A dreadful creature she was! How vividly her features rise before me.
Well do I remember her as she entered my room on a stormy day in
January. Her torn mocassins were a mocking protection to her nearly
frozen feet; her worn "okendo kenda" hardly covering a wrinkled neck
and arms seamed with the scars of many a self-inflicted wound; she tried
to make her tattered blanket meet across her chest, but the benumbed
fingers were powerless, and her step so feeble, from fatigue and want of
food, that she almost fell before the cheerful fire that seemed to
welcome her. The smile with which she tried to return my greeting added
hideously to the savage expression of her features, and her matted hair
was covered with flakes of the drifting snow that almost blinded her.
Food, a pipe, and a short nap before the fire, refreshed her
wonderfully. At first she would hardly deign an answer to our questions;
now she becomes quite talkative. Her small keen eye follows the children
as they play about the room; she tells of her children when they were
young, and played around her; when their father brought her venison
for food.
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