80 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE 



rare blush of Arethusa he passes with indifference. Concerning 

 the world of plant life his thought is, if he has one, Can I eat it, 

 or will it cure snake-bite ? The wild deer for which he waits 

 will reason as acutely. 



The hues of the sky at sunset may suggest to the Indian rain 

 or drowth, but never beauty ; and as he looks from his hemlock 

 bed to the crimson light of dawn upon the western summits, in 

 his breast no emotion kindles, as with gutteral accent he says, 

 This is another day. To a meteor he gives a grunt, to a comet 

 two ; and when the Northern Lights begin to flash and in the 

 intermittent gleam the stars grow pale, he sees only a reflection 

 from the campfires of a mightier race of hunters in the far and 

 frozen north. 



The wants of the Nipmuck did not make him unhappy, though 

 in this very evil case we find the civilized citizen of to-day. The 

 savage saw neither virtue or sweetness in a useless plant ; the 

 average society atom sees no sweetness in character or loveliness 

 in life without a bank-account. We wish to be just — even to 

 an Indian. 



The agriculture of the Nipmuck was of a rude sort, the rich 

 soil of natural meadows or intervales being usually selected as 

 planting places, and when these were not available other tracts 

 were reclaimed by fire and the larger trees killed by the process 

 of girdling. The preparation of the ground, planting, hoeing 

 and harvesting — nearly everything coming under the head of 

 work — was performed by women and children. The men were 

 kind enough to furnish the raw material for the manufacture of 

 tools, such as the axe, the stone or clam-shell hoe and other cut- 

 ting implements, his own time being otherwise fully occupied 

 in making arms and equipments for the hunt and allied mascu- 

 line occupations. So that numerous avenues of employment 

 remained open to the gentler sex, and we are beginning to recog- 

 nize in our time the wisdom of this arrangement. We now per- 

 mit our wives and mothers, but more especially the larger class 

 of sisters, cousins and aunts, to whom these relations of life are 



