When the autumn came, the victories of the Sioux had been turned into a general defeat. Many of them, as they claim, had been opposed to the war all along. The attacks, they say, were all made by the white soldiers. They—these Dakota men—were anxious to have peace, and used all their influence to abate the war spirit among the more excited young men. This made it possible for the military to carry out the order to dismount and disarm the Sioux. But in doing this all were treated alike as foes. Such men as Long Mandan complain bitterly of this injustice. From him and his connections the military took sixty-two horses. He cannot see the righteousness of it.
As a matter of course, this excited state of the community was unfavorable, in some respects, to missionary work during the winter. The military control attempted to interfere with the sending away of Teeton young men to the Santee school. But on the whole no year of work has proved more profitable. In all the schools, Thomas reported about two hundred and forty scholars. They were necessarily irregular in attendance, as they were frequently ordered up to the agency to be counted. Still, the willing hearts and hands had work to do all the time. And so the spring of 1877 came, when the women folks of Bogue Station had all planned to have a little rest. Mrs. Nina Riggs was to go as far as Chicago to meet her father and mother from Bangor. Miss Collins and Miss Whipple were going to visit their friends in Iowa and Wisconsin. And so they all prepared for the journey and waited for a boat. By some mischance boats slid by them. They put their tent on the riverbank and waited. So a whole month had passed, when, at last, their patient waiting was rewarded, and they passed down the Missouri River and on to Chicago.
The ladies of the Woman’s Board of the Interior had arranged to have them present and take an active part in several public meetings in and around Chicago. This was unwise for the toilers among the Dakotas. The excitement of waiting and travel—the summer season—the strain on the nervous system incident to speaking in public, to those unaccustomed to it—all these were unfavorable to the rest they needed. We must not quarrel with the Lord’s plan, but we may object to the human unwisdom. So it was; before Miss Whipple had visited her friends she was stricken down with fever. Loving hearts and willing hands could not stay its progress. It is said, and we do not doubt it, that all was done for her recovery that kind and anxious friends could do. Miss Collins, her special friend, did not leave her. Delirium came on, and she was waiting for the boat. It was not now a Missouri steamer, but the boat that angels bring across from the Land of Life. She saw it coming. “The boat has come and I must step in,” she said. And so she did, and passed over to the farther shore of the river.
The Teetons say, “Two young women went away, and one of them is not coming back. They say she has gone to the land of spirits. It has been so before. Miss Bishop went away, and we did not see her again. And now we shall not see Miss Whipple any more.” So they mourn with us. But, while the workers fall, their work will not fail. It is the work for which Christ came from the bosom of the Father; and, as he lives now, so he “shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.”
Dear Miss Whipple’s death came upon us like a thunder-clap. We are dumb, because the Lord has done it. Nevertheless, it has made our hearts very sad and interfered with our plans of work. But we can say, “Not in our way, but in Thy way, shall the work be done.” A fitting tribute from Mrs. Nina Riggs will be found very interesting.
“Miss J. E. Whipple died of gastric fever at Chicago, August 11, aged 24. For nearly two years she had been connected with the Dakota Mission among the Teeton Indians. And she left her work there last spring, in order to take a short vacation and visit among her friends. On her way from her sister’s home in Knoxville, Ill., to the home of her father at Badger, Wis., she was attacked by the disease which proved fatal. Through all her sickness to the end, she was tenderly and lovingly cared for by Miss Mary Collins, her intimate friend and companion in missionary labor. In the summer of 1875, Miss Whipple gave herself to the cause of missions, and entered upon her work in the autumn of that same year. She had little idea of what she should be called to do, but self-consecration was the beginning of all, and so, whatever work was given her to do, she took it up cheerfully and earnestly, yielding time and strength and zeal to it. Though it seemed small, she did not scorn it; though repugnant, she did not shirk it; though hard, she bravely bore it. Her merry smile, her thoughtful mind, her quick response, the work of her strong, shapely hands, all blessed our mission home. She came a stranger to us, but when she left us in the spring, only for a summer’s vacation as we thought, she was our true and well beloved friend.
“They tell me she is dead! When the word reached us, already was the dear form laid away by loving hands to its last rest.
“Dead! The house is full of her presence, the work of her hands is about us, the echo of her voice is in our morning and vesper hymns, the women and children whom she taught to sew and knit, and the men whom she taught to read and write, gather about the doorway. Even now beneath the workman’s hammer is rising the chapel, for which she hoped and prayed and labored.
“Dead? No! The power of her strong young life is still making itself felt, though the bodily presence is removed from us, nor can that power cease so long as the work she loved is a living work.
“‘The children all about are sad,’ said an Indian woman. ‘I too am sorrowful. I wanted to see her again.’ The little Theodore, whom she had loved and tended, folded his hands and prayed, ‘Bless Miss Emmie up in heaven,—she was sick and died and went to heaven,—and bring her back some time.’ Sweet, childish prayer that would fain reach out with benediction to her who is beyond the reach of our blessing, eternally blest.