Only those who have tried to rescue a helpless person in the water can have any correct idea of the fearful task she had to perform; but buoyed up by hope and her naturally brave, true heart, she persevered, and, although at times almost exhausted, she succeeded in reaching the shallow water, out into which her feeble aunt had ventured to come to assist her. As well as they could, they helped or carried the almost exhausted man to the wigwam, and immediately made use of every means at their disposal to stop the wounds from which his life’s blood seemed to be ebbing away.
The poor man was no sooner laid on his bed, weak and exhausted, than he turned his eyes toward Astumastao and startled her, although he spoke in a voice that was little above a whisper.
What he said was, “Nikumootah!” (“Sing!”)
Astumastao hesitated not; but choking back her emotions she began in sweet and soothing notes the song we have already heard her sing:
“Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone,
He whom I fix my hopes upon;
His track I see, and I’ll pursue
The narrow way, till him I view.”
When she had sung two or three verses the sick man said, “Who is this Jesus?”
Not much was it that was remembered through all the long years that had passed away since Astumastao had received her last Sabbath school lesson, but she called up all she could, and in that which still clung to her memory was the matchless verse: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The sick man was thrilled and startled, and said, “Say it again and again!” So over and over again she repeated it. “Can you remember anything more?” he whispered.
“Not much,” she replied, “only I remember that I was taught that this Jesus, the Son of the Great Spirit, said something like this: ‘Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.’”
“Did they say,” said the dying man, “that that included the Indian? May he, too, go in the white man’s way?”
“O yes,” she answered; “I remember about that very well. The missionary was constantly telling us that the Great Spirit and his Son loved everybody—Indians as well as whites—and that we were all welcome to come to him. Indeed it must be so, for there are the words I have learned about it out of his great book: ‘Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.’”