“The times are changed now,” she muttered under her breath.  “My individual name seems to mean nothing.”  Looking out into space, she saw the nodding sunflowers, and they acquiesced with her.  Their drying leaves reminded her of the near approach of autumn.  Then soon, very soon, the ice would freeze along the banks of the muddy river.  The day of the first ice was her birthday.  She would be fifty-four winters old.  How futile had been all these winters to secure her a share in tribal lands.  A weary smile flickered across her face as she sat there on the ground like a bronze figure of patience and long-suffering.

The breadmaking was finished.  The skillet was set aside to cool.  She poured the appetizing coffee into her tin cup.  With fried bread and black coffee she regaled herself.  Again her mind reverted to her riddle.  “The missionary preacher said he could not explain the white man’s law to me.  He who reads daily from the Holy Bible, which he tells me is God’s book, cannot understand mere man’s laws.  This also puzzles me,” thought she to herself.  “Once a wise leader of our people, addressing a president of this country, said:  ’I am a man.  You are another.  The Great Spirit is our witness!’ This is simple and easy to understand, but the times are changed.  The white man’s laws are strange.”

Blue-Star Woman broke off a piece of fried bread between a thumb and forefinger.  She ate it hungrily, and sipped from her cup of fragrant coffee.  “I do not understand the white man’s law.  It’s like walking in the dark.  In this darkness, I am growing fearful of everything.”

Oblivious to the world, she had not heard the footfall of two Indian men who now stood before her.

Their short-cropped hair looked blue-black in contrast to the faded civilian clothes they wore.  Their white man’s shoes were rusty and unpolished.  To the unconventional eyes of the old Indian woman, their celluloid collars appeared like shining marks of civilization.  Blue-Star Woman looked up from the lap of mother earth without rising.  “Hinnu, hinnu!” she ejaculated in undisguised surprise.  “Pray, who are these would-be white men?” she inquired.

In one voice and by an assumed relationship the two Indian men addressed her.  “Aunt, I shake hands with you.”  Again Blue-Star Woman remarked, “Oh, indeed! these near white men speak my native tongue and shake hands according to our custom.”  Did she guess the truth, she would have known they were simply deluded mortals, deceiving others and themselves most of all.  Boisterously laughing and making conversation, they each in turn gripped her withered hand.

Like a sudden flurry of wind, tossing loose ends of things, they broke into her quiet morning hour and threw her groping thoughts into greater chaos.  Masking their real errand with long-drawn faces, they feigned a concern for her welfare only.  “We come to ask how you are living.  We heard you were slowly starving to death.  We heard you are one of those Indians who have been cheated out of their share in tribal lands by the government officials.”