of his eyes on a fork and scrutinizing it with the other.
In calling on a lady who is away from home leave your card. If the visit is intended for two or three ladies at the house, leave two or three cards, but do not turn down the corner of the card as that custom is now exploded except in three card monte circles and even then it is regarded with suspicion.
All these things, however, are for the guidance of people who come to town, and those who go into the country are left practically without any suitable book to guide them.
I do not know of any better way for you to do, Eben, than to write a polite note to your relatives asking them if they contemplate paying you a visit this summer, and if so at what time, and whether they will bring Henry or not. Use plain white unruled note paper and write only on one side, unless you are a Mugwump in which case you might write on both sides.
Then if they write that they do so contemplate paying you a visit without paying anything else, I do not know of anything for you to do but to go away somewhere for the summer, leaving your house fully insured and in the hands of a reliable incendiary.
Write again, Eben, and feel perfectly free to come and lean on me in all matters of etiquette. Do not come to town without hunting me up. You will find me at the Post-Office forenoons and in the pest-house during the afternoon. Yours, with kind regards.
MEN ARE OFTEN MISUNDERSTOOD
They may be rough on the exterior but they can love Oh, so earnestly, so warmly, so truly, so deeply, so intensely, so yearningly, so fondly, and so universally!
CHESTNUT-BURR VII – BILL NYE IN THE ROLE OF AN UTE INDIAN JENKINS
Personal Gossip Designed to Interest the Indian Society People – Remarkable Toilets Seen on the Reservation – A Novel Aboriginal Dinner Menu – Points for Society Reporters – Eager to Make Their Mark.
The following Ute society gossip is full of interest to those who have personal acquaintances and friends, among that set. I have only just received them, and hasten to give them as early as possible, knowing that the readers of The World will all feel an interest in what is going on in and about the reservation:
The season at White River will be unusually gay this winter, and soon there will be one continuous round of hilarity, indigestion, mirth, colic and social hatred, Red Horse, the smoke-tanned horse-fiddle maestro, will play and call off again this winter for germans, grub dances and jack-rabbit gorges as usual.
The Ouray War Club will give a series of hops in November under its own auspices, and in December it will hold two Germans. In going through these Germans no favors will be shown by the club.
Mr. and Mrs. Mexican-Hairless-Dog-upon-whom-there-are-no-Flies have been spending the summer at their delightful hostile home near White River. They have just returned for the winter, beautifully bronzed by the elements, and report one of the most exhilarating outbreaks they ever were to.
Lop-Ear-Son-of-the-Cyclone received a cablegram last week, on his return from the war-path, offering him a princely salary to come to London, and assist in robbing the Deadwood coach. He says the legitimate drama is certainly making wonderful strides. He has heard the American Opera Company in "Hero," and says that no one who has lived on the reservation all his life can have any idea of the strides that are being made on the stage. He has not decided whether to accept the offer or not, but says that if the stage they are going to rob is the operatic stage he will not assist at any price. He says he knows what it is to suffer for clothes himself.
The members of the Chipeta Canoeing Club have just returned from a summer jaunt, and are in good spirits. They report that a good time was had and health greatly improved. The club will give a sociable and gastric recital at its grounds next week. The proceeds will go toward beautifying the grounds of the club and promoting a general good feeling. Each member is permitted to bring one cash friend.
Tail-Man-Who-Toys with-the-Thunderbolts will start to-morrow for the home of the Great White Father, at Washington. He goes to make a treaty or two and be awed by the surplus in the treasury. He will make as many treaties as possible, after which he will invite the Great White Father to visit our young and growing reservation, enjoy our crude hospitality and cultivate the Ute vote.
A select scalp-dance and rum sociable will take place at the foot of the gulch, at the middle of the present moon, after which there will be a presentation speech and resolutions of respect tendered to the Board of Outbreaks and the Sub-Committee on Hostility.
The following will be the menu:
Reservation soup, strengthened with rain-water; condemned sardines, codfish balls, fish plates, railroad frogs' legs, sage hen à la Colorow, jerked jack-rabbits, roasting ears à la massacre, hot-house clams, rattlesnakes' tongues à la fire-water, prickly pears, fruit of the loom, dried apples and whisky. Dancing will be kept up till a late hour.
The approaching nuptials of Fly-by-Night, a partial widower of Snippeta, daughter of Wipe-Up-the-Ground-with-His-Enemies, will be the occasion of quite a tout ensemble and blow-out. He will marry the surviving members of the family of Warnpo-the-Wailer-that-Wakes-Up-in-the-Night. He will on this occasion lead to the altar Mrs. Wampo-the-Wailer, etc., her two daughters and the hired girl. The wedding will take place at the residence of the bride. Invitations are already out and parties who have not yet received any, but who would like to be present and swap a tin napkin ring for a square meal, will be invited if they will leave their address with the groom.
Crash-of-the-Tempest, a prominent man of the tribe, laid a large tumor on our table last week, weighing four pounds, from which he was removed on Wednesday. So far, this is the largest tumor that has been brought in this summer to apply on subscription. Call again, Crash.
Soiled Charley and Peek-a-Boo, delegates of the Ute notion sent to the Great White Father at Washington, returned yesterday from Red Top, the great tepee of the Pale Chief. They made a great many treaties and both are utterly exhausted. Peek-a-Boo is confined to his wigwam by the hallucination that the air is full of bright red bumble bees with blue tails. He says that he does not mind the hostility of the white man, but it is his hospitality that makes him tired.
A full-dress reception and consommé was tendered to the friends of labor at the home of Past Worthy Chief Fly-up-the-Creek, of White River, by his own neighbors and Uncompaghre admirers on Tuesday evening. At an early hour guests began to arrive and crawl under the tent into the reception-room.
A fine band, consisting of a man who had deserted from the regular military band, played Boulanger's March on the bass drum with deep feeling.
The widow of Wampo-the-Wailer and affianced of old Fly-by-Night, wore a dark coiffure, held in place by the wish-bone of a sage hen, and looked first rate.
Miss Wampo, the elder, wore a négligé costume, consisting of a red California blanket, caught back with real burdock burrs and held in place by means of a hame strap.
The younger Miss Wampo wore a Smyrna rug, with bunch grass at the throat.
Mrs. D. W. Peek-a-Boo wore a cavalry saddle blanket, with Turkish overalls and bone ornaments.
Miss Peek-a-Boo wore a straw-colored jardiniere, cut V-shape, looped back with a russet shawl strap and trimmed with rick-rack around the arm-holes. Her eyes danced with merriment, and she danced with most anybody in the wigwam.
Little Casino, the daughter of Fly-Up-the-Creek, of the Uncompaghres, wore the gable end of an "A" tent, trimmed with red flannel rosettes. It had veneered panels, and the new and extremely swell sleeves, blown up above the elbow and tight the rest of the way, in which, as she said in her naive way, they resembled her father, who was tight half of the time and blown up the rest of the time. Little Casino was the life of the party, and it would be hard to opine of anything more charming than her bright and cheery way of telling a funny story, which convulsed her audience, while she quietly completed a fractional flush and took home the long-delayed jack pot to her needy father. She is an intellectual exotic of which the Uncompaghres may well be proud, and is also one of those rare productions of nature never at a loss for something to write in an autograph album. In the album of a young warrior of the Third Ute Infantry