing in the Rice Lake? I heard my
governess say that rice grew only in warm countries. Now, your lake
must be very cold if your uncle walked across the ice."
"This rice, my lady, is not real rice. I heard a gentleman tell my father
that it was, properly speaking, a species of oats [Footnote: Zizania, or
water oats]--water oats, he called it; but the common name for it is wild
rice. This wild rice grows in vast beds in the lake in patches of many
acres. It will grow in water from eight to ten or twelve feet deep; the
grassy leaves float upon the water like long narrow green ribbons. In
the month of August, the stem that is to bear the flower and the grain
rises straight up above the surface, and light delicate blossoms come

out of a pale straw colour and lilac. They are very pretty, and wave in
the wind with a rustling noise. In the month of October, when the rice
is ripe, the leaves torn yellow, and the rice-heads grow heavy and droop;
then the squaws--as the Indian women are called--go out in their
birch-bark canoes, holding in one hand a stick, in the other a short
curved paddle with a sharp edge. With this they bend down the rice
across the stick and strike off the heads, which fall into the canoe, as
they push it along through the rice-beds. In this way they collect a great
many bushels in the course of the day. The wild rice is not the least like
the rice which your ladyship has eaten; it is thin, and covered with a
light chaffy husk. The colour of the grain itself is a brownish-green, or
olive, smooth, shining, and brittle. After separating the outward chaff,
the squaws put by a large portion of the clean rice in its natural state for
sale; for this they get from a dollar and a half to two dollars a bushel.
Some they parch, either in large pots, or on mats made of the inner bark
of cedar or bass wood, beneath which they light a slow fire, and plant
around it a temporary hedge of green boughs closely set, to prevent the
heat from escaping; they also drive stakes into the ground, over which
they stretch the matting at a certain height above the fire. On this they
spread the green rice, stirring it about with wooden paddles till it is
properly parched; this is known by its bursting and showing the white
grain of the flour. When quite cool it is stowed away in troughs,
scooped out of butter-nut wood, or else sewed up in sheets of birch
bark or bass-mats, or in coarsely-made birch-bark baskets."
"And is the rice good to eat, nurse?"
"Some people like it as well as the white rice of Carolina; but it does
not look so well. It is a great blessing to the poor Indians, who boil it in
their soups, or eat it with maple molasses. And they eat it when parched
without any other cooking, when they are on a long