No doubt you are already interested in Indians, from stories you have read of them.  And perhaps you think they are very strange people, quite unlike white people.  In some ways they are.  But if you could come out here to our little Indian village (Little Eagle Village it is called), on the Standing Rock Reservation in Dakota, I think you would very soon be playing with the Indian boys just as merrily as you do now with your boy friends at home.  Perhaps Ben Black Dog would show you some of the little gumbo images that he made when the mud was soft, and then it grew dry and hard, as the clay does that some of you use in school; and perhaps he would show you how he makes his life-like horses and riders, and buffaloes, and dogs, and all the rest.

One day I saw some boys playing with their gumbo figures, and heard one of the boys say “akicita,” which is the Dakota word for “soldier”; so I suppose little Indian boys “play soldier,” too!  Then every Indian boy from the time he is a baby has his pony.  One ten-year-old boy was telling me the other day what good care he tried to take of his pony, and I was very glad he thought about it, and knew that his “Charlie” ought to be well cared for.  All the boys like to ride, but sometimes they forget that their ponies ought to be kindly treated, and to have proper food and rest.  Indian boys have their favorite games, too, just as white boys do, only their games are different.  One is throwing long, slender sticks, which they make in a certain way; but in order to know just how they make and throw them, you may have to come and see them do it.  I am afraid I cannot tell you.

And they like to run, and jump, and play together very much as you do, only (shall I say it?) I think they are more quiet in their playing than many white boys I have seen and heard.  They are not all alike any more than white boys are.  Some are naturally very bright and quick to think and to act, and others not as much so.  Some of the boys and men are diligent and hard workers, while others are lazy.  Some like to study, and others like better to play.  A large new Government boarding-school has been lately built in our little village for the Dakota boys and girls.  One very cold day, a boy, perhaps fourteen years old, came walking fifteen miles, without overcoat or mittens, and alone, to ask if he might be received as a pupil in the new school.  I think he must be one of the boys who likes to study, and who wants to learn.  Such boys get ahead.  Some Indian boys are naturally very gentle in their manner, and although their clothing may be ragged and dirty, and the homes in which they live are not nearly so bright and attractive as perhaps your father’s stable is, yet these boys appear as gentlemanly as if accustomed to the little courtesies of the parlor in civilized life.  One verse in the Bible says:  “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he,” and I think it is the gentle thoughts in the hearts of these Indian boys that make some of them so truly gentlemen, notwithstanding their surroundings and lack of training.