RED SKINS AND SNOW STORMS
By Ella M. Doan

This is the anniversary of the first time I saw Indians. The weather was fine and it was thawing fast like it is today and Lincoln creek was very high. The Indians were moving from the south to Omaha and the creek was not so they could get across. They had no feed for their ponies and not much for themselves, so my father gave them food and hay. He wanted us children to see them and we had heard how they would scalp the whites, so we were afraid; but he talked to us and we consented to go see them. I was afraid and crawled under the seat of the wagon but the chief could talk in our language. I could see he was friendly and gave me a pair of moccasins. They were like bedroom slippers.

Then when we moved on to our homestead we were visited by them many times. If our parents were away we would lock the doors and hide as we were still afraid when alone.

Then the snow storms, or gimlets, as the pioneers called them. I well remember when my father would attach the clothesline to the barn from the house so they would not get lost in the snow storm and we would be glad when we saw him come in as we were afraid he would be lost. We could not see anything but snow and it was very cold.

Waco, Nebraska.