DI TAPI'O?
BY REV. C. L. HALL.
We reached the Missouri at dark. A heavy gale tossed the water and whirled the sand. Can any one hear across the water, or are we to spend the October night in the timber? The Lord had provided for His work. A dark figure appeared on the bluff against the fading light. "Di tapi'o?" is the call across (Who are you?). "Ho-washte" (I am Good Voice) is the reply. The figure, like the man of Macedonia; the reply, "a voice crying in the wilderness." The man was Good Bird. He had come out, expecting his wife, and found us.
The wind had sunk the flat-boat, and our horse had to wait in the brush till morning. I cared for him, while the carpenter and Good Bird crossed. Two other Indians came for me. The wind lulled and the dark flood flowed silently. Their leaky skiff was plugged with mud. One rowed, the other watched in the shadows for the landing. I bailed with a tin can. The current swung us in, and we lugged our tools and provisions and bedding up a sand slide, and slept in the "Independence Station" log house.
We had made several visits during the summer. Once the whole family stayed a week. We won the affections of Mrs. Pedi'tska-Kadi'shta (Little Crow), so that she paddled Mrs. Hall over in her hide "bull-boat," on our return, for twenty-five cents.
Then our trained nurse left her hospital room and visiting work at Fort Berthold and kept up the routine, and also treated about twenty patients among these Mandans.
This time we had come to finish the house for winter, before the lady missionary's return from her vacation. Four women plastered outside with a mixture of mud and dry grass. This is woman's part of house-building here, I was laborer and cook and preacher for three days, and then left the carpenter plastering inside.
The Mandans are friendly, but much behind our Rees at Fort Berthold. Dead bodies in rough boxes lie on the ground on a knoll not far from our house, and near by is an old-style earth lodge.
At Christmas we had more than 125 people out. A cedar tree hung full of presents. All had a good meal, except plates, which some were not very familiar with. A crowd of big men reached out eagerly for the luxury of red apples.
MEETING HOUSE. DWELLING.
MOODY STATION, NO. 1 (INDEPENDENCE).
This station is named for Mr. Moody, who gave money to start it. The place is a hill in the midst of a valley independent of the bluffs on either side and so Awatahesh—Independence.
Mr. A. P. Nichols, of Haverhill, Mass., kindly offered $200 if we would reopen the station. We have done so, trusting to our friends for $300 more for the year. The work is yet in the dough, but the yeast is in and it is rising.
Our Elbowoods station began far out in the wilderness in a log house like the Independence meeting-house. The Government, after several years, planted its central agency by our station and so brought many under our influence. Now we have a new dwelling, with a chapel attached, and the congregation have raised $130 toward the expense.
DWELLING. CHAPEL.
MOODY STATION, NO. 2 (ELBOWOODS).
These stations are the spokes of which the Fort Berthold boarding-school and hospital and church work are the hub. Every hub must have spokes—as here. If you rim the whole with some of your silver or gold, and bolt it on with prayer the whole work will roll on.
Di tapi'o? Indians, and whites too, some gladly others uneasily, are finding out who we are—you dear friends of the churches and we here together—a power for righteousness from and by the King.
Thanksgiving Day.—Rev. C. L. Hall gives us the following interesting glimpse of Thanksgiving in a prairie mission school:
"We are to have a church dinner on Thanksgiving (Shak-s-shte-hun), for which the church have collected produce and money, so that there will be a large thank offering to the Lord, all paid up, not subscribed. Mrs. Black Rabbit and Mrs. Crow and Mrs. Two Bears and Cedar Woman are on the committee to help cook and prepare dinner. There are rabbits and geese and beef to cook, which is cooked and which cook you can decide.
Clear moonlight on the snow, mild but no thaw, fine sledding. It was a good night to come home from prayer meeting at Deacon Many-bears."
Busy Day of an Indian Missionary.—Rev. Myron Eells, our missionary at S'kokomish, Washington, writes:
"Last Sabbath my work was as follows, though it was a little extra: Superintended the Sunday-school at the Agency at 9:30; 57 present. Taught a Sunday-school class. Preached at the same place at 11, then was on my horse in a few minutes, and at 12:05 was a mile distant and preached to the Indians. Then rode four miles to John's Creek and preached to a small congregation of whites in English at 3:00 p.m., eating my lunch as I rode along. Came home by six o'clock, and at seven o'clock went in for half an hour to the Christian Endeavor meeting."
A Thank Offering.—Miss Collins, of Fort Yates, N. D., in writing of the Indian work at her mission, says:
"Last night there was a New Year's meeting, and they took up a 'Thank Offering' because God had been so good the past year, and they handed me ten dollars this morning for the native missionary society, and they pledged ten more. Pretty substantial way to show gratitude to God! Oh if our churches would come to the help of our American Missionary Association in so liberal a way, what might we not do for Christ this year!"