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Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston
page 13 of 125 (10%)
front of Penn in the form of a half-moon. Then the great chief told
Penn that the Indians were ready to hear what he had to say.

Penn had a large paper in which he had written all the things that he
and his friends had promised to the Indians. He had written all the
promises that the Indians were to make to the white people. This was
to make them friends. When Penn had read this to them, it was
explained to them in their own lan-guage. Penn told them that they
might stay in the country that they had sold to the white people. The
land would belong to both the Indians and the white people.

Then Penn laid the large paper down on the ground. That was to show
them, he said, that the ground was to belong to the Indians and the
white people to-geth-er.

He said that there might be quarrels between some of the white people
and some of the Indians. But they would settle any quarrels without
fighting. When-ever there should be a quarrel, the Indians were to
pick out six Indians. The white people should also pick out six of
their men. These were to meet, and settle the quarrel.

Penn said, "I will not call you my children, because fathers
some-times whip their children. I will not call you brothers, because
brothers sometimes fall out. But I will call you the same person as
the white people. We are the two parts of the same body."

The Indians could not write. But they had their way of putting down
things that they wished to have re-mem-bered. They gave Penn a belt of
shell beads. These beads are called wam-pum. Some wam-pum is white.
Some is purple.
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