“Brother Van! Brother Van!” comes roaring back from the eager crowd.
No mention is made by the pioneer of his part in the enterprise which has made the Christian education of these eager students possible. When he finishes speaking, a demand is made: “A song! A song!” So he sings “Diamonds in the Rough” for them. Then we hasten to a meeting of the Board of Trustees, and arrive in time, for Brother Van is never late for an engagement.
“Now, let’s go to the Fair!” he says. To go to the Montana State Fair with Brother Van is to become almost as much a center of interest as the prize pumpkin or the heaviest sheaf of wheat. The hold the man has on the people of the state begins to dawn on you.
“Hello, Van, old scout.”
“Why, Brother Van, how is the church at ——?”
“Isn’t this Brother Van?” ask children, shyly, as we pass.
Out in the enclosure a flag is to be raised. They send a messenger to Brother Van to say that he is wanted to offer the prayer. After the prayer, Governor Stewart is introduced, and the heart of the Eastern visitor is stirredto hear from him how great a part this new state took in the great world struggle for democracy; how great an outpouring of its wealth there was for the needs of the government and for the relief of suffering; and how large a number of the boys from these thinly peopled plains left their homes to take their places in the ranks of the armies of freedom.
It is a short drive over to the once owl-haunted, coyote-inhabited building, which for a time seemed to be Brother Van’s mistake. Children’s voices call a glad greeting, for now it is the Montana Deaconess School. Out on the campus is an old building which the boys have fitted up, and which they dignify by the name of “gym.” Class work which meets the regular school standards is done in this home, but that is only a part of its work. The development of strong, helpful Christian character is the great task to which the earnest teachers who labor here are devoting themselves.
Now we visit the Capitol, a beautiful building of which the young state is justly proud. We go directly to the Governor’s suite and finda delegation of citizens there waiting to consult him. The attendant smiles on one member of our party and then disappears. We resign ourselves for a long wait, but immediately the messenger returns. “The Governor will see you, Brother Van,” he says. We then have the privilege of listening to a conference between the pioneer missionary and modern Montana’s chief man of affairs.
It is near Helena that Last Chance Gulch is situated and the city still presents the problems of a mining center. In the old days the miners came without families. They lived the hard, rough life of the pioneers. Many were only adventurers. They gambled, and even killed for the lure of gold. Yet it was they who found and developed the mines which have furnished so large a share of Montana’s wealth—and that of the nation.