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Following the Guidon (Illustrated Edition). Elizabeth Bacon Custer
Читать онлайн.Название Following the Guidon (Illustrated Edition)
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066059712
Автор произведения Elizabeth Bacon Custer
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
We had, of course, only the barest necessities in the tents—a rude bunk for a bed, a stool, with tin wash-basin, a bucket for water, and a little shaving-glass for a mirror. The carpenter had nailed together some benches and a cumbrous table. These, with our camp-chairs, were our furniture. There was a monotonous similarity of construction in the chairs made by the carpenter. Each consisted of one long board rounded at the top, to which another shorter board was nailed for the seat, and another put on as a brace at the back. One of our friends had a chair of this pattern, and as her husband, coming home to the tent at dusk, saw this white-pine board gleaming through the twilight, he called out, merrily: "If you do turn up your toes to the daisies, we can just set this up at your head, with the inscription, 'Died so-and-so'; it would make a beautiful tombstone." They were truly sepulchral-looking, but we were not inclined to be over-critical of the style. It never occurred to us that we wanted anything more; for if all the camp-chairs, benches, and stools were occupied, the young officers threw themselves down on the buffalo-robes, or smoked sitting, à la Turque, on a blanket spread under the fly. Several Indian articles of luxury had been given us, out of which we had much comfort. They consisted of a light framework of interwoven willow withes about the width of a chair-back, and were called head-rests. These were laid on the ground, raised at the farther end at a gentle inclination, and strongly propped at the back. They could be rolled into small compass for carrying, and were vastly superior in strength to anything we could buy. When the officers reclined on these primitive but comfortable affairs, smoking, they looked so at ease that we addressed them as "bashi-bazouk", or pacha, or by some Eastern term that suggested habits of luxurious indulgence.
On the right of our tent began the others—one for guests, another for the dining-tent, then the round Sibley, that General Custer had used during the winter, for the cook tent. This must have been modelled after an Indian tepee, as it looked much like it. At that time Sibley tents were not in use, but why, we could never understand, as the wind had so little purchase upon them, finding no corners to toy with, that this circular house could almost defy a hurricane. The fire was built in the centre, and the smoke escaped through an aperture at the top, which could be half covered, according to the direction of the wind, by pulling ropes attached to a little fly. The Indians had the same arrangement, only they managed the opening a little better.
Next to the Sibley was a veritable tepee, that General Custer had brought from an abandoned Indian village. It was made of tanned buffalo skins sewed together with leather thongs, and stretched over a framework of thirty-six lodge-poles. These poles are fastened together at the top, and extend out in all directions above the hide covering. They are a precious possession in the eyes of an Indian, as he is often obliged to travel hundreds of miles to procure them, in the heavily timbered part of the country, where strong, light, flexible saplings can be cut. The buffalo hides were covered with rude drawings representing the history of the original owner, his prowess in killing Indians at war with his tribe, the taking of the white man's scalp, or the stealing of ponies. Instead of the flap of the entrance opening down to the ground, the aperture began some distance up, so that one had to undo and pull out innumerable little sticks that were put through holes in the hide, and made quite a step up before getting into the tepee. As it was carefully staked down with picket-pins all about the edge, and a ditch was dug around to carry off the water, such a tepee could challenge almost any storm. In this house of the aborigine lived our Henry, a colored coachman, who had come with us from Virginia years before. Sometimes he was teased by having his possessions pilfered, sometimes some one borrowed and forgot to return; but after the general gave him the tepee to live in, and he had tied a dog inside, and fastened the flap with the wooden pins, his traps were secure, and he said: "'Tain't no kind or manner of use to try to lift5
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