“Traverse des Sioux, July 13, 1844.
“... The Indians and the babies, the chickens and the mice, seem leagued to destroy the flowers, and they have wellnigh succeeded. Perhaps you will wonder why I should bestow any of my precious time on flowers, when their cultivation is attended with so many difficulties. The principal reason is that I find my mind needs some such cheering relaxation. In leaving my childhood’s home for this Indian land, you know, my dear mother, I left almost everything I held dear, and gave up almost every innocent pleasure I once enjoyed. Much as I may have failed in many respects, I am persuaded there was a firmness of purpose, to count no necessary sacrifice too great to be made. I do not think I have made what should be called great sacrifices, but I am using the phrase as it is often used, and I am conscious that, in some respects, I have tasked myself too hard. I feel that I have grown old beyond my years. Even the last year has added greatly to my gray hairs. I have been spending my strength too rapidly, and I have often neglected to apply to Him for strength of whom Isaiah says, ‘He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.’ How beautiful and precious is the promise to those who wait upon the Lord! When ‘even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall’; ‘they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings, as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.’ Oh, if we could live by faith, the difficulties and the trials of the way would not greatly trouble or distress us.”
In the spring of 1844, Robert and Agnes Hopkins came down from Lac-qui-parle, and, for the next seven years, were identified with the missionary work at Traverse des Sioux. The opposition to our remaining gradually died away and was lived down. Louis Provencalle, the trader, alias Le Bland, had probably tried to carry water on both shoulders, but he was thoroughly converted to our friendship by an accident which happened to himself. The old gentleman was carrying corn, in strings, into his upper chamber by an outside ladder. With a load of this corn on his back, he fell and caught on his picket fence, the sharp-pointed wood making a terrible hole in his flesh. For months I visited him almost daily and dressed his wound. He recovered, and, although he was not the less a Romanist, he and his family often came to our meetings, and were our fast friends. Perhaps some seeds of truth were then sown, which bore fruit in the family a score of years afterward.
Thus we had, occasionally, an opportunity to help a fellow white man in trouble. It was one Saturday in the early part of September, while we were at work on our school-house, that an Indian runner came in from Swan Lake, to tell us that a “ghost” had come to their camp. A white man had come in in the most forlorn and destitute condition. The story is well told by Mary in her letters home.
“Traverse des Sioux, Oct. 10, 1844.
“We have just returned in safety, after spending a week very pleasantly and profitably at Lac-qui-parle. An armed force, from Forts Snelling and Atkinson, have recently passed up to Lake Traverse, to obtain the murderers of an American killed by a Sisseton war-party this summer.
“The circumstances of the murder were very aggravating, as communicated to us by the only known survivor. A gentleman from the State of Missouri, Turner by name, with three men, were on their way to Fort Snelling with a drove of cattle for the Indians. Being unacquainted with the country, they wandered to the north-west, when they were met by a war-party of Sisseton Sioux, returning from an unsuccessful raid upon the Ojibwas. Finding them where they did, on their way apparently to the Red River of the North, they supposed they belonged to that settlement, with whom they had recently had a quarrel about hunting buffalo. And so they commenced to treat these white men roughly, demanding their horses, guns, and clothes. One man resisted and was killed, the others were robbed. Shirts, drawers, hats, and vests were all that were left them. Some of the cattle were killed, and the rest fled. One of the Americans, with some Indians, were sent after them, but he made his escape, and was never heard of again. The next morning, the other two were permitted to leave, but the only requests they made, for their coats, a knife, and a life-preserver, were not granted.
“The second and third day after this escape, they saw the cattle, and if only a knife had been spared them, they might have supplied themselves with provisions, but as they were, it was safest, they thought, to hasten on. On the fourth day they came to a stream too deep to ford, and Turner could not swim. Poor Bennett attempted to swim with him, but was drawn under several times, and, to save his own life, was obliged to disengage himself from Turner, who was drowned. Bennett came on alone five days, finding nothing to eat but hazel-nuts, when at length he came in sight of the Sioux Lodges at Swan Lake. He lay awake that night deliberating whether he should go to them or not. ‘If I went,’ he said, ‘I expected they would kill me; if I did not go, I knew I must die, and I concluded to go, for I could but die.’
“The next morning he tottered toward the Sioux camp. Ever and anon he stopped and hid in the grass. The Dakotas watched his movements. Some young men went out to meet him, but Bennett was afraid of them, and tried to crawl away. When the old man Sleepy Eyes himself came in sight, his benevolent, honest countenance assured the young white man, and he staggered toward the Dakota chief. His confidence was not misplaced. Sleepy Eyes took the wanage ghost, as they called him, to his tent, and his daughter made bread for him of flour, which the old man had bought of us a few days before; and Bennett declared he never ate such good bread in his life. Mr. Riggs brought him home, for which he said he was willing to be his servant forever. We furnished him with such clothing as we had, and after three weeks recruiting we sent him home. At Fort Snelling, he was furnished with money to go to his parents, whom he had left without their consent.
“Since our return from Lac-qui-parle, the Indians have been drunk less than for some time before. At one time quite a number of men came in a body and demanded powder, which Mr. Riggs intended giving them. I buttoned the door to prevent their entrance, as Mr. Riggs was not in at the moment, but the button flew into pieces as the sinewy arm of Tankamane pressed the latch. Some of the party were but slightly intoxicated. Those Mr. Riggs told positively that he should not listen to a request made by drunken men, notwithstanding their threatening ‘to soldier kill’ him—that is, to kill his horse. Tankamane was so drunk that he would not be silent enough to hear, until Mr. R. covered his mouth with his hand and commanded him to be still, and then assured them that he was not ready to give them the powder, and that they had better go home, which they did soon.
“I am not usually much alarmed, though often considerably excited. Some Sabbaths since, a party of Indians brought a keg of whiskey, and proposed drinking it in our new building, which is intended for a chapel and school-room. But the Lord did not permit this desecration. One of their number objected to the plan, and they drank it outside the door.”
When our school-house was erected and partly finished, our efforts at teaching took on more of regularity. It was a more convenient room to hold our Sabbath service in. In religious teaching, as well as in the school, Mr. Hopkins was an indefatigable worker. He learned the language slowly but well. Often he made visits to the Indian camps miles away. When the Dakotas of that neighborhood abstained for a while from drinking, we became encouraged to think that some good impressions were being made upon them. But there would come a new flooding of spirit water, and a revival of drinking. Thus our hopes were blasted.
“Traverse des Sioux, March 15, 1845.
“At the present time our Indian neighbors are absent, some at their sugar camps, and others hunting musk-rats. Thus far the season has not been favorable for making sugar, and we have purchased but a few pounds, giving in return flour or corn, of which we have but little to spare. Last spring, we procured our year’s supply from the Indians, and for the most of it we gave calico in exchange. Not for our sakes, but for the sake of our ragged and hungry neighbors, I should rejoice in their having an abundant supply. They eat sugar, during the season, as freely as we eat bread, and what they do not need for food they can exchange for clothing. But they will have but little for either, unless the weather is more favorable the last half than it has been the first part of this month. And they are so superstitious that some, I presume, will attribute the unpropitious sky and wind to our influence. Mr. Hopkins visited several camps about ten miles distant, soon after the first and thus far the only good sugar weather. One woman said to him, ‘You visited us last winter; before you came there were a great many deer, but afterward none; and now we have made some sugar, but you have come, and perhaps we shall make no more.’”
“June 23, 1845.
“My Dear Mother:—
“Having put our missionary cabin in order for the reception of Captains Sumner and Allen, and Dr. Nichols, of the army, I am reminded of home. I have not made half the preparation which you used to make to receive military company, and I could not if I would, neither would I if I could. I do, however, sometimes wish it afforded me more pleasure to receive such guests, when they occasionally pass through the country. We have so many uncivilized and so few civilized, and our circumstances are such that I almost shrink from trying to entertain company. I sometimes think that even mother, with all her hospitality, would become a little selfish if her kitchen, parlor, and dining-room were all one.”
This was the second military expedition made to secure the offenders of the Sisseton war-party. The one made in the fall of 1844 secured five Indians, but not the ones considered most guilty. But they made their escape on the way down to Traverse des Sioux. The expedition, to which reference is made above, was more successful. The Indians pledged themselves to deliver up the guilty men. They did so. Four men were delivered up and taken down to Dubuque, Iowa, where they were kept in confinement until winter. Then they were permitted to escape, and, strange to say, three of them died while making their way back, and one lived to reach his friends. It was very remarkable that three Indians should be placed over against three white men in the outcome of Providence.
“Aug. 15, 1845.
“Our garden enclosure extends around the back side and both ends of our mission house, while in front is a double log cabin, with a porch between. Back of the porch we have a very small bedroom, which our children now occupy, and back of our cabin, as it was first erected, we have a larger bedroom, which, by way of distinction, we call the nursery. The door from this room opens into the garden. The room does not extend half the length of the double log cabin, so that Mr. Hopkins has a room corresponding with our nursery, and then, between the two wings, we have two small windows, one in the children’s bedroom, and the other in our family-room. Shading the latter are Alfred’s morning-glories and a rose-bush. A shoot from this wild rose has often attracted my attention, as, day after day, it has continued its upward course. It is now seven feet high—the growth of a single season—and is still aspiring to be higher. Bowed beneath it is a sister stalk laden with rose-buds. Last year it was trampled upon by drunken Indians, but now our fence affords us some protection, and we flattered ourselves that our pumpkins and squashes would be unmolested. But we found, to our surprise, one day, that our garden had been stripped of the larger pumpkins the night previous. Our situation here, at a point where the roving sons of the prairie congregate, exposes us to annoyances of this kind more frequently than at other stations among the Sioux. I can sympathize very fully with Moffat in like grievances, which he mentions in his ‘Southern Africa.’”
“Jan. 29, 1846.
“For several Sabbaths past we have had a small congregation. It encourages us somewhat to see even a few induced to listen for a short time to the truths of the Gospel. But our chief encouragement is in God’s unfailing promises. The Indians here usually sit during the whole service, and sometimes smoke several times.
“For some weeks I have been teaching the female part of our school. Some days half a dozen black-eyed girls come, and then, again, only one or two. Their parents tell them that we ought to pay them for coming to school, and, although there have been no threats of cutting up the blankets of those who read, as there was last winter, they are still ridiculed and reproached. We have in various ways endeavored to reward them for regular attendance, in such a manner as not to favor the idea that we were hiring them.”