Mary and I: Forty Years with the Sioux

by Stephen Return Riggs

But journeying may be done much more quickly by thought, and spirit may go as quick as thought. So here is the account of Horace E. Warner’s thought journey to the family meeting:—

“If there has seemed to be any lack of interest on my part in the family reunion, it is only in the seeming. For my decision to stay at home was made with deep regret, and after the slaying of much strong desire. But, aside from the gratification which it would have given me to see you all, and which I hope it would have given you to see me, I do not think the idea of the meeting is impaired by my absence. Only this—I feel as though I had, not wilfully nor willingly, but none the less certainly, cut myself off from that sympathy—in the Greek sense—which I stood in much need of, and can ill afford to miss.

“I suppose you are now all together with one accord in one place, so far as that is possible. To be all together would require the union of two worlds. And this may be, too,—shall we not say it is so? But if the dear ones from the unseen world are present, though you can not hear their speech nor detect their presence by any of the senses, can not you feel that I am really with you in some sense too? Of course, the difference is great, but so also the difference is great between the meeting of friends in the natural body and the spiritual body. If the mind, the soul, constitutes the man rather than the animal substances, or the myriad cells which make up his physical organization, why may not I leap over the insignificant barrier that divides us? As I write, this feeling is very strong with me. It is vague and indefinite, but yet it seems to me that I have been having some kind of communication or communion with you. At all events, my heart goes out strongly toward you all with fervent desire that the meeting will be full of joy and comfort—of sweetest and spiritual growth—the occasion of new inspiration, new courage, new hopes. It is not likely that there can be any repetition of it this side of the ‘city which hath foundations.’

“So the memories of this meeting should be the sweetest, and should cluster thick around you in the years of separation. This much I must perforce miss. For though I do truly rejoice in your joys, and partake with you of the gladness of the meeting after so long a time; yet it is only by imagination and sympathy that I make myself one with you, and of this the future can have no recollection.”

Now we will let others give their thoughts of the meeting, as it seemed to them from outside. And, first, a few words from Rev. John P. Williamson of Yankton Agency:—

“The first week in September, 1879, will long be remembered by the Riggs family, and by one or two who were not Riggses. From the east and the west, from the north and the south, and from across the mighty Pacific, they gathered at the eldest brother’s house, at Santee Agency, Nebraska, for a family reunion. It was forty-two years last February since Stephen Return Riggs married Mary Ann Longley and came out as a missionary to the Dakotas; and now in his sixty-eighth year, his step still light, and his heart still young, he walks in to his son’s house to find himself surrounded by nine children, three sons-in-law, two daughters-in-law, and nineteen grandchildren; with himself and wife making a company of thirty-five, and all present except one son-in-law.

“This roll may never be as interesting to universal mankind as that in the tenth chapter of Genesis, but it is almost extended enough to evolve a few general truths. If we were to pick these up, our first deduction would be that like begets like. This man has certainly given more than his proportion of missionaries. And why, except that like begets like? He was a missionary, his children partook of his spirit, and became missionaries. We heard some mathematical member of the company computing the number of years of missionary service the family had rendered. The amount has slipped our memory, but we should say it was over one hundred and fifty.

“Our other deduction would be that the missionary profession is a healthy one. Here is a family of no uncommon physical vigor, and yet not a single death occurred among the children, who are in goodly number. True, the mother of the family has finished her work and crossed the river to wait with her longing smile the coming children, but another ministers in her room, who has added little Aunt Edna to the list, to stand before her father when the rest are far away.”

Next, we have the observations of Rev. Joseph Ward of Yankton:—

“Families have their characteristic points as well as individuals. The family of Rev. S. R. Riggs, D.D., is no exception to this. Their characteristics all point in one direction. It is notably a missionary family. It began on missionary ground forty-two years ago at Lac-qui-parle, Minn. From that time until the present the name of the family head has always appeared in the list of missionaries of the American Board. One after another the names of the children have been added to the list, until now we find Alfred, Isabella, Martha, Thomas, Henry, attached to the mission; and doing genuine missionary work, though not bearing a commission from the board, are two more, Robert and Cornelia.

“What place more suitable for the meeting together of father, children, and children’s children—thirty-four all told, counting those who have joined the family by marriage—than Santee Agency, Nebraska, a mission station of the A. B. C. F. M.

“Though not of the family, I was honored by an invitation to attend the meeting, assured that a ‘bed and a plate would be reserved for me’; and so, on the first Tuesday of September, I stood on the bank of the Missouri, opposite the agency, waiting for the ferry-man to set me across. I came at the right time, for presently the delegation from Fort Sully drove their two teams to the landing, and in a moment more Rev. J. P. Williamson, with his oldest daughter, from Yankton Agency, were added to our number.

“They came from the east and the west and the north. These from Sisseton, these from Sully, and these from the land of Sinim, for the oldest daughter and her husband, Rev. Mark Williams, have been for thirteen years in Kalgan, Northern China, and now for the first time come back to see the father and the fatherland. The personal part of the meeting I have no right to mention. I speak only of its missionary character. The very prudential committee itself, in its weekly meetings, cannot be more thoroughly imbued with a missionary spirit than was every hour of this reunion. And how could it be otherwise? All the reminiscences were of their home on missionary ground, at Lac-qui-parle, at Traverse des Sioux, and at Hazelwood. Did they talk of present duties and doings? What could they have for their theme but life at Kalgan, at Good Will, at Santee, and at Sully! Did they look forward to what they would do after the family meeting was over? The larger part were to go two hundred miles and more overland, to attend the annual meeting of the Indian churches at Brown Earth. And, besides, how to reach out from their present stations and seize new points for work was the constant theme of thought.

“Wednesday evening there was a gathering of the older ones and the larger children. The father read a sketch recalling a few incidents of the family life. The reading brought now laughter and then tears. Forty-two years could not come and go without leaving many a sorrow behind.

“The mother, who had lived her brave life for a third of a century among the Indians, was not there. A beautiful crayon portrait, hung that day for the first time over the piano, was a sadly sweet reminder of her whose body was laid to rest only a year ago among the Teetons, on the banks of the Upper Missouri. Then another paper of memories from one of the daughters, lighted with joy and shaded with sorrow, a few words of cheer and counsel from the oldest son, and a talk in Chinese from the Celestial member, were the formal features of the evening.

“As I sat in the corner of the study and heard and saw, there came to me, clearer than ever before, the wonderful power there is in a consecrated life. Well did one of them say that if they had gained any success in their work, it was by singleness of purpose. ‘This one thing I do’ could well be the family motto. They have not been assigned to a prominent place in the work of the world, but rather to the most hidden and hopeless part. But, by their persistence of purpose, they have done much to lift up and make popular, in a good sense, missionary work in general, and particularly work for the Indians. It is a record that will shine brighter and brighter through the ages. Eight children and thirteen grandchildren born on missionary ground, and a total of one hundred and fifty-eight years of missionary work.

“But the end is not yet. They have just begun to get their implements into working order. Their training-schools are just beginning to bear fruit. Most fittingly, a few days before the gathering began, came a large invoice of the entire Bible in Dakota, the joint work of Dr. Riggs and his beloved friend and fellow-worker, Dr. Williamson, who has just gone home to his rest. At the same time came the final proof-sheets of a goodly-sized hymn and tune book for the Dakotas, mainly the work of the eldest sons of the two translators of the Bible. The harvest that has been is nothing to the harvest that is to be. Dr. Riggs may reasonably hope to see more stations occupied, more books made, more churches organized in the future than he has seen in the past. When the final record is made, he will have the title to a great rejoicing that he and his family were permitted by the Master to do so much to make a sinful world loyal again to its rightful Lord.”

Martha’s paper, which was read on that occasion, is a very touching description of a missionary journey made under difficulties, six years before, from Sisseton to Yankton Agency.

“GOING TO MISSION MEETING.

“As I sit on the doorsteps in the twilight, the little ones asleep in their beds, I hear a solitary attendant on the choir-meeting singing. His voice rings out clearly on the night air:—

“‘Jesus Christ nitowashte kin

Woptecashni mayaqu’—

singing it to the tune, Watchman.

“That tune has a peculiar fascination and association for me, and my thoughts often go back over the time when I first heard it.

“It was in the month of roses, in the year ’73, that, in company with some of the Renvilles and others, I undertook a land journey to the Missouri. I had with me the lad Harry, then five years old, and a sunny-haired boy of nearly a year, little Philip Alfred. He never knew his name here. Does he know it now? Or has he another, an ‘angel name’?

“The rains had been abundant, and the roads were neither very good nor very well traveled. So some unnecessary time was spent in winding about among marshes, and we made slow progress. More than once we came to a creek or a slough where the water came into the wagons. The Indian women shouldered their babies and bundles as well, and trudged through, with the exception of Ellen Phelps and Mrs. Elias Gilbert. Their husbands were so much of white men as to shoulder their wives and carry them across. Being myself a privileged person, I was permitted to ride over, first mounting the seat to the wagon, holding on for dear life to the wagon-bows with one hand, and to the sunny-haired boy with the other.

“By the end of the week we had only reached the Big Sioux, which we found up and booming. I was crossed over in a canoe with my two children, the stout arms of two Indian women paddling me over. Then we climbed up the bank, and waited for the wagons to come around by some more fordable place down below. While waiting, I talked awhile with Mrs. Wind, who had been a neighbor of ours on the Coteau. Her lawful husband, a man of strong and ungoverned passions, had grown tired of her and taken another woman. So Mrs. Wind, who had borne with his overbearing and his occasional beatings, quietly left him. This was an indignity her proud spirit could not brook. She went to the River Bend Settlement to live with her son, and there I saw her. I said to her, ‘Shall you go back to the hill country?’ ‘No,’ she said; ‘the man has taken another wife, and I shall not go.’ I have since heard of her from time to time, and she still remains faithful.

“The Sabbath over, we went on again re-inforced by the delegation from Flandreau. Reaching Sioux Falls in the afternoon, we avoided the town, and went on to a point where some one thought the river might be fordable. But alas! we found we had been indulging in vain expectations. The river was not fordable, and canoe or ferry-boat there was none. But necessity is the mother of invention. The largest and strongest wagon-box was selected, the best wagon-cover laid on the ground, the boat lifted in, and, with the aid of various ropes, an impromptu boat was made ready. Long ropes were tied securely to either end, poles laid across the box to keep things out of the water, and then the boat was launched. The men piled in the various possessions of different ones and as many women and children as they thought safe. Then four of the best swimmers took the ropes and swam up the river for quite a distance, coming down with the current, and so gaining the other shore. This occupied some time, and was repeated slowly until night came on, finding the company partly on one side and partly on the other. The wagon, in which we had made our bed o’ nights, not being in a condition for sleeping in, as the box lay by the river-side all water-soaked, Edwin Phelps and Ellen, his wife, kindly vacated theirs for our benefit, themselves sleeping on the ground. When the early morning came, the camp was soon astir, and, breakfast being hastily despatched, the work of crossing over was renewed. I watched them drive over the horses; the poor animals were very loath to make a plunge, and some of them turned and ran back on the prairie more than once before they were finally forced into the water. When most of the others were over it came my turn to cross. The so-called boat looked rather shaky, but there was nothing to do but to get in and take one’s chance. So I climbed in, keeping as well as I could out of the water, which seemed to nearly fill the wagon-box. Some one handed the two children in, and, holding tightly to them, I resigned myself to the passage. At one time I heard a great outcry, but could not distinguish any words, and so sat still, unconscious that one of the ropes had broken, rendering the boat more unsafe still. At last I was safely over, thankful enough. When finally every thing and everybody were across, and the boat restored to its proper place, we started on our way, at about ten o’clock in the morning. To make up for the late starting, the teams were driven hard and long, and the twilight had already gathered when we stopped for the night. After I had given my children a simple supper, and they were hushed to sleep, I looked out on the picturesque scene. The great red moon was rising in the sky, and in its light the travelers had gathered around the camp-fire for their evening devotions. As I walked across to join them, they were singing:—

“‘Jesus Christ, nitowashte kin

Woptecashni mayaqu’—

“Jesus Christ, thy loving kindness

Boundlessly thou givest me’—

to the tune Watchman. It struck my fancy, and I seldom hear it now without thinking of that night, and of the sunny-haired boy who was then taking his last earthly journey, and who has all these years been learning of the goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ in all its wonderful fulness. An incident of one day’s travel remains clear in my mind. The lad Harry often grew tired and restless, as was not strange, and so sometimes he was somewhat careless too. In an unguarded moment, he fell out, and one of the hind wheels passed over his body. How I held my breath until the horses could be stopped and the boy reached! It seemed a great marvel that he had received no injury. It was surely the goodness of the Lord that had kept him from harm.

“On Wednesday we came into Yankton, where I bought a quantity of beef, wishing to show my appreciation of the labors of the men in our behalf. So when camp was made at night the women had it to make into soup, and, almost before it seemed that the water could have fairly boiled, all hands were called to eat of it, and it was despatched with great celerity.

“The next afternoon a fierce storm broke over us, and we were compelled to stop for an hour or more, while the rain poured down in torrents and the heavens were one continual flame of light. When again we started on, every hole by the road-side had become a pool, and the water was rushing through every low place in streams. The rain retarded our progress greatly, yet we came in sight of the Yankton Agency before noon of the next day. Just as we reached it, we found a little creek to cross, where a bridge had been washed away the night before. The banks were almost perpendicular, and we held our breath as we watched one team after another go down and come up, feeling sure that some of the horses would go down and not come up again. But, to our great relief, all went safely over. And very soon we had arrived at the mission house occupied by Rev. J. P. Williamson and family, and were receiving the kindly welcomes of all. The hospitality there enjoyed was such as to make us almost forget our tedious journey thitherward.

“From my traveling companions I had received all possible kindness, yet in many ways I had found the journey quite trying. It was not practicable to vary one’s diet very much, with the care of the little ones just large enough to get into all mischief imaginable. So I remembered with especial gratitude Edwin and Ellen Phelps, who used now and then, at our stopping-places, to borrow the boy, so helping me to get a little rest or to do some necessary work which would otherwise have been impossible. At that time Edwin and his wife had no children, and their eyes often followed my boy with yearning looks. Since then the Lord has given them little ones to train for his kingdom, and they are happy.

“But of that little sunny-haired baby boy we have naught but a memory left—and this consolation:—

“‘Christ, the good Shepherd, carries my lamb to-night,

And that is best.’

“And this:—

“‘Mine entered spotless on eternal years,

Oh, how much blest!’”

During the meeting the tastes and needs of the children were not forgotten, but Aunt Anna held them attent to her memories of the old home-life, written for the grandchildren.

“Shut your eyes, and see with me the home place at Lac-qui-parle—a square house with a flat roof, a broad stone step before the wide-open door—cheery and sunshiny within. Welcome to grandfather’s home!

“To the right, in the distance, is the lake Mdeiyedan, where, like a tired child, the sun dropped his head to rest each night. Between us and the lake was a wooded ravine, at the foot of which, down that little by-path, was the coolest of springs, with wild touch-me-nots nodding above it, and a little further on a large boulder on which we used to play.

“It seems to us as if we had but just come in from a long summer’s walk, with our hands full of flowers, and each and every one must have a bouquet to set in his or her favorite window. The wind, blowing softly, brings with it a breath of sweet cleavers, and—well, so I must tell you what I remember.

“I can not stop to tell you of all the little things that made our home pleasant and lovely in our eyes; or of the dear mother who had it in her keeping, for I know all the grandchildren are waiting for their stories.

“Well, I will begin by telling the wee cousins about the family cat, Nelly Bly, and one of her kittens, Charlotte Corday. Kittens have some such cunning ways, you know, but Nelly Bly was one of the knowingest and best. She and her kitten were as much alike as two peas in a pod—jet-black, and with beautiful yellow-green eyes. Nelly Bly used to curl herself up to sleep in grandpa’s fur cap, or sometimes in grandma’s work-basket; and if she could do neither, she would find a friendly lap. One day poor pussy chose much too warm a place. Grandma had started up the kitchen fire, and was making preparations for dinner when she heard pussy mewing piteously—as she thought, in some other room. She went to the doors one by one to let pussy in, and no pussy appeared, but still she heard her mewing as if in pain. What could grandma do? She was neither down cellar nor up-stairs. She would look out-of-doors—but no—just then pussy screamed in an agony of pain. Grandma ran to the stove, opened the door, and pussy, as if shot out from a cannon’s mouth, came flying past us—her back singed and her poor little paws all burned. I can’t tell whether she learned the moral of that lesson or not, but I know she never was shut up in the oven again.

“Yet not so very long after, when the old house was burned, Nelly Bly and Charlotte Corday found a sadder fate. Poor little kittens!—we spent hour after hour searching for their bones, but with small success, and then we buried them with choking sobs and eyes wet with childish tears.

“Do not let me forget to tell you of Pembina and Flora, nor of the starry host that bedecked our barn-yard sky—every calf, however humble, was worthy of a name. There were our oxen, Dick and Darby, George and Jolly, and Leo and Scorpio, who used to weave along with stately swinging tread under their burden of hay. Then Spika and Denebola, Luna and Lyra—all worthy of honorable mention. Flora, gentle, but with an eye that terrified the little maid who sometimes milked her,—so, with wise forethought, a handful of salt was sometimes thrown into the bottom of her pail. You will hardly believe it, but she grew to be so fond of her pail that she found her way into the winter kitchen and anticipated her evening meal. How she ever got through two gates and two doors is a mystery still.

“And there was Pembina—how well we remember the day when grandpa brought home a new cow, and how we all went down to meet him, and named her and her calf, Little Dorrit, on the spot. She was the children’s cow par excellence, and blessings on her, we could all milk at a time. She had several bad habits, one of which was eating old clothes and paper, or rubbish generally. Once I remember she made a vain attempt at swallowing a beet, and if grandpa had not come in the nick of time to beat her on the back she would have been dead beat.

“Our horses, too, were a part of the family. There were Polly and Phenie, short for Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine—Fanny and Tattycoram (we had been reading Dickens then).

“I remember hearing our own mother tell of the ox they had when they lived at Traverse des Sioux, their only beast of burden, and how he used to stand and lick the window-panes, and how when the Indians shot him she felt as if she had lost a friend and companion.

“If these stories of our dear animal friends grow too tiresome, I might remember about the Squill family at Hazelwood—how they all, including Timothy and Theophilus, contributed something every week to a family paper. I wonder if Theophilus remembers writing an essay for—with red ink from his arm—and how Isabella said, ‘Now, be brave, Martha, be brave!’ when she was letting herself down from the topmost round of the ladder—and how Isabella, when beheading the pope in her fanatical zeal, split her forefinger with a chisel.

“These are a very few only of the rememberings—some of them are too sacred and too dear to speak about—but even these little incidents seem endeared by the long stretch of years.”