Jiarobia, Or, As We Mostly Call Him, "Rob," Proved Most Amusing
Character As Well As A "Good Man" And The Reader Will Please Note
That Nearly All Of My Single Help Were "Good Men." Only When I Had
A Crowd Was There Trouble.
His store of anecdote was unbounded and
his sense of humour ever present, if broad and simple.
He talked
in English, French, and Cree, and knew a good deal of Chipewyan.
Many of his personal adventures would have fitted admirably into
the Decameron, but are scarcely suited for this narrative. One
evening he began to sing, I listened intently, thinking maybe I
should pick up some ancient chanson of the voyageurs or at least
a woodman's "Come-all-ye." Alas! it proved to be nothing but the
"Whistling Coon."
Which reminds me of another curious experience at the village of
Fort Smith. I saw a crowd of the Indians about a lodge and strange
noises proceeding therefrom. When I went over the folk made way for
me. I entered, sat down, and found that they were crowded around
a cheap gramophone which was hawking, spitting and screeching some
awful rag-time music and nigger jigs. I could forgive the traders
for bringing in the gramophone, but why, oh, why, did they not
bring some of the simple world-wide human songs which could at least
have had an educational effect? The Indian group listened to this
weird instrument with the profoundest gravity. If there is anything
inherently comic in our low comics it was entirely lost on them.
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