The People: And Other Uncollected Fiction Read Online Free PDF

business if that was how she liked the shape of things. But he couldn’t call her fat without thinking pretty. Yozip warned himself to keep his mind clear and his options open. He guessed he would need all his wits, whether he expressed himself in plain Yiddish or by Indian signs.
    “Our people use this tepee to meditate,” said the girl. “My father, our highest chief, wants you to be in touch with your self
so that you can feel the Great Spirit’s presence in the light on earth.”
    “So why is it,” Yozip asked, “that everybody here speaks such a good English?”
    “Not all,” said the chief’s daughter. “My father was raised in a Christian school after the murder of his father and mother in a raid by white settlers. So was I, many years later, with my father’s s permission, after the death of my mother. And Indian Head, my true friend, attended a school in Pocatello. When the People broke into two tribes my father became chief of the lower tribe, and now we are one tribe in this long valley.”
    She said some of the braves spoke a few white words but not many. She said that once a few People had been enrolled in Christian schools in the past, but nobody was now.
    “We detest all pale skins.”
    “If I had another skin,” he told her, “I would take this off and put on the other.
    “So who is Indian Head?” Yozip then asked. “What kind of a name is this for an Indian man?”
    “He was so named in the Christian school. His name in our tongue means ‘He who fights eagles.’ His true name also means ‘Man of strong feeling.’”
    She pressed two fingers to her lips.
    “Indian Head loves me.”
    Yozip offered sincere congratulations.
    “So what is your name?” he asked.
    “One Blossom. I was named after a small flower.”
    “About flowers I don’t know much,” he confessed. “Where I was born was no flowers. If somebody found one she cooked it.”
    One Blossom led Yozip into the tepee of solitude. She glanced in, listened to the heavy silence, and hastily left.
     
     
    Yozip, sitting alone in the silent tepee with his thoughts in his fingers, tried to think out his situation. It looked as though the chief had plans to turn him into an Indian. On the other hand, he wanted to go back to his own life, not very rewarding but bound
to improve. America was a fine country. Who had ever heard of such opportunities for an uneducated man? He had already given his word he would do his best for the tribe, whatever that meant. Yozip felt strongly sympathetic to the Indians and their furrow-faced old chief.
    He considered speaking to him and perhaps probing the chief’s s plans for him, and with luck maybe even being delivered home to his boardinghouse if the plans came to nothing much and the red man agreed to let him go.
    Yozip thought he ought to try to convince the chief that what the People needed was a better man to represent them—certainly not a greenhorn, at least somebody educated in the lore and history of the tribe; someone who would know how to speak for them against the self-serving whites. He had heard of their dirty tricks against the Indians. But Yozip had serious doubts he could do anything for them, or they for him.
    An Indian brave entered the tepee of solitude.
    “Our chief commands your initiation to being.”
    Yozip recognized the young warrior.
    “Why did you spit me in my eye?” he cried. “This you learned in a Christian school?”
    “It was meant to tell you to keep your nose out of Indian affairs.”
    “My nose was invited by the chief.”
    Indian Head glanced into the tepee, then turned to Yozip. “The chief of the People ordered me to make sure of your presence. The trials will begin now. This is your initiation.”
    “Why should I have a trial if I didn’t do a crime?”
    “These are trials, not a court trial. This is an initiation according to our customs.”
    Yozip allowed himself to think of breaking away from Indian Head, leaping onto the back of his mare,