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This Book List Sectory 15
Page 06
Mrs. Chapman, remembering that such events did not occur every day, resolved not to be outdone by any of them. She was sure a little display would not be wasted; and had spent four hours "getting herself elegant." She had more than half a suspicion that there would be some New York people present, and it would not do to be outshone by them in magnificence of toilet. Nor must I forget Bowles, who appeared shortly after breakfast in his new livery, with a tall hat half covered with a band and buckle, white gloves, and bright new boots and breeches. Bowles was a figure of immense importance, and contemplated himself with an air of amusing gravity, as he moved up and down in front of the house, much to the amusement of the visitors at Bright's Inn. A bunch of flowers had been provided for his button hole; and he was to drive the happy couple to and from church, an honor he seemed to appreciate fully.
Lizards and other reptiles make an obvious advance on the frog type; they lay relatively few eggs, but they begin to care for their young. The family is not here abandoned at birth, as among frogs, but is frequently tended and fed and overlooked by the mother. In birds we have a still higher development of the same marked parental tendency; only three or four eggs are laid each year, as a rule, and on these eggs the mother sits, while both parents feed the callow nestlings till such time as they are able to take care of themselves and pick up their own living. Among mammals, which stand undoubtedly at the head of created nature, the lower types, like mice and rabbits, have frequent broods of many young at a time; but the more advanced groups, such as the horses, cows, deer, and elephants, have usually one foal or calf at a birth, and seldom produce more than a couple. Moreover, in all these higher cases alike, the young are fed with milk by the mother, and so spared the trouble of providing for themselves in their early days, like the young codfish or the baby tadpole. Starvation at the outset is reduced to a minimum.
Though the treatment accorded the Indians by those who lay claim to civilization and Christianity has in many cases been worse than criminal, a rehearsal of these wrongs does not properly find a place here. Whenever it may be necessary to refer to some of the unfortunate relations that have existed between the Indians and the white race, it will be done in that unbiased manner becoming the student of history. As a body politic recognizing no individual ownership of lands, each Indian tribe naturally resented encroachment by another race, and found it impossible to relinquish without a struggle that which belonged to their people from time immemorial. On the other hand, the white man whose very own may have been killed or captured by a party of hostiles forced to the warpath by the machinations of some unscrupulous Government employe, can see nothing that is good in the Indian. There are thus two sides to the story, and in these volumes such questions must be treated with impartiality.
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