Explore "The Middle Five" by Francis La Flesche on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
He stood on the third board of the fence from the ground, and leaned with his elbows on the top one, now and again kicking with his moccasined foot a loose panel. How long he had been standing there rattling that loose board no one knew, but in time one of the boys noticed him, and suddenly he became an object of the greatest interest among the boys of all sizes at the school. Boys who were playing down by the river, up by the spring, and over by the saw mill came running to see the stranger; and how the word reached them was as much of a mystery as the appearance of the little figure on the fence.
Everyone was eager to pelt him with a question, and get as close to him as possible. He answered the questions in monosyllables; but he showed objection to any near approach, by freeing his bare arms from his little buffalo robe and pointing a wooden popgun at the eye of the boy who was inclined to be too familiar. We kept at him until we found out that his name was Thinʻ-je-zhin-ga, which, translated into the language of the Missionaries, signified Little Tail.7