sent some of his soldiers under a lieutenant, with directions to go there and stay and watch him. They had not been there but a month or two when the lieutenant went to the agent, and said, “I want to buy some clothes for my men.” So the agent sold him and his men some flannel shirts at the rate of three dollars apiece! This was reported to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. So you see the soldiers are our friends at all times. After the agent was discharged, Mr. Parrish came to take care of my people, and then my poor cousin Jarry was taken sick with sore eyes, and my brother Natchez sent him to San Francisco, to be under a doctor’s care. So Mr. Sam Parrish had no interpreter at the time he sent for me. Then he and I called my people to his office, and he began to talk to them about work. First he said,—
“Now you are my children. I have come here to do you good. I have not come here to do nothing; I have no time to throw away. I have come to show you how to work, and work we must. I am not like the man who has just left you. I can’t kneel down and pray for sugar and flour and potatoes to rain down, as he did. I am a bad man; but I will try and do my duty, and teach you all how to work, so you can do for yourselves by-and-by. We must work while the government is helping us, and learn to help ourselves. The first thing I want you to do is to make a dam and then dig a ditch. That is to irrigate the land. Some of you can dig the ditch, some can build the clam, some can go to the woods and cut rails to build fences. I want you all to work while the government is helping us, for the government is not always going to help us. Do all you can until you get helped, and all you raise is your own to do with as you like. The reservation is all yours. The government has given it all to you and your children. I will do more. I will build a school-house, and my brother’s
