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98 The Chronicles of Oklahoma
meeting was held. The Brown camp fed a hundred or so, including
Mama's children. Services lasted for four hours at a sitting, and
Mama's children were required to sit for that period. If you think the
time excessive, the Indian would say "The sun always shines to-
morrow." We loved to sing the Indian hymns, although we did not
always know what we were saying. At the Indian church service,
the men were seated on one side and the women were seated on the
other. A new cowboy was always persuaded to take the cook to
Indian church. When he was seated with her beside him, a solemn
Seminole with a long pole would tap him on the shoulder and he
would squirm in embarrassment to the smothered delight of cow..
boys and children until he discovered the reason for his predicament.
We always felt that Mama secretly enjoyed our pranks, although
she was a strict disciplinarian, and we were almost always dutiful
and obedient. Mama was not demonstrative. She kissed us when we
went away to boarding school in the fall and she kissed us when
we came home. That was all. But each of us knew her tenderness.
Always when the littlest one fell down and lost his mitten and would
come in crying from the cold, Mama would say, "Come, give me your
little hand." And she would take the little cold hand in hers and hold
It close to her and the world would be warm and right.
In a larger sense our Mother dedicated herself to the Seminoles
with the same devotion she lavished upon her children. She was the
natural leader of her people before she was appointed Seminole
Chieftain by the President of the United States in 1922.
The specifics of her career: as teacher of Seminole children at
Sasakwa and at Mekusukey School for Boys; as teacher, then Super-
intendent of the Emahaka School for Seminole Girls; as disbursing
agent of Union pensions for Seminole soldiers, as member of a mis-
sionary pilgrimage to the Florida Everglades, made with her brother
Jackson and other tribal leaders; as an emissary into Mexico, riding
fifty miles in a stagecoach drawn by burros, to substantiate a Semi-
nole claim to a grant made by the Mexican government to the old
Seminole warrior Wildcat; as an interpreter in the courts of Indian
Territory and Oklahoma-all these things pale into insignifncance
beside the personal quality of her service and devotion to her people.
Each morning Alice B. Davis rose early, groomed herself with dis-
patch, prepared and ate her breakfast, and placed on the back of
her stove a great pot of chicken and rice.
She read the Bible and if she were not in court that day the
Seminoles began to arrive. All day long they came and all day long
they were advised or helped or scolded, and always they were fed.
At the ending of her life when the minister from the Indian church
came for the last visit with her, she lifted her head and asked, "Have
you eaten? Have them prepare something for you."
Alice B. Davis was not elected by the Seminoles; but she was
appointed Chieftain of the tribe by the President. True to the precept
of the Seminole she had not sought the appointment. Her modesty
was almost naive. When she was going to the appointment ceremony
from her home in Wewoka to Muskogee, she saw on the train her old
friend, the Reverend J. S. Murrow. On this train were her children
and grandchildren and friends. "Where are you going, Father Mur-
row?" she asked. And the devoted old friend answered, "Where do
you suppose, Daughter?"
Like her brother, Governor Brown, who one winter furnished
provisions and clothing when the annual per capita payment was not
made to the Seminoles, she died in modest circumstances at her home