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Title: Docas
The Indian boy of Santa Clara
Author: Genevra Sisson Snedden
Release Date: April 4, 2023 [eBook #70460]
Language: English
Produced by: David E. Brown and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOCAS ***
[Illustration: DOCAS
_Frontispiece_]
_HEATH SUPPLEMENTARY READERS_
DOCAS
The INDIAN BOY of
SANTA CLARA
_By_
GENEVRA SISSON SNEDDEN
[Illustration]
D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO ATLANTA
DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO LONDON
COPYRIGHT, 1899,
BY D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT RENEWED, 1927,
BY GENEVRA SISSON SNEDDEN
3 K 6
No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form without written permission of the publisher
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
MY DEAR CHILDREN:--
What sort of people do you like best to read about--white people or
Indians?
I think you will say Indians, because all the children of whom I have
ever asked this question have said that they liked best to read about
Indians. Indians do everything so differently from the way we do that
they are always interesting.
This book which we are now going to read is about Indians,--the Indians
who lived near the Pacific Ocean before our grandfathers were born, and
before we Americans came west and settled the country.
Do you like best to read about grown-up people or about children? I
think I can hear you say, “What a question! Children, of course!” Yes,
children can have such fun, running and playing and finding out about
all kinds of things for which grown people never have time, that it
is much pleasanter to read about them. So this whole book is about
children. The first part tells about the little Indian boy, Docas;
farther on, when Docas grows to be a man, the book tells about his
children and grandchildren.
Last of all, the stories tell about things that actually happened to
Indian children long ago in California, so they are what you call
“truly stories,” not “made-up ones.”
These are some of the reasons why the children for whom the stories
were first written liked them and learned from them, and for these same
reasons I think many of you will care to read about Docas, the Indian
boy of Santa Clara.
THE AUTHOR
_NOTE_
These stories were originally written to serve as reading material
for the children in the University School connected with the
Department of Education at the Leland Stanford Junior University. The
never-failing delight with which those children welcomed each new
instalment was the first impetus toward putting the stories in a form
where they would have a larger audience.
The work was done as a thesis in history under the direction of Mary
Sheldon Barnes. To her careful supervision and many suggestions the
book owes much of whatever merit it may possess.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I
WHEN DOCAS LIVED AT THE INDIAN VILLAGE
PAGE
Building the Fire 3
Docas at Breakfast 5
How Docas went Fishing 7
Massea’s Storehouse 10
How Docas caught the Grasshoppers 15
The Grass-seed Basket 17
Docas’s New Skirt 21
The Sweat House 24
The Feast of the Eagles 27
The Invitation to the Dance 30
The Acorn Dance 31
Docas playing “Teekel” 36
Making the Mountains 40
The Measuring-worm Rock 42
The First White Man 44
Docas goes to the Red Hill 49
Docas in a Fight 52
PART II
WHEN DOCAS LIVED AT THE MISSION
Docas goes to live at the Mission 57
Breakfast at the Mission 59
The Mission School 63
Raising Corn 65
Threshing the Grain 69
Getting ready to make Bricks 72
Getting the Timbers 79
Building the Church 80
Visit of Father Serra 85
Visit of Captain Vancouver 88
Preparing Hides and Tallow 93
Making the Ox-cart 98
Shipping the Hides and Tallow 102
Trading on the Ship 108
Leaving the Mission 111
PART III
WHEN DOCAS LIVED WITH DON SECUNDINI ROBLES
Wash-day 117
The Cascarone Ball 122
The Sheep-shearing 128
The Barbecue 133
Horseback-riding 138
The Rodeo 142
BIBLIOGRAPHY 148
PRONUNCIATION OF NAMES 151
PART I
WHEN DOCAS LIVED AT THE INDIAN VILLAGE
[Illustration: A little Indian boy poked his head out of a brush
house.]
PART I
WHEN DOCAS LIVED AT THE INDIAN VILLAGE
BUILDING THE FIRE
“Oh, mother!” cried a little Indian boy, “I am hungry.”
“Then go and start the fire so that I can cook breakfast,” answered his
mother.
It was about a hundred years ago that this little boy, whose name
was Docas, poked his head out of a brush house. Ama, his mother, was
sitting on the ground just outside, grinding acorns in a stone bowl.
Docas went to the middle of the hut, where the blazing fire of wood
had been the night before. Just before Ama had gone to sleep she had
covered with ashes the glowing coals that were left from the fire.
Docas raked off the ashes and began to blow on the blackened coals that
were left. There was not much life in them, but they began to redden a
little.
He put some dry leaves against them and blew harder. The leaves
smoked, but would not light, no matter how hard he blew. And all the
time the coals were getting blacker and blacker.
At last he called, “I cannot light it, mother.”
Ama came over where he was and began to blow, too; but even she could
not start it, for the fire had died out.
“I must get some new fire,” said Ama at last.
She picked up two dry willow sticks and two flints. She rubbed the
willow sticks together very hard for a while.
“Do you see the little dust that is gathering?” she asked. “Now I will
strike the flints together until they send a spark down into that dry
dust.”
In a few minutes a spark fell into the dust, the dust flared up, and
Docas exclaimed, “There! now we have a fire.” He dropped some dry
leaves on the burning dust, then he put some little twigs on the
leaves. After that he called to his younger brother:--
“Wake up, Heema! Come and get some big sticks for the fire.”
Heema rolled off the mat of tule reeds on which he had been sleeping,
rubbed his eyes, and said, “I’m ready, Docas.”
Heema did not have to spend time dressing. All the Indian children ever
wore was a little skirt made of rabbit-skin or deer-skin.
In a minute more Heema had piled some large sticks on the fire. Then it
blazed up brightly.
“It’s foggy, and I’m cold,” said Docas. “Sit down by the fire with me
and get warm.”
Docas and Heema were California Indians. They lived in an Indian
rancheria, or village, near San Francisco Bay. Their father, whose name
was Massea, was chief of the rancheria.
Docas was seven years old, while Heema was six. Alachu, one of their
sisters, was three. Umwa was the other sister. She was so tiny that she
had to be carried in a basket on her mother’s back.
DOCAS AT BREAKFAST
“Put the stones into the fire, boys, so that they will be hot when the
acorns are ground,” said Ama.
Docas pulled toward the fire five large stones that were lying near.
“I’ll throw them in,” said Heema, tossing them into the middle of the
hottest blaze.
Then Docas said, “Let’s surprise father by shooting a rabbit for
breakfast.”
“Here are your bow and arrows,” answered Heema.
In a moment more they ran off. Docas hunted among the brush and trees
near by for a rabbit, but he could not find one, so he ran back toward
the rancheria.
“I’ve found something that’s better than rabbits,” Docas heard Heema
say suddenly.
“Where are you, Heema?” asked Docas.
“Here among the bushes, eating thimble-berries,” answered Heema,
peeping out from among the large green leaves.
Docas laughed and began eating berries, too. The berries were so good
that they forgot all about breakfast, until suddenly they heard their
mother’s voice calling:--
“Boys, where are you? The acorns are ready to cook.”
The boys took one last mouthful of thimble-berries and then bounded
toward the rancheria.
Ama put a basketful of cold water down by the fire as they came up.
“Heema, pour the acorn meal into the water. Docas, rake out the hot
stones and put them into the water to cook the mush,” said Ama.
“I hope this mush will not be bitter,” said Docas, as he dropped a
red-hot stone into the water.
“No; this will be good, for I soaked the acorns a long time and then
dried them in the sun before I ground them,” answered Ama.
In a few minutes the mush was cooked; then Ama called Massea, and the
whole family sat around the basket. They all ate out of it at once,
using sticks hollowed out at the end instead of spoons.
HOW DOCAS WENT FISHING
One day Massea came up to Docas.
“To-day we will go fishing,” he said.
Then Docas ran away to find his playmates.
“We are going fishing! We are going fishing!” he cried.
Then all the children began to dance and jump.
“We are going fishing! We are going fishing!” they screamed. For the
children were glad when the fishing days came.
But first Massea must drive stakes across the bed of the creek just
below the boys’ swimming hole.
And he must drive them very close together, for he wants to keep the
fish from swimming through.
After Massea had made the fence, Docas called to Heema, “I’ll race you
up the creek.”
“You will have to hurry or I shall beat you,” answered Heema.
Then they both started to run along the bank of the creek.
“Come, Alachu. You may go, too,” said Ama.
All the women and children in the rancheria went also. They walked
along the bank of the creek for about a quarter of a mile, then Alachu
cried, “I see Docas. I see Heema.”
Docas was standing on the bank. “Watch me!” he called to Alachu.
He dived off the bank and disappeared in a large hole.
“Mother! mother! Docas is drowned!” cried Alachu.
Ama smiled and answered, “Wait and see.”
In a minute more Docas’s head popped suddenly out of the water.
Then the women and children walked out into the middle of the creek and
began to wade down it.
Alachu heard a shout and saw Heema getting ready to jump.
“Be careful; I am afraid you will jump on top of me,” she cried.
There was a big splash, and Alachu gave a scream as the water splashed
over her. Heema was standing in the water a few feet away.
“A water fight! We’ll have a water fight!” cried the children.
[Illustration: “Then we will spear them.”]
They jumped about in the water. They splashed it all over each other.
They laughed and shouted and made all the noise they could. As they
stopped for a moment to take breath, Docas said, “See the fish swim
down the creek. They are scared.”
The battle lasted until the rancheria was in sight, and by that time
all the fish were in the swimming hole. Then Massea said, “Now we must
build a fence above them.”
When the fence was built, Docas said, “Now the fish cannot swim away,
for there is a fence below them and a fence above them.”
That night Massea said, “We will build fires on the bank of the creek.
The fish will come near to look at the light; then we will spear them.”
And so it happened. The men speared enough fish that night to give them
something to eat for several days.
MASSEA’S STOREHOUSE
One day in October, Massea said to Docas, “Come, Docas, you must help
me make a storehouse to-day, so that we shall have something to eat by
and by.”
Massea and Docas went out into the woods. They hunted until they found
an oak tree with two branches growing straight out at about the same
height from the ground.
Massea said, “Climb the tree, Docas;” so Docas scrambled up.
Massea then handed him some straight sticks. Docas put these sticks
across from branch to branch, and tied the ends fast to the two
branches of the tree with deerskin strings. After this his father
brought up some twigs that bent easily. They wove these back and forth
among the sticks until they had a good floor for their storehouse. In
the same way they made the sides and the top, leaving a hole near the
trunk of the tree for a door.
After the storehouse was made, Docas said to some of the other little
Indian children, “Let’s go off and get some acorns to put in the
storehouse.”
They took their baskets and went off toward the hills. Soon they came
to some big oak trees.
One of the little boys called out, “Look! the ground is covered with
acorns under that tree.”
Sure enough, the acorns had dropped down from the tree until they were
so thick on the ground that the children could scrape them up. Before
night they had filled their baskets.
Docas put the acorns he had gathered into the storehouse which he and
his father had made. Every day the children went out to gather acorns;
every night they poured them into the storehouse, and soon it was full.
The day they finished filling it, Docas saw a little squirrel run up
the trunk of the tree and go into the storehouse. Docas stood very
still and watched. In a few minutes he saw the squirrel come back with
his cheeks sticking out. He was carrying off the acorns.
Docas ran over to where his father was lying in the shade of a large
tree, and said, “Oh, father, we shall not have any acorns left in a few
days. The squirrels have begun to carry them off.”
Massea went over to the tree in which the storehouse was built. He
smeared a broad band of pitch clear around the trunk.
“This will stop them,” he said.
The Indians had no more trouble after that; for if anything tried to
climb the tree, it was caught in the band of sticky pitch.
While Massea was smearing the pitch around the trunk, Docas saw a bird
at work in a tree near by.
“There is the woodpecker,” cried Docas, pointing to a woodpecker busily
putting acorns away in his storehouse.
The woodpecker’s storehouse was not like Massea’s. Every summer the
woodpecker pecks a great many holes just the size of an acorn in the
bark of a tree. When fall comes, and the acorns are ripe, he puts the
best ones in his holes. He hammers them in so tight that they do not
often fall out.
[Illustration: After the storehouse was made.]
“I hope we shall not have to take the woodpecker’s acorns this winter,”
said Massea.
As long as their acorns lasted, Massea and the other Indians did not
touch the acorns that the woodpecker had gathered. But one day all
the Indians at the rancheria went off fishing. While they were gone
their campfire spread and burned the tree in which they had made their
storehouse.
Docas was skipping along ahead as they came home. He saw what had
happened. He ran back to Massea and Ama, crying out, “The storehouse is
burnt! The storehouse is burnt!”
Massea looked very sad at supper that night, and said, “I am afraid we
shall have to take the woodpecker’s acorns.”
The Indians did not like to take the acorns, so they waited three days.
By that time they were so hungry that they could wait no longer.
Docas built a fire near the woodpecker’s tree. The smoke that went up
from it told the woodpecker that he would have to go. After a little he
did not care to stay, for the smoke spoiled the acorns for him. So he
flew away.
Docas then climbed the tree and pulled off the bark. That let the
acorns fall out and then the Indians gathered them up and put them into
a new storehouse, ready for future use.
HOW DOCAS CAUGHT THE GRASSHOPPERS
One day in September, Docas and the rest of the family were all seated
round a large basket. They were eating their acorn mush. Just as Docas
put his stick in to get some, he heard something go “click” behind him.
He thought to himself, “The grasshoppers are getting thicker.”
He lifted his stick, and there in the mush on the end of it was a
grasshopper.
“Look!” said Docas to Heema.
“Let me get him out,” said Heema, laughing and picking up a stick from
the ground. Heema lifted the grasshopper out of the mush.
Then Docas said, “Let’s catch grasshoppers to-morrow.”
Heema said, “Yes.”
All day they heard the “Click, click,” of jumping grasshoppers.
That evening, when the children began playing, Docas ran up to them and
said, “Help me dig a hole to catch the grasshoppers in.”
The children began digging a little way out from the rancheria, and
before dark they had made a big hole.
Next morning, while the grasshoppers were still cold and stiff, Docas
said to the children, “Let’s make a big ring around the hole before
the sun warms the grasshoppers.”
And they did so.
“Now we will walk slowly toward the hole,” said the children.
Little by little the children came nearer. Little by little the ring
grew smaller. Little by little the grasshoppers inside the ring grew
frightened.
“They’re jumping down into the hole now,” said Docas.
Soon the children were close to the edge of the hole.
“I am going to jump into the hole,” said Docas. “I can soon catch them
down there. They cannot jump out so easily as they jumped in.”
So Docas caught all the grasshoppers that were in the hole. He longed
to eat them, but he waited until they were cooked. Ama baked the
grasshoppers in the fire until they were quite dry; then she ground
them in the stone bowl just as she did the acorns.
After that the Indians ate them.
THE GRASS-SEED BASKET
One morning in spring, Ama said to Docas, “Stir up the fire. I must get
breakfast.”
“I shall have to get some sticks,” answered Docas, running off to the
woods.
Baby Umwa was playing near. “Baby will make a big fire for mother,” she
thought.
She began picking up dry leaves and throwing them on the fire. “Here
are some good sticks,” she said to herself.
Docas had dropped his bow and arrows on the ground. She picked them up
and threw them on the blazing leaves; then she picked up a basket and
threw it on also.
“Hurry, Docas! See baby’s big fire!”
Docas rushed forward and seized the blazing basket, but it was so badly
burned that it could not be used.
“Umwa! Umwa!” he cried. “You silly little baby! Mother will have to
work for weeks to make her basket for grass-seed again.”
Ama felt very sorry when she saw the burnt basket.
“You must go to-day and get some more roots with which to make some new
baskets,” she said.
After breakfast Docas and Heema went down to the edge of the bay.
“How are you going to dig up the roots?” asked Heema.
“With my toes,” answered Docas.
The long round roots ran along just under the ground in the mud. Docas
stuck his bare toes into the mud, wriggling them along under a root. He
loosened it a little at each wriggle, and by and by he pulled up a long
straight root.
Heema helped also, and that evening they carried home a big bundle of
roots.
The next day they went up in the hills and gathered a large number of
maidenhair ferns. They came back by the San Francisquito creek and
broke off a great many willow branches.
As they trudged home, Heema asked, “Do you think mother will put
feathers or shells on these new baskets?”
“I don’t know,” answered Docas, “but she will make a pretty pattern
with the dark fern stems or the willow bark.”
Next morning Ama began making the new basket. She made this basket flat.
By the time the basket was finished, the grass-seed was ripe in the
fields around them.
One morning Ama got up very early. Docas saw her pick up the new flat
basket and a deep basket with a handle.
“I’m going to see what she does with the new basket,” thought Docas,
creeping out very softly.
[Illustration: “I can carry the new basket,” said Docas.]
He trotted along behind Ama as she walked out to the field of grass.
The grass was so tall that Docas was almost hidden, and his mother did
not see him.
Docas watched Ama brush the tops of the grass with the flat basket.
Every few minutes there would come a little rattle as Ama knocked the
seeds down into the deep basket. “Just hear the grass-seed rattle down
into the deep basket,” said Docas to himself.
The poppies were still asleep. Docas tried to poke some of them open,
but they closed tightly again. He pulled some of the little green caps
off the buds, but the little golden buds refused to open.
“They want the sun to drive away the mist before they wake up.
Everything is sleepy this morning except mother. I think I’m sleepy
myself.” With that he fell asleep among the poppies, with the tall
grasses nodding over him. After a little Ama came over that way,
brushing the grass tops as she came. Suddenly she stumbled and looked
down.
“Why! There’s a child! It’s my own little Docas!” she exclaimed.
Docas rubbed his eyes and looked at her. Then he rolled out of her way
and jumped up.
By that time the basket was full of seeds, so they started back to the
rancheria. Ama slung the deep basket on her back, carrying it by a
strap across her forehead.
“I can carry the new basket,” said Docas.
After they came to the rancheria, Ama made the grass-seed into bread
for breakfast.
DOCAS’S NEW SKIRT
Massea and some of the other Indian men went out to hunt deer. Docas
ran to meet them as they came home.
“How many did you get? One, two, three, four, five, six,” he said,
counting the deer.
Then he ran to his mother and said, “Oh, mother, may I not have a new
skirt? I want one of deer-skin instead of rabbit-skin this time.”
“Yes, you shall have it as soon as I can make it for you,” answered his
mother.
After the deer were skinned, Ama took up a skin and said to Docas, “Put
it into a still pool in the creek and let it stay there.”
“How long must it stay?” asked Docas.
“Until the hair is loose,” answered Ama.
So every morning Docas went out to the skin to see if the hair was
loose. One morning he came running to his mother, crying, “Look,
mother, I pulled this bunch of hair out so easily this morning!”
Then Ama took the skin out of the water.
“You may pull all the hair out,” she said to Docas. “After that I will
scrape it with a sharp stone.”
When both sides were scraped clean, Ama and Docas went out into the
woods.
“We must find two trees so close together that we can stretch the skin
between them,” said Ama.
By and by they found them, stretched the skin, and went back to camp.
Every little while Docas went running out to the skin to see how fast
it was drying.
“It just seems as if I couldn’t wait for my new skirt,” he said.
When it was half dry, Ama warmed some deer’s brains at the fire.
“Now, Docas, get the deerskin,” she said. “You may rub some brains of a
deer on the skin.”
Docas rubbed and rubbed for a long time.
“Haven’t I rubbed enough?” he asked after a while.
“No, you must get the skin very soft,” she answered.
Docas’s arms grew tired after a little, so Ama said, “Go out where the
ground is wet and dig a hole. I will finish rubbing the skin.”
[Illustration: Massea bringing home a deer.]
By the time the hole was ready the skin was soft. Ama brought it to
the hole and said, “Now we will bury the skin for four or five weeks.”
“Bury it!” exclaimed Docas. “I thought it was ready to make into my
skirt, now.”
“Not yet,” answered Ama.
For several days Docas kept asking Ama if the skin was not almost
ready, but after a while he grew tired of asking and forgot all about
it.
When the time was up, Ama went out to the hole one evening after Docas
was asleep. She dug up the skin, cleaned it, and made it into a skirt.
She put a fringe on the bottom of the skirt to finish it off. After the
skirt was done she laid it by Docas’s side, where he would see it the
first thing in the morning.
Such a happy boy as he was when he found his new skirt!
THE SWEAT HOUSE
Massea and the other Indian men were not feeling well one day. They
said, “We ate too much deer. We must go to the sweat house.”
The Indians had dug a large hole in the ground and made a rude cave.
They had covered this with brush, leaving only one little hole for a
door. They called this place the sweat house.
[Illustration: “Look at them! There they go!” cried Docas to Heema.]
As the Indians went into the sweat house, Massea said to Docas:--
“Build a fire in the doorway so that we cannot get out.”
The sweat house was almost full of Indians, and after the fire was
built they began to dance. They danced as hard as they could.
“I should not like to be in there,” said Docas to Heema. “Just think
how hot it must be!”
“Hear them grunt!” exclaimed Heema.
It grew hotter and hotter in the sweat house, but the men kept on
dancing.
Soon the sweat began to pour off them until the ground was wet. Massea
went around with a scraper and scraped the other Indians.
By and by the fire went down, and Docas went off to play. By that time
the Indians were tired out.
“Look at them! There they go!” cried Docas to Heema. Massea and the
other men had jumped over the fire at the door and were running down to
the river.
Heema and Alachu came running.
“Now father’s in the water!” cried Docas. A moment later he added,
“See, he has come up out of the river. They are going to lie down in
the sun to get warm and dry again. Let’s go down and play in the sun
near them.”
THE FEAST OF THE EAGLES
In the mountains near the camp was a gorge where the eagles built their
nests. One day, Massea said to the other men:--
“To-morrow we will get the eagles.”
Next morning early they started.
“We shall not be back until evening,” said Massea to Docas. “The eagles
build their nests so high among the rocks that it is hard to reach
them.”
It was so late before the men came back that Docas was asleep, but he
waked when he heard the voices. He looked out of the hut; then he shook
Heema, saying, “Wake up, Heema; father has brought home two little
eagles.”
“Let me take them to their huts,” said Docas to his father.
Docas took the little eagles and put them into two brush huts that had
been built for them.
Little Umwa had died a few weeks before, so every day Massea, Ama, and
the children went to see the eagles. Docas always took them something
to eat.
“Tell Umwa we love her still,” said Docas to the eagles.
“Tell Umwa I’ll take good care of her if she will come back,” said
Heema.
“Tell Umwa ’Lachu want to play,” said little Alachu.
The father and mother also, told the eagles many things to tell their
baby, for the Indians thought that the eagles would see Umwa, and could
talk to her after they were killed.
The men built a very large brush hut, large enough to hold all the
Indians in the village. At the end of two weeks, Massea said, “Now we
will build a fire in the big hut.”
As the sun set they began dancing around the fire, and danced all night
until almost sunrise. Each carried in his hands a bunch of owl feathers
tied to a stick, with rattles from a rattlesnake in among the feathers.
Whenever the bunch was shaken it made a rattling noise.
Several times during the night Massea threw baskets on the fire.
Sometimes the baskets rolled off without burning. Massea put those
baskets into the laps of women who were sitting near the fire, saying
to them, “Give these baskets to the poor people.”
This went on till sunrise, and then the fire was made to burn very
brightly. The eagles were killed and their bodies were laid on the
fire. As the bodies burned, Massea danced more wildly than ever,
shaking the rattle even more rapidly. And all the time he kept calling,
“Don’t forget to tell Umwa.”
[Illustration: “Tell Umwa we love her still.”]
THE INVITATION TO THE DANCE
One day Docas and his little brother Heema were playing near their
brush hut, when Docas heard a slight noise near by. He looked up and
saw another Indian boy about twelve years old. The boy held in his hand
some strings of deerskin.
“It’s Apa, whose father is chief of the camp nearest us,” Docas said.
The boy Apa came forward. “Where’s your father?” he asked.
“In the sweat house,” answered Docas.
“Give him this string when he comes out,” said Apa, taking one of the
strings from the little bunch. “Good-by. I have more camps to visit
to-day,” and he started off on the run.
Docas and Heema looked the string over as soon as Apa had gone. They
found five knots tied in it, each a little way apart from the others.
“I wonder what the knots are for,” said Heema. “Do they mean that they
wish to fight us?”
“No, for Apa’s father is our friend. Here comes father. We will ask
him,” answered Docas.
Docas and Heema ran toward Massea and gave him the string. As they
passed Ama she saw the string and smiled. When they gave it to Massea,
he smiled, too, and said, “It is well.”
“What does it mean, father?” asked Heema. “Why do you and mother smile
when you see it?”
“It means that Chief Yeeta sends to Chief Massea an invitation for
everybody in our rancheria to come to a dance at his rancheria,”
answered Massea.
“All right. Let’s go this morning,” said Heema, starting toward the hut
to get the new rabbit-skin skirt his mother had just made for him.
“Wait,” said Massea. “The five knots mean that we are not to come for
five days.”
“Oh, that’s so long to wait,” said Heema.
“You can watch the time for us,” said Massea. “Every morning you may
untie one of the knots for us, and when the last but one is reached, we
will start.”
So every morning, as soon as it was light, the two boys crept out of
the hut and untied a knot.
THE ACORN DANCE
“There’s only one knot left. Can’t we start now?” shouted Heema, as he
untied the next to the last knot.
“Not until afternoon; but you may go to the marsh with me to gather
reeds to blow on at the dance,” answered Massea.
Just before lunch, Heema burst into the hut where Ama was busy putting
food into their baskets.
“I got all these reeds myself and I tied them together myself,” he
cried. He held up a bunch of reeds tied together with a deerskin string
and almost as big as he was.
“Such fun as we shall have at the acorn dance!” he exclaimed, pulling
a reed out of the bunch, and cutting it in such a manner that it made
a rude flute. He began to jump around the hut, blowing on the reed
meanwhile. As he gave an extra big jump, he lit on the edge of one of
the baskets, tipped it over, and spilled the clams in it all over the
ground.
“I wish you would be more quiet, like Docas,” said Ama.
“Never mind, I’ll pick up the clams,” said Heema, hurrying to get the
clams back into the basket again. “Docas wants to be a man. You can’t
have much fun with him these days,” he said.
Just as he put the last clam back, Docas and Massea came in sight, and
Heema ran to meet them.
By the middle of the afternoon, everything was ready, and they started
with their reeds for the village of Chief Yeeta. They carried a great
many clams and much grass-seed bread, for they were to be gone several
days. Yeeta’s village was about eight miles away, by the side of a
little brook.
[Illustration: The Red Deer]
Docas walked quietly along by Massea’s side, but Heema ran around so
much, chasing squirrels, that he began to grow tired.
Suddenly Docas said, “There’s Apa.”
“He has come to meet us. We must be almost there,” said Heema,
forgetting that he was tired, and running forward.
From the top of the next hill Heema could look down on the village
where Apa lived. In a minute he came running back to Docas.
“Oh, there are so many people there! And they are making a big circle
by sticking green boughs in the ground out in an open place,” exclaimed
Heema. “Please hurry up, Docas, you are so slow.”
Docas laughed and said, “Not when I get started, Heema,” and he began
running toward Apa. Docas could run fast, so he reached Apa long before
Heema did.
“Why are the people putting grass down in a circle?” asked Heema, as
the three boys walked into the village.
“That’s where they dance, and they want it to be soft so that they can
lie down when they get tired,” answered Docas.
It was dark before all the invited people had come, so they all had
supper and went to bed.
Next morning the dancing began. Massea stood on one side and stamped on
a hollow log, while the women and the other men made one big circle,
and swayed back and forth, singing as they danced. They kept time with
their singing and dancing to Massea’s stamping.
By and by they grew tired and stopped dancing.
Heema had gone down to the brook, for he was tired of watching the
dance.
“Come, Heema,” called Docas. “We must take around the acorn porridge
now. The people are hungry.”
After the porridge had been served, the men stepped out again into the
circle, while the women sat on the ground outside and looked on. Yeeta
had a big rattle in his hand, and each of the other men had a reed.
Yeeta stood in the centre and shook his rattle. The other men blew on
their reeds, and began jumping toward the right. The dance went on for
a little while, and then suddenly Yeeta stopped shaking the rattle. The
men, who were watching him, stopped dancing and blowing their reeds at
the same time.
“Good,” said Docas, who was standing near. “No one got caught that
time.”
Yeeta again began shaking his rattle, and the dance went on once more.
This time he had been shaking the rattle for a long while, when
suddenly he stopped a second time.
“Look at them! Look at them! Half the men were not looking at him, and
they are still dancing,” shouted Docas, and he laughed and pointed his
finger at the dancers who were caught. The other boys laughed too, and
the careless men looked foolish.
And so the dance went on for days, until they had eaten all the food
they had with them. As they went home, Docas said to Heema, “I wish
next autumn were here so that the acorns would be ripe again, and it
would be time for another acorn dance.”
DOCAS PLAYING “TEEKEL”
“Oh, Docas, I am so tired of working! Let’s play something,” said Heema
one evening.
“Help me get the boys together and we will play teekel. Father and the
other men played it last night,” answered Docas.
Docas and Heema ran through the rancheria shouting, “Come play teekel!
Come play teekel!” as loud as they could.
Before five minutes had passed, a crowd of boys were gathered in an
open space at one side of the rancheria. Each boy brought with him a
long, slender stick about as tall as himself.
“I will get the ball, if you will make the lines,” shouted Docas,
running toward the hut.
In a minute Docas came back carrying the ball, which was made of
deerskin and looked like a small dumb-bell. While he was gone, the boys
had scratched two long lines in the ground about ten feet apart. The
lines were in the middle of the open space.
“You haven’t made the hole for the ball yet,” said Docas. He dug out a
little hole midway between the two lines and laid the ball in it.
“We’ll give you first hit, and then we’ll get the ball back over your
goal,” said Heema, tossing the ball up into the air for Docas to strike
at with his stick.
But Docas hit the ball and sent it flying toward Heema’s goal.
“After it, boys!” shouted Heema.
In an instant the whole mass of boys were rushing toward the ball. Then
such a running to and fro as there was! Back and forth went the ball,
first toward one goal, then toward the other.
Such wild blows as were aimed at the ball! Sometimes they hit it, but
more often the sticks beat the air wildly, or else fell on some boy’s
head or shoulders. Not a boy cried even if the blows did hurt, because,
they thought, “Our fathers did not cry when they played last night, and
we must not be less brave.” But they shouted and laughed so much that
Massea came out to see what was going on.
“Run, Docas, run!” shouted Massea, as one of the boys on Docas’s side
sent the ball flying far over the heads of the other boys, and down
toward where Docas was standing near his goal.
And Docas did run. He knew that the boys on the other side were coming
as fast as they could. He knew that he was the only boy on his side who
was near the ball, and that unless he reached it first they would send
it back over to their goal. He knew that Massea and the other men were
watching him.
On came the crowd of boys. Now they were so near that their sticks
were raised to strike the ball back. But Docas slipped in just ahead,
hit the ball and sent it flying over his goal. Docas had fallen, but
the other boys could not stop. They tumbled over Docas, and then in an
instant there was a mixture of boys and sticks in a heap on the ground,
with Docas at the bottom.
In a minute more, however, they were on their feet. Docas got up and
laughed, although he had a big lump on his forehead. He was happy, for
he had won the game. And more than that, Massea’s hand lay on his head
for an instant, as he said, “My oldest son. He will be a man like his
father some day.”
[Illustration: And sent it flying over his goal.]
MAKING THE MOUNTAINS
One summer Massea went across the mountains east of the rancheria to
the big valley beyond. He went to make a visit and to get some good
wood from which to make bows, for the best wood for bows grew only on
the mountains which were farther to the east.
When he came back, all the Indians were lying around the campfire after
supper.
“Tell us what you saw, father,” said Docas.
“I saw great mountains beyond the big valley.”
“Bigger mountains than ours?” asked Docas.
“Yes, mountains so high that it is always winter on their tops,”
answered Massea.
“I don’t see how the mountains ever came to be so big,” said Heema.
“Shall I tell you a story about how the mountains were made? I heard
one over there,” said Massea.
“Yes! Yes!” cried the children.
“Once upon a time there was nothing in the world but water. Where
Tulare Lake now is, there was a pole standing up out of the water, and
on it sat a hawk and a crow. First one of them would sit on it awhile,
then the other would take his turn. Thus they sat on the pole above the
water for a long, long time.”
“How long?” asked Docas.
“A great many times as long as you are years old,” answered Massea. “At
last they grew tired of living all alone, so they made some birds. They
made the birds that live on fish, such as the kingfisher, the duck, and
the eagle. Among them was a very small duck. This duck dived down to
the bottom of the water and came up with its beak full of mud. When it
came to the top it died; then it lay floating on the water.
“The hawk and the crow then gathered the mud from the duck’s mouth.”
“What did they do with it?” asked Alachu.
“Keep still, Alachu, and let father tell the story,” said Docas.
“They began to make the mountains. They began away south. We call the
place Tehachapi Pass now. The hawk made the eastern range, and the crow
made the western. Little by little, as they dropped in bit after bit
of the earth, the mountains grew. By and by they rose above the water.
Finally the hawk and the crow met in the north at Mount Shasta. When
they compared their mountains, the eastern range was much smaller than
the western.
“Then the hawk said to the crow, ‘You have played a joke on me. You
have taken some of the earth out of my bill. That is why your mountains
are larger.’
“It was so, and the crow laughed in his claws. The hawk did not know
what to do, but at last he got an Indian weed and chewed it. This weed
made him very wise, so he took hold of the mountains and slipped them
round in a circle. He put the range he had made in place of the other.
That is why the mountains east of the big valley are now larger than
our Coast Range.”
THE MEASURING-WORM ROCK
When Massea had finished his story, Docas said, “Tell us another,
father!”
“Yes, tell us another!” cried all the children.
By this time every child in the rancheria had come to listen.
“Very well,” said Massea. “When I was over in the great mountains, I
saw a valley, the Yosemite, with one rocky wall going up out of it a
mile high. The Indians over there told me a story about that rock.
There were once two little boys living in a valley. These boys went
down to the river to swim, and after they had paddled about awhile, one
said, ‘I am going on shore to take a sleep.’
“‘I am going with you. We will lie down in the sun on that rock,’ said
the second boy.
“They both lay down on the rock and fell fast asleep. They slept so
long that winter came and then the next summer. Another summer and
winter came, and still they slept on. Summer after summer went by, and
still the children did not wake.
“Meanwhile the rock on which they lay was rising slowly into the air.
Day after day, and night after night, it rose higher and higher, until
soon they were up beyond the reach of their friends. Far up, far up
they went until their faces scraped the moon, and still the children
slept.
“At length all the animals came together, for they intended to get the
boys down in some way.
“‘Suppose we all make a spring up the wall. Some of us will be sure to
reach the top,’ said the lion.
“‘Agreed,’ said the others.
“One by one they began to jump. The little mouse jumped up a
hand-breadth. The rat jumped two hand-breadths. The raccoon jumped a
little higher; and so on.
“All the smaller animals had failed when the grizzly bear came to take
his turn.
“‘I shall jump far higher than any of you. I shall get to the top,’
said the bear.
“He gave a tremendous leap, but he, too, failed.
“Last of all came the lion. ‘It is not strange that you have all
failed. You are not lions. But I am the king of beasts. I shall bring
the little boys down,’ said he.
“He stepped back from the wall, then he ran and jumped with all his
might. He jumped higher than any of the others, but the top of the rock
was still far above him, so he fell back and tumbled flat on his back.
“Without saying anything, a tiny little measuring-worm began to creep
up the rock. It was so tiny that none of the animals noticed it. Little
by little, it crept slowly upward. Presently it was above the bear’s
jump, then it was far above the lion’s jump, then it was out of sight.”
“Please hurry up, father,” said Alachu. “I can scarcely wait to see if
it got the little boys.”
Massea only smiled and went on. “So it crawled up, and up, and up,
through many winters, and at last it reached the top.”
“Goody!” cried Alachu, clapping her hands. “Then what did it do?”
“Then the measuring-worm took the little boys and brought them down the
way it went up.”
THE FIRST WHITE MAN
One morning Massea said, “I am going out to hunt deer to-day.”
Docas went to a corner of the cave and got a deer’s head with the horns
on it, and gave it to Massea. Massea took the head, picked up his bow
and arrows, and went away. He carried it until he had walked nearly to
the top of the mountains, then he tied the deer’s head on top of his
own head.
After that he looked as if he were a deer himself as he walked along
through the bushes. He did this so that he would not frighten any deer
which might see him coming.
By and by he saw some deer not very far off. He bent down so that only
his horns showed above the bushes; then he walked toward the deer. They
looked up when they heard the noise, and saw the deer’s head coming
toward them. “It’s nothing but another deer,” they thought.
Massea kept walking closer and closer to them, until he was so near
that he was sure he could hit them. Then he raised his bow, put the
arrow into its place, pulled the string, and took good aim. He let go
the string, and the arrow flew. In a minute more a large deer was lying
dead, and the others were running away.
Massea went up to the dead deer. When he saw how large it was he said
to himself, “That will give Ama and Docas something to eat for a long
time.” He threw the deer over his shoulder and started to carry it home.
After a while he became tired, so he lay down to rest under a big
redwood tree. By and by he heard a noise and looked up, and there, a
little way off, were three deer. He picked up his bow and arrows to
shoot, but saw something that surprised him so much that he stopped.
He saw two men with white skins. They did not see Massea, because they
too were looking at the deer. One of them raised something long and
black which he had in his hand. There was a loud noise, and one of the
deer fell dead.
Massea was frightened, for he had never seen white men before. He hid
himself so that they could not see him. He was afraid they might kill
him in the same way that they had killed the deer, without even using a
bow and arrow.
They picked up their deer and went off toward the ocean. Massea
followed a little way behind until he saw that they were going down the
mountains. Then he came back to where he had left his deer, and carried
it down to the Indian rancheria. You can imagine how surprised the
Indians were when he told them what he had seen.
A few days later, Docas and some of the other Indian boys were playing
at the edge of the camp, when Docas heard a noise and looked up.
“Look! What’s that queer animal coming toward us?” he said.
“It has two heads!” exclaimed Heema.
[Illustration: “That will give Ama and Docas something to eat for a
long time.”]
The children were so surprised that they did not think of running.
They just sat still and looked at this thing as it came nearer.
“There are three more of them,” cried Docas. “They are coming toward
us, too.”
“Now the first one is stopping! Now it’s breaking in two!” exclaimed
Heema.
In a moment more, however, the children found that it was not one
creature. It was a white man riding on a queer little animal with long
ears that wagged backward and forward.
They walked toward Docas, and Docas called his father. Massea did not
run away, but came up to where they were. The white men told Massea by
signs that they were trying to find out how far the great bay extended
to the south.
Massea showed them as well as he could. The white men made the Indians
understand that they were going round the bay, and that there were more
white men camped on a creek a few miles back.
After they had gone on, a great many of the Indians went up to the camp
to see the white men. They took them some acorn meal to eat.
At the camp they found the white chief, Governor Portola. The white men
had more of the strange animals at the camp. They let Docas and his
little brother Heema look at them as long as they liked. Heema said
to Docas, “Oh, Docas, do you think they would let me ride one of the
queer animals a little way?”
Docas said, “I don’t know, but I will ask and find out.”
The white men smiled and nodded when they understood what Docas wanted.
Docas went to Heema and said, “They do not care.”
In a moment Heema was seated on the mule’s back. As the mule began to
walk, Heema held very tightly to the saddle.
“Riding a mule is easy,” said Heema.
“Let me try,” said Docas.
Docas led the mule to a rock, and Heema jumped down. Docas rode around
until Massea said, “It is time to go home.”
After a day or two, the men who had gone south around the bay came
back, then the whole party went away over the mountains to the ocean
again. That was the last that Docas saw of the white men for eight
years.
DOCAS GOES TO THE RED HILL
One day Massea said, “Docas, we have used the last of our red earth. We
must go to the red hill and get some more.” They wanted the red earth
to paint their bodies.
Next morning they started very early, while it was still cold. They
went to the creek near by and took some mud from the bank. This they
smeared all over their bodies to keep them warm. After they were
covered with mud the cold wind did not strike the bare skin, so they
were warmer.
Then they walked south across the valley toward what we now call the
New Almaden Mine. Docas was old enough and strong enough to walk almost
as far as his father.
A little after noon they came to the hill where the red earth was. They
filled some baskets with it and sat down to rest. They soon saw five
more Indians coming with empty baskets.
When they came nearer Massea spoke to them, and asked them from what
place they came. They said they lived over on the coast on the southern
part of the big bay. They told Massea that they had gone to live at
what was called the Carmel Mission. Massea had never heard of a mission
before, so he asked them to tell him what it was.
One of the strange Indians said, “Some white men came and settled near
our rancheria.”
Docas had been sitting by his father’s side all this time, listening.
When he heard this, he said to Massea, “Oh, father, perhaps it is some
of the white men who came past our rancheria when I was a little boy.”
Massea said, “Perhaps.”
Then he asked the strange Indian if they were the white men who had
come across the mountains about eight summers ago.
The Indian said, “No; but they were friends.”
He then said to Massea and Docas, “We call the white men ‘father.’ They
are very good to us. They showed us how to make a very large house. It
is not made of brush, but is made of clay, and we call this house the
church.”
“How big is it?” asked Docas.
“It is so large that many oak trees could stand inside it. On the walls
are things that, when you come in front of them, show your face clearer
than the quietest spring of water. Then there are long white sticks
that make a soft light when they are lit. But the most beautiful things
in the church are the pictures.”
“What are pictures?” asked Massea.
“Flat things that hang on the wall and look like people,” the stranger
answered.
He stopped for a while after he had told all this. Massea and Docas did
not say anything. By and by he said, “The fathers have been kind to us,
so I have gone to live with them. I am a Mission Indian now.” After
this Massea and Docas asked him many questions about how they lived.
Before he went away, Massea said to him, “I think I should like to be
a Mission Indian. Are not any of the fathers coming over across the
mountains?”
The strange Indian from Monterey said, “Yes, a little while ago a new
father, called Father Pena, came to our Mission. He soon started over
the mountains to begin a new Mission. He must be out in the valley
somewhere now.”
After a while, Massea and Docas took up their baskets and started off.
All the way home they kept talking about the Mission and what the
Indian from Monterey had told them.
That night, as they sat around the campfire, Massea told the other
Indians all they had heard that day. Some of the Indians laughed at the
story, but Massea said, “If one of the fathers comes over here, I am
going to know more about him. Perhaps I shall go to live with him.”
DOCAS IN A FIGHT
A few days after this visit to the red hill, Massea and his family saw
some white men coming into the rancheria. Three of them were riding on
animals very much like those ridden by Portola’s men; but these were
not mules--they were horses.
Each man wore a cloak of padded deerskin. Arrows could not go through
these cloaks, so the white men always wore them. Sometimes the Indians
shot arrows at them, but when they came to this rancheria the Indians
did not try to hurt them. They gave the white men some acorn mush to
eat.
While they were eating, Docas crept up to his father and said, “Do you
think that man with the long dark dress is the father the Indian from
the coast told about?”
Massea said, “I think so, but we will see after dinner.”
The white men had an Indian with them who could talk both Indian and
Spanish. After they had eaten, they began to talk to the Indians.
Docas was right. One of the men was Father Pena, who had come into
their valley to start a new mission.
He went about ten miles farther south. There he started the new
mission, and called it Santa Clara, after a very good and beautiful
woman.
One day, a few weeks later, Massea got into a quarrel with some Indians
from another rancheria, about some deer they had trapped. That night
Docas heard something go “thud” by the side of his head while he was
asleep. He put out his hand and felt an arrow sticking in the ground
beside the tule mat on which he was sleeping.
“Some one is shooting at us,” he shouted.
Massea jumped up and got his own bow and arrows. He came over and
felt of the arrow that had been shot into the hut, to see from what
direction it came.
Massea gave a long call to tell the Indians of their rancheria that
there was danger and that they must help. Then he and Docas crept out
of the house and hid behind two trees that stood near the front of the
hut. In a moment more they saw some dark figures moving about in the
direction from which the arrow had come.
They raised their bows and were just going to shoot, when they heard
a rustle behind them. They turned quickly, but before they could help
themselves, their arms were seized and tied behind their backs.
“Now we have you,” said the strange Indians.
Some of the strange Indians hurried into the hut and brought out Ama,
Heema, and Alachu and took them off. The others stayed to fight.
Next day they took Massea and his family out to the middle of their
rancheria. The Indians who had captured them were going to torture them.
Suddenly a man in a long gray gown stood among them. It was Father
Pena, and he was holding up a cross.
He said, “My children, what are you doing? Do you know that it is wrong
for you to torture your neighbors? Let them go.”
These Indians loved Father Pena already and wanted to do as he told
them, so they let Massea go, and all his family with him.
PART II
WHEN DOCAS LIVED AT THE MISSION
[Illustration: He decided to go to the Mission to live.]
PART II
WHEN DOCAS LIVED AT THE MISSION
DOCAS GOES TO LIVE AT THE MISSION
After Father Pena had saved Massea from being tortured, Massea liked
him very much,--so much that he decided to go to the Mission to live.
Therefore after a few days they gathered together their baskets, their
bows and arrows, and some seeds. Then they were ready to start, for
they had nothing more to take with them. Docas walked with Heema, his
little brother. Massea walked at the side of Ama, who was carrying
Keoka, Docas’s baby sister. Alachu trotted behind.
When they came to the Mission they found that some of the Indians who
were already there had helped Father Pena to build a very large brush
house. This the Father called a church. Near it was the Father’s hut,
and off at one side were the huts of the Indians. These huts were built
in rows, but they were of brush just as they had always been.
As soon as they arrived, Docas and Massea went off a little way to the
creek, where there were many willow trees growing. They broke off the
leafy branches and carried them up to the Mission to make their own
hut. When they had a large pile of branches they began to build it.
First they stuck one end of a branch into the ground. They did that
with all the branches until they had a circle, putting the branches so
close together that Docas could hardly look between them.
When the circle was finished, they bent all the tops of the branches
together and tied them; then they covered the house with dry grass.
The Father tried to get Massea to build a better kind of house; he said
he would show him how to do it, for the brush house was too cold. But
Massea said, “No; we like this kind of house. When it gets too dirty,
we will burn it down and build another.”
They left a little hole for a door. They left it open all the time
because they had nothing with which to close it.
After the house was finished and the baskets were put away in it, they
all went to help their friends build their houses. One of the Indians
who was already living at the Mission brought them a bundle of straw,
which Massea put across the hole in front of their house. That meant
to any Indian who might come to see them, “We are away from home, and
shall be gone some time.”
BREAKFAST AT THE MISSION
Next morning Ama got up very early. She went down to the creek bed and
hunted about until she found two stones that she liked. One was large
and flat on top; the other was small and long, with one end that had
been worn smooth by the water. She wanted to make a new mortar and
pestle, for the old ones were so heavy that she had not brought them
with her.
Ama carried her corn down to the creek, put it on the big stone, and
tried to pound it with the little one; but the corn flew all over the
ground, for there was no hole worn yet in the top of the flat rock.
She poured some more corn on the top of the flat stone, but this time
she did not pound it so hard. Even then she could not grind it very
well, but by and by it was fine enough so that she could make mush of
it.
She started to go to the hut to tell Docas to make a fire. Just as she
climbed up the bank the sun came over the top of the mountain. It shone
on the queer, shiny thing that looked something like a basket upside
down. This thing hung between two posts by the church, and it was
shining so brightly now that Ama could hardly look at it.
At the same moment that the sun rose, she heard something go, “Clang,
clang, clang!” The sound seemed to come from this same shiny thing.
It waked Massea and Docas, and they came running out of the hut to
see what was the matter. In a few minutes all the other people in the
village came out of their huts, too.
Everybody seemed to be going toward the shiny thing that made the
noise. So Ama snatched up little Keoka, and they all followed after the
other people to see what was the matter.
They found that all the Indians were going into the big brush house,
and they followed. As the people went in they knelt down. Massea said,
“I am going to do as other people do,” so he knelt down, too. Then he
took Ama and the children and went to a corner of the house to see what
was going to happen.
Up in the front of the house some of the long white sticks were burning
that the Indian from Monterey had told about. In a few minutes more
Docas heard the sweetest sound! Heema began to talk to him just then,
but Docas said, “Stop! I want to listen.”
In a few minutes some more boys came in, all singing. Docas could not
understand anything they said, but he liked the sound.
Then Father Pena came out and said something, but Docas could not
understand that either. After the little boys had sung, everybody got
up and went out of the house. Massea and his family followed, and they
all went back to their homes.
Ama asked Docas to build the fire. He found some dry sticks and soon
had a fire roaring. Just then a strange little Mission boy with a red
skirt on came up. “What are you building that fire for?” he said.
“For my mother to cook breakfast,” answered Docas.
“We don’t do that here at the Mission,” said the strange Indian boy.
“Don’t have any breakfast?” asked Docas. Docas was almost ready to wish
he were back at the old rancheria, if he could not have any breakfast.
“Oh, no!” said the boy. “I meant that each family does not get its own
breakfast.”
“Then who does get it?” asked Docas.
“Well, you see my mother and some of the other women stayed home and
got breakfast ready for all of us while we were at mass,” said the boy.
Then he asked, “Where is your mother?”
“She is down at the creek trying to grind some more corn while I build
the fire,” answered Docas.
“Let’s surprise her,” said the boy. “Have you some baskets? Get one,
and we will go and get the breakfast while she is gone.”
Docas went into the hut and brought out one of the flat baskets. The
boy looked at it; then he said, “Haven’t you any deeper basket? They
give you so much to eat here.” Docas went back, and this time he
brought out one of the deep baskets in which Ama used to carry the
grass-seed. Then they went off.
Soon Ama came back. She looked all round, but could not find any fire.
“I wonder what has become of Docas,” she said.
Docas had not put any big wood on the fire, but only some small sticks,
so by the time Ama came up from the creek it was all burned out.
In a little while Ama saw Docas coming toward them, carrying a basket
very carefully in his hands. The other Indian boy was with him.
“I wonder where he has been and what he is carrying in that basket. I
should think he would be hungry himself, and build the fire, instead of
running off to play before breakfast,” thought Ama.
In a minute more Docas set the basket down at her feet. She looked into
it, then she said, “Why, it is filled with mush. Where did you get it?”
Docas then told Ama about the big boilers full of mush, and how every
family sent and got its breakfast from them.
The strange little boy, whose name was Yisoo, said, “Good-by; I will be
back after breakfast, but I must hurry now and take our breakfast home.”
THE MISSION SCHOOL
After a little while Yisoo came back. “Come now; it is time to go to
school,” said he.
“What is school? What do you do there?” asked Docas.
“Why, it’s a place where all the Indian boys go every day. They just
say over things that the Father tells them.”
“Is that all? I don’t think that’s any fun,” said Docas.
“No, it isn’t,” said the boy; “but I tell you what is fun,” he added.
“If you have a good voice, the Father will teach you to sing and maybe
he will teach you to play on a violin.”
Docas was glad to hear that perhaps he could learn to sing, for he
loved music. As they walked along Yisoo told Docas about what he must
do at school.
As they came out of the school, Yisoo said to Docas, “I can beat you
home.” They both started off on a run, but Docas came out a little
ahead. Yisoo looked at his bare legs and said, “You know how to run.”
Docas said, “Yes; but you see I haven’t so many clothes on as you.”
“I must take you after dinner to get some clothes like mine,” said
Yisoo.
They hurried to get their baskets and go for the dinner. For dinner
they had some meat as well as mush. Father Pena told the women who were
giving out the dinner that both Docas and Yisoo had studied very hard
that morning, and if there were any scraps of dinner left they should
have them. So Docas and Yisoo had a big dinner that day, for when they
came back, the women gave them each an extra piece of meat and a little
cake made of corn.
After dinner, Yisoo said, “Now we will go for your clothes.”
They went to the house where the Indian clothes were kept. Father Pena
went with them and gave Docas a suit of clothes just like Yisoo’s.
Docas liked them very much, for the jacket was white and the shirt was
scarlet.
After Docas was dressed, Father Pena said, “Haven’t you a brother and a
sister?”
“Yes, Father,” said Docas.
“Then take them each a suit of clothes, too. All the children here wear
the same kind of clothes,” said Father Pena.
RAISING CORN
The place the Fathers first selected for the Mission was very low, and
before they had lived there many winters, a great rain made the creek
overflow its banks and flood the Mission.
“This place is too low; we must move farther away from the creek,” said
the Fathers, as they watched the muddy water swirling about among their
houses.
So before long the entire Mission was moved three miles away to a safe
place.
Father Joseph was the name of the younger of the two Fathers. He had
charge of the Mission gardens, and one day in May he walked out among
the gardens that had been planted. Massea was at work pulling weeds. As
Father Joseph came near, he said, “Massea, our garden needs more water.”
Massea said, “Yes, it is too dry; but there will be no rain for three
or four months yet.”
“What can we do to bring some water to the garden?” said Father Joseph.
“I wonder if we could not make a long ditch from the Guadalupe Creek
around our garden and then back to the creek again.”
“It would bring the water, but it would be much work, Father,” said
Massea.
“We have many Indians who could work,” said Father Joseph. “I will ask
Father Pena what he thinks about it.”
Father Pena thought the idea was a good one. So in a few days, after
they had marked out the course of the ditch, there were two hundred
Indian men at work digging. Even Docas worked after school was done.
They worked so hard that in a few weeks the ditch was made, and part of
the water of the creek was flowing through it. After that the gardens
were never dry any more.
The children liked the ditch too, for it was such a fine place to
go wading in. Heema made tiny boats out of tules[1] as nearly like
Massea’s big boat as he could. Even Docas liked to watch his little
brother and sister sail their boats on the water in the ditch.
By the side of the irrigating ditch grew many rows of corn. When it was
ripe, Massea went to his house and got a very large, deep basket.
Docas said, “Where are you going, father?”
[Illustration: Massea gathering corn.]
“Father Joseph told me to get this basket and cut the corn,” said
Massea.
“May I go with you, father?” asked Alachu.
“Yes, if you will not get in the way,” said Massea.
So Massea carried his basket to the cornfield, and Alachu trotted along
by his side. He went down each row of corn, cutting off the heads and
putting them into his basket. Sometimes he happened to drop a head, but
when he did that, Alachu picked it up for him, and he put it into his
basket.
When the basket was full, he carried it to the end of the field where
Docas was waiting with a cart drawn by oxen. Massea emptied the baskets
into the cart until it was full; then Docas drove the cart to a
storehouse.
One rainy day in winter when they could not work outside, Father Joseph
said to a number of the Indian men, “I want you to go to the storehouse
to-day to husk corn.”
After school Docas went to the storehouse, too, and found Massea
sitting on the floor with the other men. Massea tied a few empty husks
together; then he took the ears that Docas had husked. He rubbed a full
ear against the husks until all the grains of corn had dropped down
into the basket on the floor.
Then it was ready to be roasted.
[1] _Tu’le_, a large bulrush growing abundantly on overflowed land in
California and elsewhere.
THRESHING THE GRAIN
One morning Massea took the rough wooden plough and went out to a
smooth piece of ground near the Mission. He began to plough the ground
in a circle, not ploughing very deep, but only loosening the top.
Heema and Alachu were wading in the irrigating ditch.
Alachu said, “See! father is making a garden.”
“That’s a queer place to make a garden,” said Heema.
They did not pay any more attention, but went on wading.
That afternoon Docas and some other boys and men went out with Massea
to make a tight fence around the circle Massea had ploughed. Docas tied
the fence together with rawhide strings so that it could not come apart.
After the fence was built, Massea poured water over the top of the
ground. Then the men drove a band of wild horses into the circle and
closed up the gate so that they could not get out.
When the children saw the horses going into the circle, they all ran to
see what was going to happen. Docas peeped through a hole in the fence.
He could see the horses standing around inside, so he called Yisoo to
come and peep through, too.
One horse was standing near the hole in the fence. When he heard Docas
call, he pricked up his ears, ducked his head, kicked up his heels, and
started off on a run. As soon as one horse began to run all the other
horses began to run, too. The children clapped their hands, and the men
yelled, so the horses kept on running round and round.
By the time Father Joseph told Massea to let them out, the ground was
tramped as smooth and hard as cement.
Then Massea and Docas began hauling wheat from the fields in the big
ox-carts, and piling it up in the middle of the circle on the hard
ground. Heema had to go to school most of the time, but Alachu rode out
with Docas in the empty cart, and came back on the top of the load.
One day Docas piled the cart very full. When he was ready to go, he
gave Alachu a toss up on the load, but he tossed her so hard that,
instead of staying on top, she slipped clear off on the other side.
Docas saw her slide off and heard a thud on the ground. He ran around
the back of the cart, but he could not see Alachu. He could see only a
pile of grain on the ground.
“Alachu!” he called. In a moment the grain on the ground began to
shake, and Alachu’s head came up out of the middle of it. A big bunch
had slid off with her and covered her up. Docas was afraid she was
hurt, but when she began to laugh, he picked her up, and this time he
set her very carefully on top of the hay in the cart.
By and by there was a big stack of grain in the centre of the circle.
Massea spread some of the grain out on the open space between the stack
and the fence, and the men turned the horses in again. Again the horses
ran round and round until they had tramped all the wheat out of the
grain.
Massea said to Docas, “Run, Docas. Go and get the pitchforks.”
Docas ran to a house near the Father’s and brought back four big,
wooden pitchforks. Docas gave Massea a pitchfork. He also gave Yisoo’s
father one; then he gave one to Yisoo, and kept one for himself.
They went inside the circle and tossed the straw over the fence. Of
course the pitchforks would not lift the wheat, so it stayed on the
ground. They kept on putting down new layers of grain and letting the
wild horses run over it and trample the wheat out, until there was no
longer any stack in the middle.
Yisoo had the wooden shovels ready, and they shovelled all the wheat
into a pile in the centre of the circle. Some of it they swept into the
pile with brush brooms.
“What dirty wheat! I don’t want to eat any mush made of that wheat.
It’s all full of little pieces of chaff,” said Alachu. She shivered as
she spoke, for a cold wind was blowing.
“Don’t you want to come inside the fence? It is warmer inside,” said
Docas. Alachu went inside and ran over to Docas, but he said, “No, you
must not stay here. Go across to the other side of the circle, close to
the fence.”
In a moment more she saw why Docas made her go over to the other side
of the circle. Docas threw a big shovelful of the grain and chaff up
into the air.
The chaff was light, and the wind blew it away, but the grain fell back
to the ground. The air was so full of the bits of flying chaff that
Alachu could hardly see the fence where she had been standing at first.
GETTING READY TO MAKE BRICKS
One morning, Father Pena came to Massea.
“I received a letter yesterday saying that a ship has come to San
Francisco,” he said. “It has brought some pictures for the church at
our Mission. I want you to go to San Francisco with an ox-cart and
bring the pictures back.”
Father Pena gave Massea charge of many things. Massea had been a chief
at his Indian rancheria, and so Father Pena sent him for the pictures.
[Illustration: Threshing the grain.]
Docas went with Massea. As they rode along they passed their old
rancheria, which was deserted now.
“Where have the Indians gone?” asked Docas.
“They went away across the mountains toward the rising sun,” answered
Massea. “They live now in the big valley down by Tulare Lake.”
The next day they came to San Francisco. Docas was much interested in
the big, new church that the Indians had just finished building. It was
made of adobe bricks instead of brush.
They loaded the pictures into the cart and started home. As they went
slowly along, Docas said, “Why don’t we have a big, new church like the
one here at the Mission Dolores? I hate to put these new pictures in
the old brush house.”
“We are going to build one very soon. Father Pena told me so just
before we started,” said Massea.
The day after Massea and Docas came home from San Francisco, Father
Pena came to Docas and said, “Docas, where is the best clay bank?”
Docas thought a moment. Then he answered, “At the back of Yisoo’s
house. Every time we try to walk across it after a rain we get stuck.”
“Let’s go and take a look at it,” said Father Pena.
When they got there, they found Heema and Alachu making little clay
mortars and pestles out of the adobe mud.
“They play here every day,” said Docas.
Father Pena picked up a dry mortar that Alachu had made a few days
before. It had dried very smoothly, with no cracks in it. Father Pena
nodded his head. “I think this adobe will do,” he said.
On the next day Father Joseph and a number of the other men came out to
the adobe bank.
“Dig up a patch of adobe,” said Father Joseph to Massea.
The children all stood around and watched while Massea dug.
“Now pour some water on the adobe and mix it up,” said Father Joseph.
In a few minutes Massea said, “It doesn’t mix easily. The adobe is in
such large lumps.”
“Jump in, children, and dance around in the adobe. That will break up
the lumps and make the adobe into a smooth paste,” said Father Joseph.
Docas, Yisoo, and a number of the other boys jumped in.
“Take hold of hands and make a ring,” said Docas. “Now we will play we
are having an eagle dance.”
“It’s great fun!” said Yisoo.
“I’m stuck!” cried Docas. Yisoo and the other boys ran to him and
pulled him loose from the big sticky lump in which his feet had stuck.
They jumped faster and faster. “You’re jumping on my toes,” cried Yisoo
to Docas.
Then they both laughed, for Yisoo was not hurt.
They jumped about so fast that very soon they had crushed every lump.
While the children were jumping, Massea was sitting on the ground near
by, chopping tules. He carried the chopped tules to where the children
were jumping.
“Stop jumping a minute while I throw these in. Then you can mix them
with the adobe,” said Massea.
“What are the broken tules for?” asked Docas.
“To make the bricks stick together better,” answered Massea.
While the children were mixing the tules into the adobe paste, the men
were busy, carrying piles of wooden moulds out from the Father’s house.
When the adobe was smooth, Father Joseph said, “Now watch me make the
first brick.” He filled a mould with the mixture of adobe, tule, and
water. “Now help me carry the mould to a smooth piece of ground,”
said Father Joseph to Docas.
[Illustration: And there was another brick.]
The mould had a bottom that slid out. Father Pena pulled the bottom out
from under it after they set it down. Then he raised the sides of the
mould, and the brick was left flat on the ground.
“What a nice brick!” said Alachu. She ran forward, and before any one
could stop her, she put her hand down and tried to lift the brick. It
was still soft, and her fingers made marks on it.
Father Joseph said, “You will have to wait until it dries.”
Docas had watched very closely. He went back to the hole and filled a
mould; then he and Heema brought it out to the smooth piece of ground.
They put it down near the first brick, pulled out the bottom and raised
the sides just as they had seen Father Joseph do. And there was another
brick.
Soon a great many Indians were at work making the bricks, and after a
little while there were rows and rows of bricks drying in the sun. They
were left lying flat until they were about two-thirds dry; then Docas
went around and turned them up on their edges.
GETTING THE TIMBERS
One day Heema jumped into the hut where Ama was sitting. “Where’s
Docas?” he asked.
“Out making bricks. What do you want of him?” answered Ama.
“We are going up into the mountains to get a big tree. Father Joseph
wants him to come and help drag it down.” Before Ama could answer him
he was off to find Docas.
Soon Father Joseph, Docas, Heema, and a great many other Indian men and
boys started off for the mountains where the redwood trees grow. They
took several oxen and several chains with them. The day before, Massea
and two other men had gone up to the hills to fell the trees.
About noon the party came to the place where Massea was. He had two
trees cut down, ready for them. They rested and ate some dried deer
meat. After that they fastened the oxen to one of the trees that Massea
had cut down; then they drove back to the Mission. The log dragged
along behind the oxen until it reached the Mission.
Massea had cut down two trees. There were no oxen left to drag the
second tree to the Mission, so Docas helped fasten some long chains to
the log. Then all the Indian men and boys took hold of the chains and
dragged the log down to the Mission themselves. It was not very hard
work, for there were almost a hundred Indians pulling.
Early the next day they began to chop at one of the logs with their
axes to make it square. When Massea saw that one side of it was flat he
said, “Stop.” Massea and the other men tried to roll the log over on
the other side, but it did not move at first.
“It is heavy,” said one of the men.
“Yes, but we must roll it over so that we can smooth the other side,”
said Massea.
They gave another big pull all together, and the log rolled over.
At last, instead of a rough log with bark on it, it was a smooth,
square piece of timber ready to use in building the church.
BUILDING THE CHURCH
After they had made many bricks, Father Joseph came to Massea and Docas
and said, “We can begin to build the church now.”
Alachu had been playing with some of the broken bricks. That night she
said to Docas, “I think you can’t build a very big church.”
“Why not?” asked Docas.
[Illustration: The day before, Massea and two men had gone to the hills
to fell the trees.]
“It will tumble down,” said Alachu. “I built up a brick wall that was
not any higher than I am, and it fell over while I went to get some
more bricks.”
“Oh, but we are going to make ours thick. Father Joseph told father
to-day that we should make the walls three feet thick. Besides, we
shall fasten the bricks together with mortar.”
“What’s mortar?” asked Alachu.
“Sticky stuff to keep the bricks together,” answered Docas.
Next morning they began to build the Mission church. Day after day
they worked. Massea and some of the men spread the mortar and laid the
bricks, while Docas and other men and boys made more bricks.
It took so many, many bricks!
When the side walls and the end walls were made, Father Joseph told
Massea to bring two of the square timbers, and set them up exactly in
the center of each of the end walls. It was hard work getting them in
place. Docas had to pull with all his might.
When they were putting up the timbers, Docas saw that Father Joseph
had had some of the Indians make a large notch in the upper end of
each. He wanted to ask what the notch was for, but he had asked so many
questions since he came to live at the Mission that he thought he would
wait and see.
As soon as the two posts were up, Father Joseph had the Indians lay a
long tree from one to the other in order to make the ridgepole. The
ridgepole lay snugly in the notch on top, so that it could not roll
off. But even with the notch, Father Joseph said the ridgepole would
not be steady enough. So he gave Docas some strings made of rawhide,
and told him to climb up the posts.
“What for?” asked Docas.
“To tie the ridgepole fast to the posts,” answered Father Joseph.
Docas had climbed many a tree when making storehouses for acorns, so
that it was easy for him to climb the posts. He sat on top of the
ridgepole after he had finished tying the posts together. Alachu was
watching him from below. He waved his hand to her, and she waved hers
back.
“I do hope Docas won’t fall,” said Alachu to Heema. Docas knew that
Alachu was a little frightened, so he thought, “I’ll show her what a
big boy like me can do.” He slipped out on the pole and swung himself
around on it until he was hanging by his knees. Then he pulled himself
up again on top of the pole.
Alachu called out, “Do be careful, Docas!”
“I’m all right. Don’t be scared,” he called back. Then he stood up
carefully and started to walk along the top of the ridgepole; but the
pole was round and slippery, and he slipped. He would have fallen to
the ground, but he caught hold of the ridgepole with one hand. He drew
himself up again. Then he crawled back to the nearest post, slid down,
and climbed off the wall to the ground.
Meanwhile, some of the Indians had been making curved tiles for the
roof. The tiles were made of the same adobe mud as the bricks, but were
baked in fires instead of being dried by the sun.
Alachu looked up at the ridgepole, then she looked at the tiles.
“They’ll not reach from the ridgepole to the wall. They will fall
through,” said she.
“Not when we get ready to put them on,” said Docas.
Massea had brought down from the mountains a great many smaller trees.
The Indians pulled the bark from these, and laid them in rows from
the ridgepole to the outer wall. Across these Massea and Docas wove a
network of twigs just as they did when they made the storehouse. They
tied all these trees tightly to the ridgepole so that nothing could
slip.
“There,” said Docas to Alachu, “do you think the tiles will fall
through now when we lay them on top of that?”
So, after much work, the big church was built. The floor was covered
with large, square bricks, the pictures were hung, the candles were put
up. The images of the saints were placed around the walls. Near the
front was a beautiful banner on which was a picture of the Mother of
Jesus.
Docas was happy, for he was no longer afraid that their lovely things
would get spoiled by the rain.
VISIT OF FATHER SERRA
By the time the church was built, Docas could sing very well. One day
Father Pena gave him a new hymn to learn.
“It is very hard, Father,” said Docas.
“Yes, but it is very beautiful, and I want you to be able to sing it
when Father Junipero Serra visits us,” said Father Pena.
“I would do anything for Father Serra,” answered Docas. “He loves us
so.”
So every day after that for several weeks Docas practised his new hymn
until he knew it perfectly. Yisoo learned it also.
“Father Serra will be pleased,” said Father Pena, one day when Docas
had sung the hymn very well.
Sometimes, when Docas was tired of singing, Father Pena told him
stories of Father Serra. Once he told Docas how Father Serra had walked
hundreds of miles to start the Missions.
One morning soon after they were in school, Massea, who had been out in
the fields, came hurrying up to the schoolroom.
“Father Serra is coming!” he called out. Father Pena dismissed the
school, and went out to meet Father Serra. They were very glad to see
each other, for they had not met for a long time.
Father Pena took Father Serra all over the Mission. He showed him the
fields and gardens, and the Indian village a little way from the church.
Father Serra said, “I am pleased to see how well you are getting
started.”
This was his first visit to the Mission Santa Clara since the new
church was built.
The next day was Sunday. Docas was excited, because Father Serra was to
say the mass, and he was to sing his new hymn.
The church was full, for the white people who had just come to live at
San José, about three miles away, had come to church, too. By this time
most of the Indians knew when to kneel and when to make the sign of the
cross, but Massea stood in the aisle with a long stick. It was his duty
to watch the other Indians. If one of them forgot to kneel down at the
right time Massea poked him with the end of the stick.
After the mass, Father Serra preached; then Docas and Yisoo sang their
hymn. After they had sung each verse, they waited for the people to
sing it over after them.
When the service was over, Docas, Yisoo, and all the other Indians who
had learned to play, took their violins and walked toward Father Pena’s
house, playing dance music all the way. Father Pena and Father Serra
walked along with them.
As they reached Father Pena’s house, Father Serra happened to notice
Docas. He turned and said to him, “Love God, my son.”
Docas answered, “Love God, Father.”
Father Serra then said, “Are you not one of the two boys who sang in
church?”
“Yes, Father,” answered Docas.
“You have studied well; I am pleased with you,” said the Father.
Father Serra stayed until next morning, and then he went to San
Francisco.
VISIT OF CAPTAIN VANCOUVER
By and by Docas grew to be a man, and had children of his own.
One day, as he was going home to dinner, he saw some white men ride up
to the Father’s house. He said to them, “Welcome. I will go and speak
to the Father.” He called Father Pena, who came out at once and asked
the men to come into the house. He told Docas to take the horses to the
stable.
The strangers told the Father that they had come to California to see
what new lands they could find and to trade a little. They were the
officers of a ship that was anchored in the bay near the Mission at San
Francisco.
The common sailors were getting more wood and water for their ship, so
the officers had been given horses by the Fathers of the Mission at San
Francisco and had come down to visit the Santa Clara Mission. The name
of the leader was Captain Vancouver.
Father Pena and Father Diego, who had taken the place of Father Joseph,
said they were glad to see them and that the next day would be a
holiday at the Mission. The Fathers told the Indians that they might
have a feast then.
[Illustration: Docas lived in a ’dobe house.]
Docas’s little boy, who was called Oshda, always went to Father
Pena’s house at meal time to help wait at table. Several other Indian
boys went also.
Next morning, when Father Pena was eating breakfast with Captain
Vancouver, Father Pena said, “Now we’ll have some fun.”
He called Oshda to him and told him to bring in a plate of pancakes.
Oshda smiled, for he knew what was coming. He almost ran as he went to
get the cakes.
Oshda brought the plate of cakes and put it down by Father Pena. Father
Pena then said, “Get into line.”
Quickly all the Indian boys placed themselves in a row on the other
side of the room.
Father Pena took up a cake in his hand. He said something funny to
Captain Vancouver. Oshda laughed, and the moment Father Pena saw Oshda
open his mouth to laugh, he threw the cake into Oshda’s mouth. Oshda
had to stop laughing, for his mouth was full of hot pancake.
He ate it as fast as he could, and then he was ready for another one.
Father Pena kept throwing the cakes to the different boys, until no
more cakes were left.
Docas went to the Father’s house just before breakfast. He said to
Captain Vancouver, “Some of the soldiers are going to catch and kill
some cattle for the feast. Would you not like to go out and watch?”
Captain Vancouver said he would, so Docas went to the stable and
saddled some of the Mission horses for them, and one for himself also.
They all rode together a few miles out from the Mission, where the
cattle were feeding. The soldiers rode along with them.
The cattle were very large and would not let anybody come near them.
Each of the soldiers had a long rope made of horsehair, with a noose
at the end. He twisted one end of the line around the pommel of his
saddle. The other end with the noose he swung round and round his head.
This they called a lasso.
The soldiers decided which one of the cattle they would catch first,
and then several of them galloped toward the animal. When they got
close enough, they all threw their lassos at the same time. One of the
men caught his line around the horns of the animal, another caught its
hind leg, and another its fore leg.
The horses on which the soldiers were riding stopped short, and the
animal was thrown to the ground, for the ropes held him tight so that
he could not move. Then another man went up to him and killed him.
Twenty-two of the cattle were caught and killed in this way before
Docas said it was time to go home.
“We shall have a great feast to-day,” said Docas.
After the feast was over, the Indians danced and played games. The
visitors again came out to watch them have a play fight.
They made Massea their chief and pretended that a large bundle of straw
was the enemy. Oshda and the other boys and men got their bows and
arrows. They jumped and danced around the bundle of straw, swinging
their arms and yelling. Massea at last gave them a sign, and the
Indians all shot their arrows at the straw bundle. Then they yelled
louder than ever, for they were pretending that they had beaten the
enemy.
Some of them put Massea on their shoulders, and others danced around
him. They carried him up in front of the Fathers and the visitors who
were watching; then they carried him back to the Indian village.
When it was time for evening service they stopped their games until
after service and supper were over. In the evening they had a dance.
After the visitors had stayed a day or two longer, they rode back to
San Francisco.
PREPARING HIDES AND TALLOW
As Oshda grew older, he learned to throw the lasso. By the time he was
grown he could lasso almost any of the cattle, no matter how fast his
horse or the cattle were going.
He took the skin off every animal he killed and cut holes around the
edge. Then he put stakes through the holes, drove the stakes into the
ground as far apart as the skin would stretch, and left the skin to
dry. Sometimes there were large places in the hills near the Mission,
where the skins were laid so close together you could not see the
ground.
Every time Oshda killed one of the cattle, he built a fire, hung some
big iron kettles over it, and threw the fat parts of the cattle into
these. Soon the kettles were full of boiling grease.
Docas had two more children besides Oshda,--a boy named Pantu and a
little girl named Colla. Pantu and Colla liked to go with Oshda when
he melted the fat. Oshda always said, though, that if they went with
him they must work. There were many things they could do to help. They
could bring wood and build the fire, and they could keep it going after
it was built.
[Illustration: Oshda]
When the fire was built, and the fat meat was sizzling in the kettles,
Oshda went off a little way and dug a hole in the black adobe. Then
he said to Pantu, “Run and get me some clay from the clay bank.” The
clay was wet and sticky. When Pantu brought it, it stuck to his fingers
until his hands looked as if he had been making bricks.
Oshda took the clay and plastered the sides and bottom of the hole he
had dug, smoothing them off until they were shiny. Docas came up just
then with some long sticks.
Docas stuck one of the sticks in the middle of the hole.
Oshda then said to the children, “Make some more holes just like this
one and stick the rest of the sticks up in them.”
After the fire had burned for a long time and the grease was cooked out
of the fat meat, Oshda and Docas took one of the kettles off the fire.
They brought it over by the edge of the first hole and tipped it on its
side. Pantu and Colla wanted to see what was going on, so they crowded
up close.
“Look out! The grease is very hot. It will burn you if you are not
careful,” said Docas. So Pantu and Colla stepped back.
Then Docas and Oshda began to pour the hot grease into the hole. They
poured until the hole was full; then they carried the kettle on to the
next hole.
“What are you pouring the grease out on the ground for?” asked Pantu.
“So that it may get hard and we shall have a cake of tallow to sell,”
answered Docas.
Next morning Pantu and Colla woke up very early. As soon as breakfast
was over, they ran out to look at the grease in the holes. Pantu could
run faster than Colla, so he got there first.
“Somebody has taken out the grease and put in some white stuff,” he
said.
Colla took up a long stick. She stood off a little way and poked the
white stuff with one end of the stick.
“It doesn’t move. It’s hard,” she said. She poked harder, but still
nothing happened. Then Colla went close to the hole, stretched out her
arm, and touched the white stuff with the tip of her finger. “It feels
greasy anyway, if it doesn’t look like grease,” said she.
Pantu came up also and touched it. “It’s cold, too. Perhaps it is the
grease and the cold has made it like this. You know Oshda said the
grease would harden,” he said.
After a little, Docas and Oshda came along.
“Come, see how hard our grease is,” said Pantu.
“Yes, it is ready to put into the cart,” said Oshda.
[Illustration: Then Colla went close to the hole.]
Oshda took hold of the upper end of the stick and gave a big pull. The
cake of tallow came out of the hole with a jerk. Docas took hold of
the other end of the stick on the other side of the cake of tallow, and
between them they carried it away to the cart.
MAKING THE OX-CART
Once Father Catala came out where Docas and Oshda were working. They
were gathering up some hides and doubling them up with the hair inside.
Father Catala was in charge of the Mission now, for Father Pena was
dead.
Father Catala said to Docas, “We must get our hides and tallow over to
Monterey. We want them to be ready for the next ship that comes to the
coast to trade. Will you not begin to haul them within the next few
days?”
“Yes, Father,” said Docas. “But the cart I have been using has such a
big axle hole in the wheel that I can hardly use it. The axle has worn
the hole very large.”
“Make some new wheels, and take some of the men and begin hauling the
hides. We must have them down there by the time the ship comes.”
Docas told Oshda to make the wheels, so Oshda went back to his house
and got an axe. He lived in an adobe house now. It had two rooms
below and a garret above, and a garden fenced in behind where he kept
chickens.
“Where are you going and what are you going to do?” asked Pantu, his
little brother.
“I am going to cut down an oak tree to make some new wheels for the
cart. Do you want to come along?”
Of course Pantu wanted to come along, and he was soon skipping by
Oshda’s side. Oshda took such long steps that Pantu had to run part of
the time to keep up with him.
They had to walk quite a distance from the Mission before they found a
tree that they liked. It was about two feet through.
Oshda began chopping at the tree, while Pantu played about among the
trees near by. Pantu played that he was a woodpecker and pecked away at
the trunks of the trees. After he had pecked awhile, he stooped down,
picked up an acorn, and stuck it into a little crack in the back of the
oak tree. He pressed it in hard, so that it had to stick. So he ran
from tree to tree.
After a while Oshda had chopped his tree almost through. At last the
tree began to tremble and crack. He stepped back to see which way it
was going.
As he did so he saw Pantu make a sudden dart across where the tree was
going to fall. Pantu was not looking where he was going.
“Look out, Pantu!” Oshda called.
Pantu looked up and saw the tree falling toward him, so he started
to run faster, but it was too late. The tree came down on top of him,
knocking him to the ground. He was far enough from where the tree grew
so that the trunk did not fall on him. But one of the branches hit him
on the head and knocked him down, while another scratched the skin off
his knee.
He jumped up as soon as he could, for he knew Oshda would be
frightened. Even when he was standing up, Oshda could not see him
because the tree had so many branches on it, so he had to climb out
from among the leaves and broken twigs. His head ached and he felt like
crying, but he knew that Indian boys never cry.
When Oshda saw that Pantu was not badly hurt, he began to chop up his
tree. He found a place where the trunk was smooth and round; he chopped
off two sections, each about a foot wide. He smoothed them off and made
a hole through the centre. So his wheel was really just a slice across
the tree with a hole in the centre for the axle. Oshda spent several
days making the wheel, and Pantu went out with him every day.
“There, Pantu, you may roll one of the new wheels home,” said Oshda at
last.
Oshda lifted the wheel up on its edge, and Pantu began to roll it along
down the hills. Soon he grew careless, and the wheel slipped and fell
down flat, hitting one of his toes. It was heavy and hurt him.
“Ouch!” said Pantu. Then he stopped short.
“You careless boy,” said Oshda. “First you run under a falling tree and
almost get killed. Then you let your wheel fall down on your toes. You
must be more careful.”
“I’ll try,” said Pantu, hopping about on one foot and holding the hurt
one in his hand.
So Oshda tipped the wheel up on its edge again, and this time Pantu was
very careful and rolled it safely home without letting it slip.
Their father, Docas, met them as they came home. It was almost supper
time, and he had come out to see if they were near. He looked at the
bump on Pantu’s head, at his skinned knee, and at his bruised toes. He
knew that Pantu had not been paying attention to what he was about.
Pantu looked up at his father. Docas looked gravely at him, so Pantu
hung his head a little and limped into the house.
Then Docas looked at Oshda and smiled. “He’ll learn not to be so
careless by the time he gets a few more bumps,” said Oshda, smiling.
SHIPPING THE HIDES AND TALLOW
Next morning Oshda put his new wheels on the old cart. He then got two
oxen and brought them in front of the cart. He put a strong, heavy
piece of wood across just behind the horns of the oxen and fastened it
to their horns with rawhide. Then he hitched this wooden yoke to the
cart, piled the cart full of skins, and they were ready to go.
Pantu said, “Oh, father, may I go too? I could attend to the soap-suds.”
“Yes, you may go,” said Docas.
Oshda brought out a pail of very thick soap-suds and set it down in the
corner of the cart. He also put in some soap to make more suds when
that was gone.
At last they started. Oshda and Docas walked along by the side of the
oxen, and poked them with sharp sticks to make them go. Pantu sat up in
front of the load of dry hides. As they started out, the cart jolted,
the dry hides crackled, and the axle squeaked. It made such a noise
that Father Catala, who was in the field half a mile away, heard them
coming.
When they came up to him, he said, “You had better put some more
soap-suds in the axle holes. I heard the squeaking when you first
started out.” So Pantu poured some more soap-suds on the axle.
A number of other carts were going along filled also with hides and
with tallow. Docas was in charge of the whole party. They travelled all
day and camped at night, and by the evening of the third day they were
at Monterey.
They camped just outside of Monterey, and on the next day they went up
into the town. They were wandering around, when suddenly they heard the
cry of “Sail ho!” In a few seconds every one was calling “Sail ho!” and
running down to the beach.
Pantu stood on the beach. It was evening, and the sun was down near the
water. After a few moments he saw a little white spot far out on the
water. Docas said it was the sails of the ship. There was a blazing
path from the sun to the shore, so that Pantu had to shade his eyes,
and even then he could not look long at the glowing water. But all of a
sudden the sun seemed to sink into the water, and the glow faded.
“Oh, father!” called Pantu to Docas, “the sun has dropped into the
ocean and the water has put it out.”
“Don’t be afraid. It will come up again as bright and hot as ever
to-morrow morning,” said Docas.
Little by little the ship came nearer. Pantu stood watching it until
it grew so dark that he could no longer see even the white gleam of the
sails. Docas and Oshda had been gone a long time. But still he stayed
down at the beach, although it was long past supper time.
“Come, Pantu, you must come home,” he heard Oshda saying at last.
“But I want to see the big ship come up on the beach,” said Pantu.
Oshda laughed. Then he said, “It will not come anywhere near the shore.”
Pantu said, “How can we get the heavy hides and tallow into the ship if
it stays away off there?”
“It can’t come nearer. The water is not deep enough. But they will send
some little boats ashore in the morning. We shall load the hides into
them, and they will carry them out to the ship,” answered Oshda.
In the morning, Pantu was down on the beach very early. Soon he saw a
boat leave the ship and come toward the shore. When a big wave came
rolling up, the men in the boat rowed very hard. The wave brought them
high up on the beach, then, as it began to run back again, the men
jumped out into the water, seized the boat, and kept it from being
washed back into the bay again. They fastened it so that no wave could
wash it away; then they began to load the hides.
[Illustration: Docas and Oshda brought the hides and tallow down to the
beach in the ox-carts.]
Docas and Oshda brought the hides and tallow down to the beach in the
ox-carts.
All the sailors had on thick woollen caps. Pantu wondered why they wore
that kind of cap, until he saw how they carried the hides.
A man came up on the dry sand where Docas and Oshda had piled the
hides. He took up a hide and put it on his head. He waded out through
the water, put the hide into the boat, and came back for another.
Soon all the men in the boat, except the two that held it from being
tipped over, were running back and forth, carrying hides. The men had
to be very careful not to get the hides wet, for they would spoil if
they became damp. The sharp stones cut the men’s feet, but shoes could
not be worn because the salt water would soon spoil them.
After the boat was loaded, the man who steered stood up in the stern.
Two of the men got into the boat and took their oars ready to row. Two
other men stood by the side of the boat to push it out when the time
came. They waited until a big wave floated the boat; then the man who
was steering said, “Now!”
The men outside seized hold of the boat, and ran out with it until the
water was above their waists. Then they tumbled over into the boat and
lay in the bottom, dripping wet.
The men at the oars pulled as hard as they could, but it was of no use.
A bigger wave came and swept the boat up high on the beach.
The two men jumped out and turned the boat around so that its end
pointed out to sea, and waited to try again. When a large wave came,
they again ran out with the boat, and tumbled in after they got to deep
water.
But the big waves came so close together that the boat was tossed up
and down in the air. Sometimes a big breaker would roll out from under
the boat, and let it drop on the water so hard that it seemed as if
the bottom would be broken in. Finally, a big curling wave came. The
boat was washed around sideways. The swell tipped the boat up, and then
partly broke over it.
In a moment more, the boat was upset, and hides, men and oars were
mixed up in the foaming water. They were all washed up high on the sand
a second time. But now these hides were wet, so they must be stretched
out in the sun to dry, and the boat must be loaded with some other
hides and tallow.
The third time the men said: “We shall succeed this time. The seventh
big wave is the last of the big ones for a while. We will wait for it.”
So they waited until six big waves had gone by. When the seventh came,
a quick run and a hard pull carried them beyond the reach of the
breakers, and they were safe.
“Do they always have such hard times getting off?” asked Pantu of a
white man standing near.
“No,” said the man; “the waves are unusually high to-day.”
TRADING ON THE SHIP
After the hides and tallow had been sent up to the ship, the captain
said that the people could come aboard and trade.
The Father from the Carmel Mission near Monterey said he was going
to visit the ship. He took some of his own Mission Indians with him.
Docas, Oshda, and Pantu went along also to trade for their Mission.
The sailors took them out in one of the boats. As the Father went on
board the ship, the captain gave orders to fire the big guns of the
ship as a salute to him; then the sailors showed the visitors all over
the ship. Pantu was much interested. He thought, “If only we Indians
could have boats and ships to sail about in instead of just tule-boats!”
[Illustration: As the Father went on board the ship, the captain gave
orders to fire the big guns as a salute to him.]
At last the captain took them down into the trading-room. All around it
were shelves, on which the goods were laid out. Father Catala had told
Docas to bring a great many shoes and axes for the Mission, so he
bought those first. Then the captain said, “You brought so many hides
you can still have some more things.”
At first, Docas did not know what to take. There were so many new and
beautiful things spread out before him. Soon he saw a round, flat,
thick thing, about as big as a cake of tallow, with a hole through the
middle of it.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s a grindstone to sharpen your axes with,” answered the captain.
He showed Docas how to put a sharp edge on the axe with the grindstone,
so Docas said he would take two of them. Docas also got some beads and
a toothbrush for Pantu.
After the Father had finished his trading, they all got into the boat
again, and the sailors started to row them back to the shore. When they
were a little way from the ship, the sailors stopped rowing and rested,
while the men on the ship fired a parting salute to the Mission Father.
All this time Pantu had been holding his toothbrush tightly in one
hand. He was so happy to think that he was going to brush his teeth
just as the little white boys did. As soon as they got to land, he
jumped out and ran to the creek. He dipped the brush into the water,
and he rubbed and rubbed his teeth with it. He rubbed so hard that the
blood came.
“It isn’t so much fun as I thought it would be,” he said to himself.
On the next day they started for home, and Pantu had many things to
tell Colla.
LEAVING THE MISSION
Bumpty-bump went the ox-cart as it rolled along on the wheels that had
not been smoothed off perfectly round.
Creakity-creak went the dry axles, saying as plainly as they could, “We
want some more soap-suds. We want some more soap-suds.”
Wobblety-jerk went the head of a small Indian girl who sat in the cart
on some skin sacks filled with grain. With her were an old man and a
boy a little older than herself. Finally her head gave an extra big
jerk and hit against one of the posts at the side.
“Just like a girl to fall asleep and then bump her head,” said the boy.
He straightened himself up and drew an old woollen cloth around his
shoulders in imitation of the cloak worn by a Spanish gentleman who
passed them on horseback just then.
The Spanish gentleman was Don Secundini Robles, who for years had been
superintendent of the Santa Clara Mission. The old man in the cart was
Docas, and the boy and girl were his grandchildren. Their parents were
Oshda and his wife Putsha. The girl’s name was Yappa, and the boy’s
was Shecol. Don Secundini had bought a large ranch about sixteen miles
north of the Mission and was going there to live. Docas and his family
were going to live with him and be his servants.
“I’m so tired riding in this old ox-cart,” said Yappa at last.
“You would be more tired if you had to walk all the way, as I did sixty
years ago when we went to the Mission to live,” said Docas.
“Why didn’t you ride?” asked Yappa.
“We had never seen an ox-cart then,” answered Docas.
“Tell us about the time when you were young, grandpa,” said Shecol.
So Docas began and told them stories about the life at the old
rancheria, and the fight with the Indians from the other rancheria. He
told how they were saved by Father Pena from torture and how they went
to live at the Mission. Then, he told them about the building of the
big church, about the planting of the grainfields and orchards, about
the thousands and thousands of cattle and horses that belonged to the
Mission, and about the hundreds of Indians who lived under the care of
the good Fathers. “Our Mission is not now what it used to be,” said
Docas, sadly.
[Illustration: With her were an old man and a little boy.]
“What happened to the Mission?” Yappa asked.
“The Mexican government took away the lands and then the Indians left.
Some have gone back to live at the old rancherias, and some, like
ourselves, are going to live with rich Spaniards,” answered Docas.
Just then the cart stopped, and they all got out at their new home.
“Aren’t you glad the house is not built yet?” Shecol asked Yappa. “We
shall have to camp out all the summer and we can play we are wild
Indians again.”
So the children trapped fish and gathered acorns for bread just as
their grandfather told them he used to do. Docas was too old to work
much, but their father and older brother, Occano, helped Don Secundini
build the big adobe house near which Docas was to spend the rest of his
life.
PART III
WHEN DOCAS LIVED WITH DON SECUNDINI ROBLES
PART III
WHEN DOCAS LIVED WITH DON SECUNDINI ROBLES
WASH-DAY
“We must soap the ox-cart well to-night, Occano,” said Oshda to his
oldest son.
“What does the Señor Robles want us to do to-morrow?” asked Occano.
“It is not the Señor that wants us to-morrow. It is the Señora. Now
that the sun has come again, we are all going to start for the creek
very early in the morning to have a wash-day,” said Oshda.
Next morning, before it was daylight, the oxen were yoked to the cart,
and lunch was stowed away inside. Then Donna Maria, as they called the
Señora Robles, climbed into the cart with her five children. Oshda and
Occano walked by the side of the oxen.
There were five horses with soiled clothes piled up high on their
backs, led by Pantu and other of the Indian menservants. Putsha,
Colla, and other Indian women who were going to wash the clothes
walked along by the side of the horses. Shecol and Yappa went too.
Before it was light, as they went slowly along, they heard the howling
of the coyotes and other wild animals. The Spanish children crept
closer to Donna Maria then, while Shecol and Yappa held on to Putsha’s
skirts as they walked along.
As it grew light and the animals stopped howling, Donna Maria let the
children get down from the cart and run along picking flowers with
Shecol and Yappa. Such fun as they had climbing up the hillsides,
gathering whole handfuls of the first shooting-stars and buttercups!
Once they all tried to run down a steep hill to see which one would be
the first to get to a stray poppy that had blossomed earlier than the
others. Shecol was ahead, but just as he reached the poppy, he caught
his foot in a gopher hole and fell. The oldest Spanish boy was close
behind, and he fell over Shecol. Yappa fell on top of him. The four
other children were coming so fast that they could not stop, so they
were all piled in a heap.
[Illustration: Colla, Putsha, and the other women put soap on the
clothes; then they dipped them into the creek.]
They got on their feet again as soon as they could, and Yappa said,
“Shecol and the poppy must be crushed entirely.” But when Shecol could
be seen again they found that he was laughing, and that he had
happened to throw his arm around the poppy, so that it was not hurt.
Just then they heard Donna Maria’s voice calling, “Come, children. You
will get left behind,” so they started off again on a run to catch up
with the cart. Shecol gave the poppy to Yappa to carry; then he turned
somersaults all the way down to the foot of the hill.
When they got to the cart, they filled Donna Maria’s lap with flowers.
The smaller children were tired, so they sat in the back of the cart,
with their feet hanging over behind.
The children all liked to have the wash-day come, for it was like one
big picnic for them.
By and by they came to the creek. The men took the loads off the horses
and unyoked the oxen. Then they turned them all loose to graze on the
wild oats. The children helped the women carry the baskets of soiled
clothes down to the rocks.
Colla, Putsha, and the other women put soap on the clothes. Then they
dipped them into the creek and rubbed them on the rocks in the creek
bed. This made the clothes very white, for the wash-water was always
clean and fresh.
By noon the clothes were all washed, and the children had spread them
out on the tops of the bushes to dry. Then came lunch. “How good
everything tastes!” said Yappa. “We are so hungry.”
In the afternoon they all rested and played. By evening the clothes
were dry, and everything was made ready to start for home again.
The Spanish children were all tired, so they crowded down near their
mother in the cart. There was a little room left in the cart, and they
begged that Shecol and Yappa might come in with them instead of walking
all the way home. Donna Maria said “Yes,” so Shecol and Yappa nestled
down in a corner of the cart.
Yappa was sleepy, and she leaned her head against Shecol’s shoulder.
As the sun went down, the Indians began to sing “Kyrie Eleison.” She
whispered to Shecol, “That’s the song grandpa sang when he was a little
boy, and Father Serra visited the Mission.”
“Yes,” said Shecol.
The cart jolted along. The Indians kept on singing. A red moon came up
over the mountains. A flock of wild ducks whizzed by just over their
heads. The frogs began to croak in the little ponds near the road, and
the crickets began to sing in the long grass.
Yappa fell asleep and dreamed that she was a little cricket and that
she was trying to learn to sing “Kyrie Eleison,” but that it was such
hard work, because, every time she tried to sing, all she could say
was “Katy Do.” She felt very badly, for she dreamed that Father Serra
was coming toward her and that he wanted to hear her sing.
Soon she thought that Father Serra stood before her, and said, “I am
Father Serra. Will you sing for me?”
She answered, “I will try, Father,” and began. But all she could say
was “Katy Do,” so she stopped.
“I am so sorry, Father, I tried to sing ‘Kyrie Eleison,’” she said.
“You have done well, dear girl,” said the Father. “You sang your own
song the best you could.” Then he smiled at her and put his arm round
her.
She woke up just then and found that they were at home, and that her
father Oshda had her in his arms and was smiling down at her as he
carried her into the house.
THE CASCARONE BALL
“The old white hen has stolen her nest, and Donna Maria says we must go
and hunt for the eggs this morning,” said Shecol to Yappa one day.
“All right,” said Yappa. “But why doesn’t Donna Maria let that hen have
some little chickens? We have brought her so many eggs lately.”
“Don’t you know why Donna Maria wants so many eggs these days?” asked
Shecol.
“No,” said Yappa.
“Why, we are going to have a cascarone ball here next week,” said
Shecol.
“Oh, goody!” said Yappa, clapping her hands.
They started off on a run and hunted everywhere for the nests,--down
under the bushes, around the sheds, and out in the garden. At last,
when they had given up in despair and were running home through the
orchard, the old white hen jumped up with a startled cackle. She was
almost under their feet.
“Be careful, Yappa. You will step on the nest,” said Shecol.
The children stopped short and began to peep about in the long grass.
Soon they saw a little hollow with eleven eggs in it. Shecol had
brought a basket with him, and they put the eggs into that and then
carried them back carefully to the house.
That evening the Indians all gathered at Oshda’s house. Putsha brought
out a basket filled with eggs. Putsha took one and said, “Watch me,
Shecol and Yappa, so that you can do it, too.”
She made a hole in each end of the egg; then she put her mouth to one
hole and blew all the inside part of the egg out into a dish.
While Putsha was blowing the egg, Colla ran up to the Robles’ house.
Soon she came back carrying a large bowl of perfumed water in her
hands. Putsha put the eggshell into the bowl, and the perfumed water
ran into the shell through the holes in the ends. When it was partly
full, Putsha lifted the egg out and dropped some melted wax on each
of the holes in the ends. In a few minutes the wax hardened, and
Yappa held in her hand what seemed to be an egg. But it was really an
eggshell half filled with perfumed water.
“Won’t the people smell sweet when they get these eggs broken on their
heads!” said Yappa.
Putsha, Colla, and the children worked hard that evening before they
had all the eggs blown and filled.
The next night Putsha brought out another basket of eggs, but instead
of perfumed water to fill them with, Donna Maria sent a basket of gold
and silver paper, cut into tiny bits. The paper was a brittle, crackly
kind that glistened in the light. Some of these eggs they colored red,
some blue, some red and yellow, and some were spotted.
After the eggs were ready, the cooking began, and for two or three days
the Indian women were busy at that. The Robles had invited all their
friends from San José, and from all the country around. They knew that
their guests would be very hungry after riding so far.
[Illustration: “Let’s go to meet them.”]
The ball was to be on Wednesday evening, Wednesday morning Shecol heard
a great noise of shouting and laughing toward the south.
“They’re coming, Yappa. Let’s go to meet them,” he called.
When the children had run out a little way, they could see some people
coming--about twenty-five in the party. These were the Spanish guests
and their Indian servants. They were having great fun, for the men were
fine riders. They could bend down from their saddles and pick flowers
from the ground as they galloped past.
“I wonder what they are doing when they ride up against each other,”
said Yappa. As they came nearer she saw that they were smearing each
other’s faces with bright colors. Such looking people as they were! But
as that was all part of the fun, no one cared.
The Robles family took their friends inside the house to wash their
faces, while some of the Indian servants came to where Oshda lived.
“Oh, grandpa, here’s Yisoo’s son,” called Yappa to Docas as one of the
Indians stopped at their door.
Yappa could not stay to listen to what they said, for she had to hurry
and help her mother with supper. The long tables were set out in an
arbor near the house.
In the evening came the ball, for which the largest room in the house
had been cleared. Yappa and Shecol climbed up outside one of the
windows where they could see everything that went on.
As soon as the people began to gather, came the fun of smashing the
eggs on each other’s heads. Don Secundini Robles was standing in the
crowd talking to one of his friends from San José, when Donna Maria
came up behind him and smashed an eggshell filled with perfumed water
on his head. Then she jumped back among the crowd before he could turn
round to see who did it.
Every one laughed, for the scented water was running down all over his
face and dripping off the end of his nose. Soon the guests looked as if
they had silver and gold hair, so many of the paper cascarones had been
broken on their heads.
By and by all the eggs were gone. Donna Maria saw Shecol sitting in the
window.
“Run and get some napkins and some water,” she called to him.
“Come, Yappa,” he said, jumping down from the window and holding up his
arms to help his sister. They ran to the kitchen and came back loaded.
Putsha helped them carry in the pails of water.
As soon as the guests inside saw the water, they gave a shout. They
dipped the napkins in the water and began to slap each other with the
wet napkins.
Antonio, one of the men, slipped out and came back with a glass
tumbler, and after that when any one slapped him with a napkin he
threw a tumbler of water at him. By and by he threw a tumbler of water
squarely in the face of Pedro. Pedro seized the bucket of water and
threw the whole of it over Antonio. Everybody in the room laughed at
Pedro and Antonio, and the water-throwing stopped.
By this time every one was tired, so they rested a little. Then the
musicians started to play, and the real dance began.
Putsha and Shecol and Yappa went to bed soon after the dancing began,
but the Spaniards danced until morning.
THE SHEEP-SHEARING
“How hot I am!” said Shecol to Yappa, taking off his big hat and
fanning himself with it.
“What have you been doing?” asked Yappa.
“Driving the sheep into the pens,” said Shecol. “The shearing begins
to-morrow.”
“I should think the sheep would be glad to get rid of their wool these
warm days,” said Yappa, who was grinding corn.
“You had better hurry up with your tortillas. The shearers will be
here in a little while. They have just finished shearing the sheep at
the San Francisquito ranch,” said Shecol.
Soon the band of shearers came, and shortly after they arrived, supper
was served to them under the spreading grape vines a little way from
the house.
Yisoo’s son, Kole, was captain of the band of twenty shearers. It was
made up of Indians from the old Santa Clara Mission.
As soon as supper was over, the shearers went down to the creek and
came back with their arms filled with willow boughs, which Kole had
them make into a number of brush huts. They slept in these while they
were at the Robles ranch.
Oshda, Occano, and Pantu had been out for two days gathering together
the sheep belonging to the Robles, and now there were five thousand
sheep waiting in the pens, wondering what was going to happen to them.
A big shed had been built for the shearers to stand under while they
worked.
Long before the shearers were up, Shecol was sitting on the fence and
looking at the sheep.
“Where are you going to put the wool when it is cut off the sheep?” he
asked his father, as Oshda came toward the pens.
“The men will toss the fleeces up to me, and I shall throw them down
into this big bag. When the bag gets pretty well filled, I shall have
to jump up and down on the fleeces so that we can get as many into the
bag as possible,” answered Oshda. He climbed up one of the posts of
the shed and stood ready for work by a large bag that was hanging in a
frame at the edge of the roof.
In a few minutes more the shearers came and the work began. Pantu stood
by a table, and every time a shearer brought a fleece to the table,
Pantu gave him a five-cent piece.
Soon Yappa came out also to watch the shearing, but as hour after hour
went by, the sun rose higher and higher, and the air grew hot and was
filled with dust. By and by Yappa said, “I’m tired of watching them,
Shecol. Let’s go and build a brush hut for ourselves with some of the
willow branches that were left over from the shearers’ huts.”
“All right,” said Shecol. “We’ll play that we are wild Indians living
out on a rancheria as grandpa used to do.”
In a little while the hut was built.
“Now I’m going to make a mat out of some of those tules you brought
from the bay yesterday,” said Yappa.
“I’ll go out hunting, while you make the mats,” said Shecol, tying some
string to a willow stick to make a bow to play with.
[Illustration: Shecol lifted the lamb carefully in his arms and carried
it toward the hut.]
But just then Putsha called, “Come, Yappa, you must help me with the
tortillas,” and their play was broken up.
After dinner, Shecol and Yappa went down to the shearing place again to
see what was going on. As they came near, Oshda said, “Do you want a
lamb?”
“Yes,” shouted Shecol and Yappa in the same breath. “Where is it?”
“Out at the end of the shed. Its leg is broken, and you may have it if
you will take care of it.”
But they scarcely heard the last words he said, they were running so
fast for the lamb.
“Poor little lamb!” said Yappa, as they bent over it.
“We’ll bind up its leg first,” said Shecol, getting some sticks for
splints. He pulled some string out of his pocket and bound the splints
on as well as he could.
“Now we’ll put it into the hut we made,” said Yappa.
Shecol lifted the lamb carefully in his arms and carried it toward the
hut.
“Be careful. You are hurting it,” said Yappa. She placed her hand under
the lamb, and put the wounded leg, which was hanging down, up in its
proper place.
“I’ll run ahead,” said Yappa, “and get a pile of soft tule rushes ready
for you to put it down on.”
In a few minutes more the lamb was lying on the rushes in the cool
shade of the willow boughs.
“We must bring it some water,” said Shecol.
“Yes, and let’s name it Yisoo, after grandpa’s friend,” said Yappa.
The shearers stayed several days longer, but the children did not watch
them any more, for they were taking care of their pet lamb.
THE BARBECUE
“Where’s father?” asked Yappa of her mother one afternoon.
“Gone off with Don Secundini to dig the pits for the barbecue,”
answered Putsha.
“And where’s Shecol?”
“He has gone with them,” said Putsha. “But we must go to work, for we
have bread to make and corn to get ready for tortillas to-day. The corn
is all ready for you to grind. It has been soaked in the limewater.
Begin to grind it while I build a fire in the oven.”
Yappa went over to what the Mexicans called a metate, and sitting
down on the ground began to grind the corn. The metate was a big,
smooth stone with two legs on one end of it. The legs made it stand up
slanting. Yappa put some corn on the metate and ground it with another
smooth stone.
Putsha built a fire in the big brick oven at the back of the house. She
then came near where Yappa was at work, and began to make the bread.
When the fire had made the oven very hot, she went to it, scraped the
fire all out, and pushed the bread in on the hot bricks. Then she
closed the oven door and left the bread until it was baked.
When the bread was in the oven, she said to Yappa, “Hurry, Yappa, and
build a fire. Shecol will be back soon and he will be hungry. We must
have some tortillas ready for him.”
“Isn’t father coming too?” asked Yappa.
“No; he will have to stay all night to turn the meat so that it does
not burn,” answered Putsha.
Putsha put some big, smooth stones into the fire she had built outside
on the ground. Then she brought some grease and rubbed it well into the
cornmeal, so that the little grains of cornmeal all stuck together and
made a paste.
By this time, the stone Putsha had put into the fire was very hot, so
she pulled it out a little to one side and spread some of the batter
over it. In a little while one side of the tortilla was brown, so
Putsha turned it over to cook on the other side. Just as it was cooked
Shecol came hurrying up.
“Anything to eat?” he asked.
[Illustration: Yappa grinding corn.]
The tortilla was just done, so Yappa gave it to him. He rolled it up
like a jelly roll and began eating it.
“It’s good. Any more?” he asked between bites.
“In a few minutes,” answered Putsha. She had pulled out some more
stones and was cooking more tortillas.
“What have you been doing, Shecol?” asked Yappa, as they waited for the
other tortillas to cook.
“Digging a pit to cook the meat,” answered Shecol.
Next morning Donna Maria and three other women who were visiting
her, got into one of the ox-carts, which was decorated with boughs
and flowers. A second cart was standing near, and all Donna Maria’s
children climbed into it.
This cart was lined with hides so that it was not only comfortable,
but safe, for the hides kept the children from falling out. Putsha
and Colla rode in this cart also, in order to take care of the
children. A third cart was loaded so heavily with roast turkeys,
chickens, corn-tamales, bread, and other things to eat, that it went
“squeakity-squeak,” as it rolled along.
When everything was ready, Occano and some of the other drivers pushed
the oxen with the ends of their long poles, and they began to move
slowly away. The Indians walked along by the sides of the carts just as
they did on wash-day, but this time all the men went as well as the
women. Most of the men rode on horseback. One man played a violin,
while another man rode behind him to guide the horse.
When they came to the place where the barbecue was to be held, Shecol
took Yappa all round and showed her the meat cooking. As they walked
along they saw Oshda.
“There’s father!” cried Yappa.
“Yes,” said Shecol, “he has been up here all night, turning the meat
over to keep it from burning.”
As they came nearer Yappa saw a big pit in the ground about ten feet
long. This was lined with stones. An ox had been cut in half and some
long iron skewers stuck through the halves; then the oxen were hung
across the top of the pit. Yappa gave a sniff.
“It smells good,” she said. “It’s getting brown too,” and she peered
down into the pit at the glowing coals below.
They passed a place where some men had begun to dig in the ground.
“That’s where the head is cooking,” said Shecol.
“Down there in the ground?” exclaimed Yappa.
“Yes, we dug a little hole, lined it with stones, and built a fire.
After the stones were very hot, we raked the fire out, scattered some
dirt over the stones so that they should not burn the meat, and set
the head right down in it; then we filled the hole with dirt.”
Don Secundini came up just as the men finished taking the head out of
the hole. He brushed off the dirt and said, “This is the best of all
the meat.” He took it over where Donna Maria was sitting and said to
her, “You shall have the tongue.”
“Thank you,” said Donna Maria.
“I don’t think I ever tasted such good meat before,” said Yappa.
“It is so juicy and tender,” said Shecol.
Yappa looked around at the long tables. Then she said, “What a crowd
there is!”
“No wonder,” answered Shecol. “The Robles have invited everybody from
San José to San Francisco. See! There are Señor Soto and Señor Sanchez
and Señor Martinez!”
After the people had finished eating, Yappa said, “Now what shall we
do?”
“The men are going to ride on their horses and play games,” answered
Shecol.
HORSEBACK-RIDING
After the people had finished eating, Don Secundini rode out in front
of them. He leaned over from the saddle and picked up a leaf from the
ground as he galloped along.
“Well done, Don Secundini!” said Don Francisco. “Here is a rooster for
us to practise on to-day.”
As they came closer, Shecol saw the head of a live rooster sticking
out of the ground. Just then he heard a shout and saw the oldest son
of Señor Soto come on a gallop toward the rooster. As he passed the
rooster, he leaned down and tried to seize it by the head, but he
missed it. All the people laughed, and young Soto laughed too, as he
turned his horse around and came back where they were.
“Better luck next time,” he said.
Pedro then tried to seize the head, but he, too, missed.
“You boys cannot ride so well as your fathers yet,” said Señor Sanchez.
“Many a time have I seen Don Secundini ride for the rooster, and never
yet have I seen him fail.” At this he seized Pedro playfully by the leg
and pulled him down out of the saddle. Then he added, “Show the boys
how it should be done, Señor Robles.”
So Don Secundini rode away a little distance, and then came galloping
back. Suddenly he bent down, and in a moment more was holding the
kicking, flopping rooster up in the air.
“Bueno, bueno!” they all cried.
“Let’s have the game of rods,” said the Señor Martinez. All the men and
boys were on horseback, so they made a ring with the horses facing
inward. Señor Soto rode around the outside of the ring with a thick
stick in his hand. Soon he passed the stick to Pedro and then rode
quickly away. Pedro chased him as fast as his horse could go, for if he
caught up it was fair for him to whip the Señor Soto over the back with
the stick.
Several times Pedro came very close to Señor Soto, but the Señor would
give his horse a sudden pull and turn quickly to one side, so that
Pedro could not hit him. Once, however, the Señor, instead of dodging,
turned around to see how far away Pedro was. In a moment more Pedro was
close beside him whipping him as fast as he could.
One of the blows happened to hit the Señor’s horse by mistake, and the
horse gave such a jump that Señor Soto was able to get in Pedro’s old
place in the ring before he could catch up again. Then the Señor was
safe, and Pedro had to give the stick to some one else and be chased in
turn.
By and by it was home time. Shecol was playing near and Pedro noticed
him look wistfully at them as they turned to ride away.
“Would you like to go with us?” Pedro asked.
“Yes, I would,” was Shecol’s answer.
“But how could you take him? He can’t ride yet,” said Don Secundini.
[Illustration: Don Secundini]
“I could put him on a blanket on the ground and tie the blanket to my
saddle with a lasso, the way Antonio does with his little brother,”
said Pedro. “Run off and tell your mother while I get the blanket,”
continued Pedro.
In a few minutes they had started. At first Pedro went very slowly and
carefully, for fear Shecol would tumble off, but after a little, Shecol
said, “You may go faster if you like. I can stick on all right.” So
Pedro let his horse begin to gallop.
Suddenly he heard a shout. He looked around and saw Shecol sitting on
the ground quite a distance behind. The blanket was bumping over the
ground at his horse’s heels. He stopped his horse and waited until
Shecol caught up with him, and after that he went more slowly, for he
did not want to lose Shecol again.
THE RODEO
“Is it going to rain? Look at that big cloud,” said Yappa to Shecol one
afternoon in June.
“I hope it will not rain to-day,” said Shecol, “for you know we are
going to have a round-up of the cattle and then a barbecue afterward.”
In a moment more he added, “I know; it’s a dust cloud that the cattle
are making as the men drive them along.”
“Come on, then; we shall just have time to climb the tree by the
corral,” said Yappa, starting off to run.
Shecol followed after, and in a few minutes they were both safely
seated on the branch of a large live-oak tree near the corral.
“I do hope we can find our calf again,” said Yappa. “You know Don
Secundini said when he gave it to us last year that we could not keep
it unless we could tell it when we saw it this year.”
“Oh, I think we shall know it,” answered Shecol. “Remember the white
spots on its forehead and on its left hip.”
Soon a number of men came riding out toward the corrals. The servants
rode off to help drive the cattle, while Don Secundini, Don Francisco,
Señor Soto, Señor Sanchez, and Señor Martinez halted their horses just
under the tree where Shecol and Yappa were sitting.
“We shall have a fine place to see from,” said Shecol.
The men below them looked up when they heard a voice above. Don
Secundini laughed. Then he said, “Don’t fall down, little ones. These
cattle aren’t used to children, and they might hurt you.”
“We’re going to look for our calf,” said Shecol.
In a few minutes Yappa said, “There they come!”
Shecol peeped out from among the leaves and saw Oshda and Pantu driving
a little bunch of cattle toward them.
As the bunch came nearer, Don Francisco said, “There are two of my
cattle. I see my brand on the hip.”
One of Don Francisco’s men rode up, separated his two cattle from the
others and drove them to one side. The rest of that bunch belonged to
Don Secundini, so they drove the calves into a corral where they could
be branded. The old ones they drove off in another direction.
As the second bunch came near them, Yappa saw a little calf running
along with one of Don Secundini’s cows. The calf had a white spot on
its forehead and one on its left hip. Yappa gave Shecol a pull and
said, “There it is.”
“Where?” asked Shecol.
Yappa pointed it out, but Shecol said, “That can’t be our calf. That’s
the way our calf looked last year. It will have grown to be very large
by this time, and besides, father branded it with Don Secundini’s
brand. This calf has no brand yet.”
They looked over every bunch that came by, hoping to find their calf.
At last, as their eyes were beginning to get tired, Shecol said, “Don
Secundini, look at that calf at the head of the bunch that is coming.
That’s ours.”
Don Secundini looked at the calf, then he said, “Yes, Shecol, it is
yours. You have won the calf.”
The herders kept on bringing up bunch after bunch of cattle and letting
each owner pick out those that belonged to him. The cattle had been
running wild for so many months that those from the different ranches
were all mixed.
There were so many to look over that their herds were not nearly sorted
out by evening, so, while some of the men drove home the neighbors’
cattle, others prepared to keep the main herd together all night.
“And now how are you youngsters going to get home?” asked Don
Secundini, as he gathered up his bridle-reins ready to ride back to the
house.
“Aren’t they going to drive the cattle away from here?” asked Shecol.
“Not until to-morrow evening. I’ll speak to your father about you,”
said Don Secundini.
When Oshda saw where they were, he rode up to the tree. He said, “You
cannot walk home through these cattle. Drop down behind me on my horse.”
First Yappa, then Shecol, dropped down on the horse. Yappa put her arms
around Oshda, and Shecol put his arms around Yappa. In this way they
did not fall off as they rode home.
After supper Oshda said, “Good-by. I have to watch with the cattle
until midnight.”
The cattle were restive, for they were in a strange place. All of a
sudden an owl gave a screech from a tree in the midst of the herd. The
cattle became frightened and began to run toward Oshda. There were so
many of them and they were coming so fast that Oshda knew he would be
run over if he rode toward them, so he turned his horse and rode as
fast as he could ahead of them.
When he got a little ahead, he began to turn the herd toward the left.
He did not try to turn the whole big herd at once, but only to make the
front ones run crosswise. The other herders helped him, and soon more
of the cattle began to run toward the left.
After a little the whole herd were running round in a circle. The
herders let the cattle run round and round as long as they liked, but
by and by the cattle got so dusty and tired and dizzy that they stopped
running of their own accord. The herders then drove them back again,
for they were no longer afraid.
When the cattle were safely back, Oshda said, “We must keep singing or
whistling all night. That will let the cattle know that some one is
near them, and they will not be so easily frightened.”
So all the rest of the night the darkness was filled with the sound of
singing, and the cattle were quiet. Oshda and the herders with him
watched until midnight; then others came out to relieve them.
Meanwhile, the people at the Robles’ adobe had been having a gay time,
for they had a barbecue under the spreading grape vines when they first
went to the house, and in the evening they had a dance.
Next morning the work with the cattle began again, and all day every
one was busy. At the end of that time, the cattle belonging to the
different ranches were separated, the calves were branded with the
special mark of the owners, and the cattle were all turned out to roam
again.
FOR A CONCLUSION
And so Docas lived his life,--as a small boy at the Indian rancheria,
as a larger boy and man at the Mission, and as an old man with his
children and grandchildren about him at the home of Don Secundini. He
was a very old man when he went to the Robles’ home, for it was in 1769
that the first white man came to the rancheria, and it was 1849 before
Don Secundini built the big adobe ranch house. His life of mingled play
and work is ended, and therefore ended also is the story of Docas, the
Indian boy of Santa Clara.
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TAYLOR, ALEX. T. The Indianology of California. In _California
Farmer_. Series running through 1861 and 1862.
UNITED STATES. Eleventh Census. Vol. on Indians. Washington:
Government Printing Office. 1894. pp. vi + 683.
VALLEJO, GUADALUPE. Ranch and Mission Days in Alta California. In
_Century_, Vol. XLI. pp. 183-192.
VANCOUVER, GEORGE. A Voyage of Discovery. London: J. Edwards. _Pall
Mall_, 1798. Vol. II. pp. 504.
VASQUEZ, DON PABLO. Don Pablo’s Story. In _Sequoia_, Stanford
University. May 25, 1892. pp. 331-334.
In addition to the above bibliography much of the material used has
been obtained either from personal interviews or from unprinted
manuscripts. Especial help was received from Don Pablo Vasquez, the
late Mary Sheldon Barnes, Frank Polley, Mrs. J. A. Salaceti, Dane
Coolidge, and Antoinette Knowles.
PRONUNCIATION OF NAMES
INDIAN NAMES
Alachu Ä lä´chū
Ama Ä´mä
Apa Ä´pä
Colla Kō´lä
Docas Dō´käs
Heema Hē´mä
Keoka Kē ō´kä
Kole Kō´lā
Massea Mäs sā´ä
Occano Ō kä´nō
Oshda Ōsh´dä
Pantu Pän´tū
Putsha Pū´chä
Shecol Shē´cōl
Umwa Ūm´wä
Yappa Yä´pä
Yeeta Yē´tä
Yisoo Yē´sū
SPANISH WORDS
Almaden Äl mä dān´
Antonio Än tō´nyō
bueno bwā´nō
Carmel Cär māl´
cascarone cäs cä rō´nā
Catala Cä tä´lä
Diego Dyā´gō
Dolores Dō lōr´ās
Donna Maria Dō´na Mä rē´ä
Don Secundini Robles Dōn Sā kūn dē´nē Rō´blas
Guadalupe Gwä dä lū´pā
Junipero Serra Hūn ē pā´rō Sār´rä
metate mā tä´tā
Monterey Mōn tā rā´
Pena Pā´nä
Portola Pōr tô lä´
rancheria rän chā rē´ä
rodeo rō dā´ō
San Francisco Sän Frän thēs´cō
San Francisquito Sän Frän thēs kē´tō
San Jose Sän Hō sā´
Santa Clara Sän´tä Clä´rä
Señora Sān nyō´rä
Señor Martinez Sān´nyōr Mär tē´nāz
Señor Sanchez Sān´nyōr Sän´chāz
Señor Soto Sān´nyōr Sō´tō
tortillas tōr tēl´lyas
Tulare Tū lä´rā
tule tū´lā
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
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