THE SCARLET EYE
"Only the great, the good, the kindly people ever see it. One must live
well, must be manly and brave, and talk straight without lies, without
meanness, or 'The Scarlet Eye' will never come to them. They tell me
that, over the great salt water, in your white man's big camping-ground
named London, in far-off England, the medicine man hangs before his
tepee door a scarlet lamp, so that all who are sick may see it, even in
the darkness.* It is the sign that a good man lives within that tepee,
a man whose life is given to help and heal sick bodies. We redskins of
the North-West have heard this story, so we, too, want a sign of a
scarlet lamp, to show where lives a great, good man. The blood of the
red flower shows us this. If you drink it and see no red flowers, you
are selfish, unkind; your talk is not true; your life is not clear; but,
if you see the flowers, as you did to-day, you are good, kind, noble.
You will be a great and humane medicine man. You have seen the Scarlet
Eye. It is the sign of kindness to your fellowmen.
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