We Were There at the Oklahoma Land Run
Copyright© 2024 by Jim Kjelgaard
Chapter 2: Pete’s Story
Cindy always loved to visit Pete Brent, partly because she liked him, partly because she liked his horses, and partly because she liked Gramps and Granny Brent, his father and mother. Besides, Gramps knew the most wonderful stories, and Granny baked the most marvelous ginger cookies which she passed out with a very free hand. Cindy had looked forward to bringing Mindy to their wagon for a visit. Even though Gramps and Granny were asleep in the wagon and Mindy would not meet them until tomorrow, it was a lot of fun to be with Pete and to look at his horses.
“We’ll have to be very quiet because Gramps and Granny Brent are sleeping now,” Cindy whispered to her twin. “Let’s go see the horses.”
Two of Pete’s four ponies were roan-colored, the third was sorrel, and the fourth was black and white. The two roans and the sorrel were very friendly and gentle, but the pinto trusted nobody and even tried to buck Pete off whenever Pete rode him.
Now the three gentle ponies and Pete’s huge draft horses crowded as close together as they could and thrust their heads over the picket line, each horse trying to get as much attention as possible for himself. The pinto pulled as far back as his tie rope would let him go and snorted suspiciously. Though she had been on the point of warning her twin to be careful around the pinto, Cindy forgot to do so.
Alec, who had never wanted to be anything except a farmer, liked the heavy-footed draft horses best. Cindy and Mindy turned naturally to the fleet ponies. Suddenly the pinto snorted again, softly and gently this time, and came up to thrust a friendly muzzle at Mindy.
“Mindy!” exclaimed Cindy.
“What’s the matter?” asked Mindy, who was happily stroking the pony’s soft nose.
“That’s Thunder, and he isn’t supposed to like anyone!”
“He likes me,” Mindy said. “Oh! Don’t they remind you of birds?”
“Yes, they do! But Pete told me that, though they can start at a fast clip and keep it up long after a race horse would be winded, a race horse would beat any of them in a short sprint.”
“I don’t believe it,” Mindy said. “I don’t believe any other horse could even keep up with them.”
“Except Daddy’s Sunshine,” Cindy said.
“Yes,” Mindy agreed loyally, “Sunshine might.”
Except for Thunder, who would let only Mindy touch him, they petted each pony in turn, stroked the draft horses, petted the ponies again, and Cindy asked Alec, “Wouldn’t you just love to have one?”
“Sure would,” Alec agreed, “but I’d rather have this work team. They could pull a plow for ten hours, then do it again the next day and the day after, and still come back for more.”
“You have the team, and we’ll take the ponies,” Cindy said. “Let’s go back and see Mr. Brent.”
They stole back, remembering to be very quiet in order not to awaken Gramps and Granny, and sat on the wagon tongue. Pete lighted his pipe, and when the match flared it illumined his strong face. For the first time Cindy found herself thinking of it as a young face, even though Pete must be almost thirty. Cindy said eagerly, “Tell us about Oklahoma.”
“There now, young lady,” Pete’s grin was felt rather than seen, “I’ve already told you at least six times.”
“Please!” begged Cindy, who had an almost passionate interest in this new land that was to be her home. “Mindy hasn’t heard the story.”
“Do you want to hear it, honey?” Pete asked.
“I’d love to,” Mindy said.
Pete sat down with his back against the wagon wheel, rested his head on his hands, puffed solemnly on his pipe, and after a moment said, “Shall we begin with the Indians?”
“Yes.”
“Well, though there were some ancient peoples in Oklahoma, the first tribes which we ordinarily think of as Indians were the Kiowas, Comanches, Arapahoes, and such. They were all warlike and for the most part depended on hunting. There was very little of any kind of farming. But there were never so many of these tribes that Oklahoma was what you might call crowded. It was a vacant land.”
The youngsters remained silent, waiting for Pete to go on. After a moment, he did.
“Oklahoma came to us with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. But in those days, to anyone east of the Mississippi, Oklahoma seemed as far away as the moon seems now. Few people imagined that it would ever be any good, and almost nobody wanted to go there. In fact, very few people even knew it existed.”
“What’s ‘Oklahoma’ mean, Mr. Brent?” Alec broke in.
“It’s a Choctaw Indian word meaning ‘red people.’ Now there weren’t so many white men west of the Mississippi, but there were a lot of them east of it. There were also a lot of Indians there. What happened is what usually happened when red men crowded white; the white men wanted the land.”
“Wasn’t that selfish?” Mindy asked.
“Depends on how you look at it, Cindy—or Mindy.” Pete grinned. “I don’t know which is who, because I can’t see the catsup any more. But if you mean, was it selfish for white people to grab Indian lands, it certainly was. On the other hand, it might have been selfish for a few Indians to think they could stand forever in the path of so many white men. Still depending on how you look at it, and whether you’re white or red, it was either ‘the march of civilization,’ or ‘conquest.’ Anyhow, the five ‘civilized’ tribes, the Cherokees, Creeks, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Seminoles, were told that if they’d give their eastern lands to white men, the territory later to be known as Oklahoma would be theirs forever. In the words of the treaty, they were to have it ‘for as long as grass shall grow and waters run.’ Moving these tribes took almost twenty years, from 1828 to 1846, and it wasn’t a nice thing, because some of the uprooted Indians suffered terribly, but finally they were here.”
Alec interrupted again. “If the land was given to the Indians, how can we take it?” he asked.
“I was coming to that, Alec. The ‘civilized’ tribes were different. They knew white men. They saw that white men had a better way of living, and so they copied it. They had their farms, their schools, their churches, their stores. They lived much as we do and even owned slaves. Then came the Civil War, and almost all of them lined up with the South. The government claimed that by this ‘rebellion,’ the tribes had violated their treaty rights. That began it. There were a lot of people west of the Mississippi by that time, and they wanted to know why they weren’t allowed to have land that no longer belonged to the Indians anyway.”
“Be sure to tell about the cattlemen,” Cindy murmured.
“Sure thing. Great herds of cattle, gathered in Texas for delivery to Kansas railheads, were driven across the territory. At first the cattlemen asked only that their herds be allowed to graze while passing through. Then they wanted grazing land to fatten cattle, and one way or another they got a lot of it. So there was something else to fight about. If homesteaders could have no part of Oklahoma, why were wealthy cattlemen allowed to take so much of it? Then came the ‘Boomers.’”
Alec smiled. Cindy clasped her hands excitedly.
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