_Dear Boys:_

No doubt you are already interested in Indians, from stories you have
read of them. And perhaps you think they are very strange people, quite
unlike white people. In some ways they are. But if you could come out
here to our little Indian village (Little Eagle Village it is called),
on the Standing Rock Reservation in Dakota, I think you would very soon
be playing with the Indian boys just as merrily as you do now with your
boy friends at home. Perhaps Ben Black Dog would show you some of the
little gumbo images that he made when the mud was soft, and then it grew
dry and hard, as the clay does that some of you use in school; and
perhaps he would show you how he makes his life-like horses and riders,
and buffaloes, and dogs, and all the rest.

One day I saw some boys playing with their gumbo figures, and heard one
of the boys say "akicita," which is the Dakota word for "soldier"; so I
suppose little Indian boys "play soldier," too! Then every Indian boy
from the time he is a baby has his pony. One ten-year-old boy was
telling me the other day what good care he tried to take of his pony,
and I was very glad he thought about it, and knew that his "Charlie"
ought to be well cared for. All the boys like to ride, but sometimes
they forget that their ponies ought to be kindly treated, and to have
proper food and rest. Indian boys have their favorite games, too, just
as white boys do, only their games are different. One is throwing long,
slender sticks, which they make in a certain way; but in order to know
just how they make and throw them, you may have to come and see them do
it. I am afraid I cannot tell you.

And they like to run, and jump, and play together very much as you do,
only (shall I say it?) I think they are more quiet in their playing than