And so the month of September, 1846, found us travelling over the same road that we had gone on our first journey, just nine years before. Then we two had gone; now we had with us our four little ones, but it was a sad journey. The mother’s heart was not convinced, nor was it satisfied we had done right, until some time after we reached Lac-qui-parle.
MARY’S STORY.
“Traverse des Sioux, Sept. 17, 1846.
“This is probably the last letter I shall write you from this spot so dear to us. If I could see that it was duty to go, it would cheer me in the preparations for our departure, but I cannot feel that the interests of the mission required such a sacrifice as leaving this home is to me.
“These are some of the thoughts that darken the prospect, when I think of leaving the comforts and conveniences which we have only enjoyed one or two short summers—such as the enclosure for our children—our rude back porch which has served for a kitchen, the door into which I helped Mr. Riggs saw with a cross-cut saw, because he could get no one to help him. We located here in the midst of opposition and danger, yet God made our enemies to be at peace with us. Sad will be the hour when I take the last look of our low log cabins, our neat white chapel, and dear Thomas’ grave.”
“Lac-qui-Parle, Dec. 10, 1846.
“How pleasant it would be, dear mother, to join your little circle around home’s hearth; but it is vain to wish, and so I take my pen, that this transcript of my heart may enter where I cannot. In one of the late New York Observers, I found a gem of poetry, which seemed so much like the gushings of my affection for my mother that I must send you the verse which pleased me best:—
“‘Give me my old seat, mother,
With my head upon thy knee;
I’ve passed through many a changing scene,
Since thus I sat by thee,
“Oh, let me look into thine eyes—
Their meek, soft, loving light
Falls like a gleam of holiness,
Upon my heart, to-night!’
“How very often have I found myself half wishing for my old seat, with my head upon thy knee, that I might impart to you my joys and my sorrows, and listen to your own. In times of difficulty and distress, how I have longed for your counsel and cheering sympathy. After leaving our home at Traverse des Sioux and reaching this place, my heart yearned to embrace you. My associates could not comprehend why it should be so trying to me to leave that place so dear to us. I had hoped to live and die and be buried there by the loved grave of Thomas. I had laid plans for usefulness there, and the change that came over us in one short week, during which we packed all our effects and prepared for the journey, was so sudden and so great that it often seemed I should sink under it. Had I been able to see it clearly our duty, the case would have been different. I hope it will prove for the best. Doubtless I was too much attached to that burial spot and that garden of roses. Henceforth, may I more fully realize that ‘we have no abiding city here,’ and, like a pilgrim, press onward to that eternal haven—that unchanging home—little mindful where I pass the few brief nights that may intervene.”
“Dec. 16.
“You will, I think, feel gratified to know that there are some things pleasant and encouraging here, notwithstanding the discouragements. The sound of the church-going bell is heard here—the bell which we purchased with the avails of moccasins donated by the church members. Some of those contributors are dead, and others have backslidden or removed; still, there are more hearers of the Word here than at Traverse des Sioux, although the large majority in both places turn a deaf ear to the calls and entreaties of the Gospel. Quite a number of the women who attend the Sabbath services can read, but some of them can not find the hymns, and I enjoy very much finding the places for them.”
Our place at the Traverse was filled by Mr. A. G. Huggins’ family, who thenceforward became associated with Mr. Hopkins, until they closed their connection with the mission work. Fanny Huggins had married Jonas Pettijohn, and they were our helpers at Lac-qui-parle for the next five years.
The time seemed to have come when our relations to the Indians should, if possible, be placed upon a better basis. From the time that the chief men came to understand that the religion of Christ was an exclusive religion, that it would require the giving up of their ancestral faith, they set themselves in opposition to it. Sometimes this was shown in their persecution of the native Christians, forbidding them to attend our meetings, and cutting up the blankets of those who came. Sometimes it was exhibited in the order that the children should not attend school. But the organized determination to drive us from the country showed itself most decidedly in killing our cattle. We could not continue in the country, and make ourselves comfortable, without a team of some kind. This, then, was to be their policy. They would kill our cattle. They would steal our horses. And they had so persistently held to this line of treatment, during the last four years, that Dr. Williamson and his associates had with difficulty kept a team of any kind. Once they were obliged to hitch up milch cows to haul firewood.
The Indians said we were trespassers in their country, and they had a right to take reprisals. We used their wood and their water, and pastured our animals on their grass, and gave them no adequate pay. We had helped them get larger corn-patches by ploughing for them, we had furnished food and medicines to their sick ones, we had often clothed their naked ones, we had spent and been spent in their service, but all this was, in their estimation, no compensation for the field we planted, and the fuel we used, and the grass we cut, and the water we drank. They were worth a thousand dollars a year!
And so it seemed to me the time had come when some better understanding should be reached in regard to these things. I called the principal men of the village—Oo-pe-ya-hdaya, Inyangmane, and Wakanmane, and others—and told them that, as Dr. Williamson was called away by the Lower Indians, my wife and I had been sent back to Lac-qui-parle, but we would stay only on certain conditions. We knew them and they knew us. If we could stay with them as friends, and be treated as friends, we would stay. We came to teach them and their children. But if then, or at any time afterward, we learned that the whole village did not want us to stay, we would go home to our friends. For the help we gave them, the water we used must be free, the wood to keep us warm must be free, the grass our cattle ate must be free, and the field we planted must be free; but when we wanted their best timber to build houses with, which we should do, I would pay them liberally for it. This arrangement they said was satisfactory, and soon afterward we bought from them the timber we used in erecting two frame houses.