The Log School-House on the Columbia

MRS. WOODS MEETS LITTLE ROLL OVER AGAIN.

One day Rev. Jason Lee came up from the Cascades, in a boat, to visit Mr. and Mrs. Woods on their donation claim. Mr. Lee at this tine was inspired with missionary zeal for the Indians, and he remembered Mrs. Woods kindly as an ignorant but earnest and teachable woman, whom the influence of his preaching had brought to his spiritual flock. He knew her needs of counsel and help, he pitied her hard and lonely life, and he came to visit her from time to time.

He had once given her a copy of Wesley's Hymns, and these hymns she had unconsciously learned, and delighted to quote on all occasions. Her favorite hymn in the collection was written by Thomas Olivers, one of Wesley's coadjutors, beginning—

"The God of Abrah'm praise."

She used to sing it often about her work; and one approaching the cabin, might often have heard her trying to sing to the old Hebrew melody of Leoniel—a tune perhaps as old as the Jewish Temple itself—such sublime thoughts as these—

Another favorite hymn, in an easy metre, was John Wesley's triumphant review of life in his middle age. The tune, although marked in the music-books C.P.M., and thus indicating some difficulty, was really as simple as it was lively, and carried the voice along like the music of a meadow stream:

Mrs. Woods was singing as usual about her work, when Jason Lee rapped at her door.

"Father Lee," said Mrs. Woods, "can I trust my eyes!—come again to see me, away out here in the timber? Well, you are welcome. I have got something on my mind, and I have long been wanting to have a talk with you. How is the mission at the Dalles?"

"It is prospering, but I regard it as my duty to leave it and go back to the East; and this may be my farewell visit, though I expect to come back again."

"Why, Father Lee, what has changed your mind? You surely can not think it your duty to leave this great country in the Oregon! You are needed here if anywhere in this world."

"Yes, but it is on account of this country on the Oregon being great, as you call it, that I must go away. It was once my calling in life to become a missionary to the Indians of Oregon, and to see this wonderful land. The same Voice that called me to that work calls me again to go back to tell the people of the East of their great opportunity here. I owe it to my country's future to do this. I have eaten the grapes of a promised land, and I must return to my own people with the good report. I believe that the best life of America will yet be here—it seems to be so revealed to me. My mission was to the Indians; it is now to induce colonies to come to the Oregon."

"Well, each heart knows its own calling and duty, and none of us are led alike. Father Lee, Gretchen has been reprovin' me, though she shouldn't, perhaps, being a girl. She was sassy to me, but she meant well. She is a well-meanin' girl, though I have to be hard on her sometimes—it is my duty to be, you know.

"Well, some months ago, more than a year, an Injun ran away with my best saw, and that gave me a prejudice against the Injuns, I suppose. Afterward, Young Eagle's Plume—Benjamin, the chief's boy—insulted me before the school by takin' a stick out of my hand, and I came to dislike him, and he hates me. There are many Injuns in the timber now, and they all cast evil looks at me whenever I meet them, and these things hint that they are goin' to capture me at the Potlatch and carry me away. I hate Injuns.

"But Gretchen has told me a thing that touches my feelin's. She says that Benjamin he says that he will protect me on account of his love for the master; and that, on account of my love for the good Master of us all and his cause, I ought to show a different spirit toward the Injuns. What do you think?"

"Gretchen is right, although a girl should be modest with her elders. Hatred only multiplies itself; when one overcomes his evil passions he gains others, and loses nothing. Do you see?"

"But I am always good to those I like and those who treat me well. Think how I used to take care of the sick folk on our way out here, and what I have tried to do for Gretchen!"

"'If ye love them that love you, what thank have ye?' All people love those who love them—the savages do. To give up one's evil desires, and to help others by returning love for hate, is the true life. The best friends in the world that we can have are those that we have drawn to our hearts by forgiveness. Do something good to every Indian that hates you, and you will never be carried away captive."

"But Whitman, remember Whitman: he showed the right spirit, and the Injuns killed him!"

"His death was caused by a misapprehension, and it made him a martyr. His work lives. Men live in their work."

"Well, Father Lee, if Benjamin can overcome his evil feelin's for his master, I ought to do so for mine, as Gretchen says. My bad spirit in this matter has long troubled me; it has caused a cloud to come over me when singin' hymns. I will give it all up now—I will give up everything, and just follow the better spirit. I want to do right, so that I can sing hymns."

When Father Lee left the cabin, Mrs. Woods accompanied him to his boat on the river.

As they were passing along under the tall spruces whose tops glimmered in the sun, and whose cool shadows made the trail delightful and refreshing, a black she-bear suddenly rose up before them, and a cub started up by her side. The great bear and the little bear both stood on their haunches, with their fore-feet outstretched like arms, as in great surprise. Mrs. Woods stopped and threw up her arms, and Parson Lee drew back.

Mrs. Woods looked at the little bear, and the little bear at her.

"Roll over, roll over!" she suddenly exclaimed. A strange event followed, very strange indeed in the eyes of the startled missionary. The little bear rolled itself into a ball, and began to turn over and over, and to come toward them in its somersaults.

The mother bear made a peculiar noise, dropped upon her four feet and ran off into the timber; and the little one, hearing the noise and movement, leaped up and followed her.

"What does that mean?" asked the missionary, in astonishment.

"That is Little Roll Over. I taught him that trick myself. He was once a pet of mine, and he ran away."

"Extraordinary!" said the missionary; "and it seems to me, if you have such a good influence over bears, you might do a great deal of good among the Indians."

"And I will," said Mrs. Woods. "I mean to live so I can sing hymns, and feel right about it."

On the return home, Mrs. Woods looked everywhere for her pet bear. She did not fear the old bear, for these animals are generally harmless if unmolested. She called, "Roll Over! Roll Over!" when she came to the place where she had had the adventure. But there was no answer except from the blue jays that piped out their shrill call in the tall trees.

Mrs. Woods came home to have a long battle with herself. Her idea of happiness seemed to be the freedom to sing hymns with a clear conscience, and the poor pioneer woman's philosophy was not very far from right.

MARLOWE MANN'S NEW ROBINSON CRUSOE.

Besides the Narrative of Lewis and Clarke, which was used in the school as a reader, Mr. Mann made use of another book in his teaching which greatly delighted his pupils and often awakened their sympathies. It was called "John E. Jewett and Thompson." It presented a picture of life on the coast early in the century. The strange story was much as follows:

THE ROBINSON CRUSOE OF VANCOUVER.

About the year 1802 the ship Boston, from Boston, Mass., went to Hull, England, to secure a cargo of goods to carry to the Indians on the Northwest coast of America to trade for furs. She was a general trading-vessel, such as roamed the seas of the world adventurously at that time, and often made fortunes for the merchants of New York, Boston, and other Atlantic port cities.

She was commanded by Captain John Salter, a clever man and a natural story-teller, whose engaging pictures of travel were sure to fascinate the young.

While in England this man met a lad by the name of John Rogers Jewett, who listened eagerly to his romantic adventures, and who desired to embark with him for America, and was allowed by his parents to make the voyage. The ship sailed around Cape Horn to Nootka Island, one of the islands on the west coast of Vancouver Island between the forty-ninth and fiftieth parallel. Here the whole crew, with the exception of young Jewett and a man by the name of Thompson, were massacred by the Indians, and the strange and tragic narrative of the survivors was an American and English wonder-tale seventy years ago. Mr. Jewett published the account of his capture and sufferings, under the title of "John R. Jewett and Thompson," or, to copy the title of the quaint old book before me, "A Narrative of the Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewett, only Survivor of the Crew of the Ship Boston, during a Captivity of nearly Three Years among the Savages of Nootka Sound." The book was issued from London, England, and from Middletown, Conn. After Robinson Crusoe, perhaps no book was more eagerly read by our grandfathers in their boyhood than this.

The Indian king of Nootka was Maquina. He used to visit the ship, sometimes wearing a wooden mask over his face representing some wild beast. Such masks are still to be found among the Indians of Vancouver.

Maquina was at first very friendly to Captain Salter, but one day the latter offended him, and he resolved to have his revenge by killing him and the crew, and destroying the ship. Accordingly, one morning, after he had been capering on deck and blowing a rude whistle, he said to the captain:

"When do you intend to sail?"

"To-morrow," replied the captain.

"You love salmon—much in Friendly Cove; go, then, and catch some," said the chief.

The captain thought it very desirable to have a large supply of fish on board, so he assented to the chief's proposal, and, after dinner with the latter, he sent away a jolly-boat or yawl with nine men to fish in Friendly Cove.

A series of tragedies followed. "I went down to my vise-bench in the steerage," says Mr. Jewett, in his Narrative, "where I was employed in cleaning muskets. I had not been there more than an hour, when I heard a great bustle and confusion on deck. I ran up the steerage stairs, but scarcely was my head above deck when I was caught by the hair by one of the savages. My hair was short, and I fell from his hold into the steerage. As I was falling, he struck me with an axe and cut a deep gash in my forehead. I remained in a state of suspense for some time, when Maquina himself appeared at the hatch and ordered me to come up. What a terrific spectacle met my eyes! Six naked savages stood in a circle around me, covered with the blood of my murdered comrades! I thought that my last moment had come, and commended my soul to my Maker.

"'John,' said the chief, 'I speak—you no say no; you say no—daggers come. Will you become my slave and fight for me?' I answered, 'Yes.' Then he told me that he would spare my life.

"Taking me by the hand, he led me to the quarter-deck, where the most horrid sight presented itself; the heads of our unfortunate captain and his crew, to the number of twenty-five, were arranged in a line.

"Maquina then ordered me to get the ship under way for Friendly Cove. We were there received by the inhabitants of the village with loud shouts of joy and a horrible drumming of sticks upon the roofs and sides of their houses. Maquina took me on shore to his house."

Young Jewett became a favorite of the chief's son, and was made a member of the tribe. He was compelled to marry an Indian princess, and his search for his wife is a wonderful romance, and really very poetic, as the marriage customs of the tribes are associated with a rustic festival worthy of a painter and poet. The young princess chosen was beautiful, and served him with the most affectionate devotion, but he could not love her, because he had been compelled to marry her.

The most remarkable incidents of this strange narrative are associated with the fate of those who were engaged in the massacre of the officers and crew of the Boston, and which show that the experience of retribution is a law common to all peoples and lands.

The principal chief or sub-chief among the warriors was Tootooch. He had married Maquina's sister. He ranked next to Maquina in all things pertaining to war, and he had been the foremost leader and the most merciless of conquerors in the destruction of the Boston. He killed two men on shore, presumably with his own hand.

Insanity is not common among the Indians. But a terrible mania took possession of this ambitious warrior. "While in the enjoyment of the highest health," says Mr. Jewett, "he was suddenly seized with delirium, in which he fancied that he saw the ghosts of the two men that he had murdered." The avenging vision followed him wherever he went. He was filled with terror at all times, and at last refused to eat to sustain his life. The Indians forced food into his mouth.

Maquina was informed of the terrible state of the warrior's mind by his sister, Tootooch's wife. He went to the haunted man's house, taking Mr. Thompson and Mr. Jewett with him. "We found him raving about the two murdered men, Hall and Wood," says Jewett. "Maquina placed provisions before him, but he would not eat."

At last the distressed tyee, induced by hunger, put forth his hand to touch the food. But he suddenly drew it back, saying that Hall and Wood were there.

"They will not let me eat," said he, with a look of despair and terror.

Maquina pointed to Thompson and Jewett.

"Is it they who have bewitched you?" he asked.

"Wik (no); John klashish (is good), Thompson klashish (is good)."

He arose and piteously put his hand on Jewett's shoulder, and, pointing to the food offered him, he said, "Eat."

"Eat it yourself," replied Mr. Jewett. "Hall and Wood are not there."

"You can not see them," he answered; "I can. I know that you can not see them."

"What do you do in your own country in such cases as this?" asked Maquina.

"We confine the person and whip him," said Jewett.

The chief ordered that the haunted warrior should be confined and whipped; but the pain did not relieve the warrior's mind of the terrible vision of the two men that he had killed. He grew more wild. He would torture his slaves for diversion. His wife fled from him. The vision continued until he became completely exhausted, and Death came with a merciful face.

"Early in June," says Mr. Jewett, "Tootooch, the crazy chief, died. The whole village set up a loud cry. The body was laid on a plank, and the head bound with a red fillet. It was then wrapped in an otter-skin robe and placed in a large coffin, which was ornamented with rows of white shells. It was buried by night in a cavern."

The tyees or chiefs had discussed often the policy of putting Mr. Jewett and Mr. Thompson to death, and so end all evidence of the destruction of the Boston in the event of new ships appearing on the coast. But the spectacle of Tootooch staring at the ghosts of the men that he had killed, and wasting away amid days and nights of horror, made them fear that the other warriors engaged in the massacre would become affected in the like way, and deterred them from any further violence. Jewett was at last rescued by a trading-ship, and was taken to the Columbia River, where he arrived shortly after the visit of Lewis and Clarke, of the famous expedition that bears these names. He finally came to New England and settled in Middletown, Conn. His history gives a very picturesque view of the habits and customs of the Indians on the Northwest coast nearly a century ago. The book can be found in antiquarian libraries, and should be republished in the interest of American folk-lore. The truth of the incidents gives the whole narrative a vivid and intense interest; it reads like De Foe.

OLD JOE MEEK AND MR. SPAULDING.

One day a man in a buckskin habit came to the door of the school-house and looked in upon the school. His face was that of a leader of men, hard and powerful; one could see that it feared nothing, and that it looked with contempt on whatever was artificial, affected, or insincere. His form had the strength and mettle of a pioneer. He rapped a loud, hard rap, and said, in a sturdy tone:

"May I come in?"

The master welcomed him cordially and courteously, and said:

"This is Mr. Meek, I believe?"

"Yes, old Joe Meek, the pioneer—you have heard of me."

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Mann. "You have caught the spirit of Oregon—you are Oregon. You have made the interest of this great country your life; I honor you for it. I feel the same spirit coming over me. What we do here is done for a thousand years, for here the great life of the Anglo-Saxon race is destined to come. I can see it; I feel it. The morning twilight of time is about me. I can hear the Oregon calling—calling; to teach here is a glorious life; the whole of humanity is in it. I have no wish to return to the East again."

"Stranger, give me your hand."

The New England schoolmaster took the hard hand of the old pioneer, and the two stood there in silence.

The children could not understand the great, soul-expanding sympathy that made these two men friends. They gazed on Mr. Meek's buckskin jacket and trousers with curiosity, for they were picturesque with their furs, belts, and weapons, and he looked like a warrior or a forest knight clad in armor.

He wore the same buckskin suit when he appeared in Washington as the delegate to Congress from Oregon. It was at the time of Polk and Dallas, and not a person in Washington probably knew him when he made his appearance at the Congressional Hotel.

The people at the hotel stared at him as the children did now. He went into the great dining-room with the other Congressmen, but alone and unknown. The colored waiters laughed at him as he took his seat at the table.

The other people at the table were served, but no one came near him. At last he turned and faced a hurrying colored man, and, in a voice that silenced the room, said:

"Waiter, come here!"

The waiter rolled up his eyes and said, "Sir?"

"Have you any big meat to-day?"

"Yes, sir."

"Any bear?"

"Any bear? bear? No, sir."

"Any buffalo?"

"Any buffalo—buffalo? Where did you come from? No, sir."

"Well, waiter you may bring me what you have."

The waiter went away with white teeth, and a smile and titter passed around the table. The waiter returned with the usual first course of the meal, and was about to hurry away, when the old pioneer took out his pistol and laid it down on the table, saying:

"Waiter, you stand there, I may want you; and if anybody wants to know who I am, tell him I am Hon. Joseph Meek, the delegate of the people of Oregon."

When it was known who Mr. Meek was, he was met by Mr. Dallas, the courtly Vice-President.

"I will attend you to the reception this afternoon, where you will meet the wives of the Congressmen," said he. "I will call for you at three."

The Vice-President called, and was surprised to find Mr. Meek still in his buckskins.

"You do not intend to go in that habit to the reception?" said he.

"Yes," said Mr. Meek, "or else not go at all. In the first place, I have nothing else to wear, and what is good enough for me to wear among the people of Oregon is good enough for their representative here."

We have given, in these two anecdotes, very nearly Mr. Meek's own words.

A few days after the visit of this most extraordinary man, another visitor came. She was an earnest-looking woman, on an Indian pony, and there was a benevolence in her face and manner that drew the whole school into immediate sympathy with her. The lady was Mrs. Spaulding, one of the so-called "Brides of Oregon." Her husband had come to the Territory with Dr. Whitman and his bride. The long missionary journey was the bridal tour of Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spaulding. They were the first white women who crossed the Rocky Mountains. It was related of Mrs. Spaulding, who had a beautiful voice, and was a member of a church quartet or choir in a country town in New York, as a leading singer, that, just before leaving the place for her long horseback journey of more than two thousand miles, she sang in the church the hymn beginning—

"Yes, my native land, I love thee,"

in such an affecting manner as to silence the rest of the choir, and melt the congregation to tears:

This lady addressed the school, and spoke feelingly of the condition of the Indian race, and of the field for the teacher in the valleys of the Columbia.

Gretchen listened to the address with open heart. There are moments of revelation when a knowledge of one's true calling in life comes to the soul. Faith as a blind but true guide vanishes, and the eye sees. Such was the hour to Gretchen. She had often felt, when playing on the violin, that the inspiration that gave such influence to her music should be used in teaching the tribes that were so susceptible to its influence. This feeling had grown in the playing and singing of a school-song, the words of which were written by Mrs. Hunter, an English lady, and the wife of the famous Dr. Hunter, which showed the heroism and fortitude of the Indian character:

The tune or melody was admirably adapted to the violin. Benjamin loved to hear it sung, and Gretchen was pleased to sing and to play it.

Mr. Mann asked Gretchen to play for Mrs. Spaulding, and she chose this simple but expressive melody. He then asked the school to sing, and he selected the words of

"Yes, my native land, I love thee,"

to the music of Rousseau's Dream. Mrs. Spaulding could hardly keep from joining in the tune and hymn, then well known to all the missionary pioneers. At the words—

her beautiful voice rose above the school, and Gretchen's fingers trembled as she played the air.

As the lady rode away, Gretchen felt tears coming into her eyes. The school was dismissed, and the pupils went away, but Gretchen lingered behind. She told Benjamin to go to the lodge, and that she would follow him after she had had a talk with the master.

"That song is beautiful," said Gretchen. "'In the desert let me labor.' That is what I would like to do all my life. Do you suppose that I could become a teacher among the Indians like Mrs. Spaulding? It would make me perfectly happy if I could. If I were to study hard, would you help me to find such a place in life?"

Gretchen's large eyes, filled with tears, were bent earnestly on the face of Mr. Mann.

"Yes," he said, "and if I can inspire you only to follow me in such work, it will repay me for an unknown grave in the forests of the Columbia."

Gretchen started; she trembled she knew not why, then buried her face in her arms on the rude log desk and sobbed.

She raised her head at last, and went out, singing—

"In the desert let me labor."

It was a glorious sundown in autumn. The burning disk of the sun hung in clouds of pearl like an oriel-window in a magnificent temple. Black shadows fell on the placid waters of the Columbia, and in the limpid air under the bluffs Indians fished for salmon, and ducks and grebes sported in river weeds.

Marlowe Mann went away from the log school-house that night a happy man. He had seen that his plans in life were already budding. He cared little for himself, but only for the cause to which he devoted his life—to begin Christian education in the great empire of Oregon.

But how unexpected this episode was, and how far from his early dreams! His spirit had inspired first of all this orphan girl from the Rhine, who had been led here by a series of strange events. This girl had learned faith from her father's prayers. On the Rhine she had never so much as heard of the Columbia—the new Rhine of the sundown seas.

A WARNING.

One evening, as Gretchen was sitting outside of the lodge, she saw the figure of a woman moving cautiously about in the dim openings of the fir-trees. It was not the form of an Indian woman—its movement was mysterious. Gretchen started up and stood looking into the darkening shadows of the firs. Suddenly the form came out of the clearing—it was Mrs. Woods. She waved her hand and beckoned to Gretchen, and then drew back into the forest and disappeared.

Gretchen went toward the openings where Mrs. Woods had so suddenly and strangely appeared. But no one was there. She wondered what the secret of the mysterious episode could be. She returned to the lodge, but said nothing about what she had seen. She passed a sleepless night, and resolved to go to see her foster-mother on the following day.

So, after school the next afternoon, she returned to her old home for a brief visit, and to gain an explanation of the strange event of the evening before.

She found Mrs. Woods very sad, and evidently troubled by some ominous experience.

"So you saw me?" was her first salutation. "I didn't dare to come any further. They did not see me—did they?"

"But, mother, why did you go away—why did you come to the lodge?"

"O Gretchen, husband has been at home from the shingle-mill, and he has told me something dreadful!"

"What, mother?"

"There's a conspiracy!"

"Where?"

"Among the Injuns. A friendly Injun told husband in secret that there would be no more seen of the log school-house after the Potlatch."

"Don't fear, mother; the chief and Benjamin will protect that."

"But that isn't all, Gretchen. Oh, I am so glad that you have come home! There are dark shadows around us everywhere. I can feel 'em—can't you? The atmosphere is all full of dark faces and evil thoughts. I can't bear to sleep alone here now. Gretchen, there's a plot to capture the schoolmaster."

"Don't fear, mother. I know Umatilla—he will never permit it."

"But, Gretchen, the Injun told husband something awful."

"What?"

"That the schoolmaster would one day perish as Dr. Whitman did. Dr. Whitman was stricken down by the Injun whom he regarded as his best friend, and he never knew who dealt the blow. He went out of life like one smitten by lightning. O Gretchen!"

"But, mother, I do not fear. The Indians thought that Dr. Whitman was a conjurer. We make people true, the master says, by putting confidence in them. I believe in the old chief and in Benjamin, and there will no evil ever come to the schoolmaster or the log school-house."

"Gretchen, are you sure? Then I did not bring you away out here for nothing, did I? You may be the angel of deliverance of us all. Who knows? But, Gretchen, I haven't told you all yet."

Mrs. Woods's face clouded again.

"The Injun told husband that some of the warriors had formed a plot against me, and that, if they were to capture me, they would torture me. Gretchen, I am afraid. Don't you pity me?"

"Mother, I know my power over the chief and Benjamin, and I know the power of a chief's sense of honor. I do pity you, you are so distressed. But, mother, no evil will ever come to you where I am, nor the school where I am. I am going to be a teacher among these Indians, if I live; I feel this calling, and my work will somehow begin here."

"A teacher among the Injuns! You? You a teacher? Are anvils going to fly? Here I am, a poor lone woman, away out here three thousand miles from home, and tremblin' all over, at every sound that I hear at night, for fear I shall be attacked by Injuns, and you are dreamin', with your head all full of poetry, of goin' away and leavin' me, the best friend that you ever had on the earth, as good as a mother to you; of goin' away—of leavin' me, to teach a lot of savages! Gretchen, I knew that the world was full of empty heads, but I never realized how empty the human heart is until now! Been a mother to you, too!"

"O mother, I never thought of leavin' you unless you wished it."

"What did you think was goin' to become of me? I never kissed any child but you, and sometimes, when you are real good, I feel just as though I was your mother."

"I thought that you would help me."

"Help you, what doin'?"

"To teach the Indians."

"To teach the Injuns—Indians you call 'em! I'd like to teach one Injun to bring back my saw! I never tried to teach but one Injun—and he was him. You can't make an eagle run around a door-yard like a goose, and you can't teach an Injun to saw wood—the first thing you know, the saw will be missin'.—But how I am runnin' on! I do have a good deal of prejudice against the savages; nevertheless—"

"I knew, mother, that you would say 'nevertheless.' It seems to me that word is your good spirit. I wish you would tell me what thought came to your mind when you said that word."

"'Nevertheless?'"

"Yes."

"Well, the Master—"

"He said—"

"Yes—preach the gospel to every creature! I suppose that meant Injuns and all."

"Yes—he said 'teach'—so the schoolmaster explained it."

"Did he? Well, I ought to obey it in spirit—hadn't I?—or at least not hinder others. I might help you teach it if I could get into the right spirit. But what put that thought into your head?"

"Mrs. Spaulding, the missionary, has been to visit the school. She sang so beautifully! These were the words:

"When she sung that, it all came to me—what I was—what I was sent into the world to do—what was the cause of your loving me and bringing me out here—I saw a plan in it all. Then, too, it came to me that you would at first not see the calling as I do, but that you would say nevertheless, and help me, and that we would work together, and do some good in the world, you and I. Oh! I saw it all."

"Gretchen, did you see all that? Do you think that the spirit has eyes, and that they see true? But how could I begin? The Injuns all hate me."

"Make them love you."

"How?"

"Say nevertheless to them."

"Well, Gretchen, you are a good girl, and I am sorry for the hard things that I have said. I do not feel that I have shown just the right spirit toward Benjamin. But he has said that he will not do me any harm, for the sake of his master, and I am willin' to give up my will for my Master. It is those that give up their desires that have their desires in this world, and anybody who does an injury to another makes for himself a judgment-day of some sort. You may tell Benjamin that I am real sorry for bein' hard to him, and that, if he will come over and see me, I'll give him a carved pipe that husband made. Now, Gretchen, you may go, and I'll sit down and think a spell. I'll be dreadful lonely when you're gone."

Gretchen kissed her foster-mother at the door, and said:

"Your new spirit, mother, will make us both so happy in the future! We'll work together. What the master teaches me, I'll teach you."

"What—books?"

"Yes."

"O Gretchen, your heart is real good! But see here—my hair is gray. Oh, I am sorry—what a woman I might have been!"

Gretchen lay down in the lodge that night beside the dusky wife of the old chief. The folds of the tent were open, and the cool winds came in from the Columbia, under the dim light of the moon and stars.

The tepee, or tent, was made of skins, and was adorned with picture-writing—Indian poetry (if so it might be called). Overhead were clusters of beautiful feathers and wings of birds. The old chief loved to tell her stories of these strange and beautiful wings. There were the wings of the condor, of the bald and the golden eagle, of the duck-hawk, pigeon-hawk, squirrel-hawk, of the sap-sucker, of the eider duck, and a Zenaider-like dove. Higher up were long wings of swans and albatrosses, heads of horned owls, and beaks of the laughing goose. Through the still air, from some dusky shallow of the river came the metallic calls of the river birds, like the trumpeting swan. The girl lay waking, happy in recalling the spirit with which her foster-mother had accepted her plan of life.

Suddenly her sensitive spirit became aware of something unusual and strange at the opening of the tent. There was a soft, light step without, a guarded footfall. Then a tall, dark shadow distinctly appeared, with a glitter of mother-of-pearl ornaments and a waving of plumes. It stood there like a ghost of a vivid fancy, for a time. Gretchen's heart beat. It was not an unusual thing for an Indian to come to the tepee late in the evening; but there was something mysterious and ominous in the bearing and atmosphere of this shadowy visitor. The form stepped within the opening of the tent, and a voice whispered, "Umatilla, awake!"

The old chief raised himself on his elbow with an "Ugh!"

"Come out under the moon."

The old chief arose and went out, and the two shadowy forms disappeared among a column of spruces on the musical banks of the Columbia.

Gretchen could not sleep. The two Indians returned late, and, as they parted, Gretchen heard Umatilla's deep voice say, "No!"

Her fears or instincts told her that the interview had reference to plots which were associated with the great Potlatch, now near at hand. She had heard the strange visitor say, "The moon is growing," and there was something shadowy in the very tone in which the words were spoken.

Mrs. Woods sat down in her home of bark and splints all alone after Gretchen's departure.

"She offers to teach me," she said to herself. "I am so sorry that I was not able to teach her. I never read much, any way, until I came under the influence of the Methody. I might have taught her spiritual things—any one can have spiritual knowledge, and that is the highest of all. But I have loved my own will, and to give vent to my temper and tongue. I will change it all. There are times when I am my better self. I will only talk and decide upon what is best in life at such times as these. That would make my better nature grow. When I am out of sorts I will be silent-like. Heaven help me! it is hard to begin all these things when one's hair is turnin' gray, and I never knew any one's gray hair to turn young again."

She sat in the twilight crying over herself, and at last sang the mournful minor measures of a very quaint old hymn with a peculiar old history: