My pupils were a wild-looking lot of little folk, with painted and dirt-begrimed faces and long, uncombed hair. Some of them were clothed in little print shirts, others had a small piece of blanket pinned around them, while some had no clothing at all.
One of the first difficulties was my ignorance of their language. Hence I had to use the language of signs. Beckoning and pointing to the school-house, I sought to persuade them to come into school. They would look at me, laugh at my efforts, and make a bolt for the bushes near by. Sometimes I made an attempt to capture them, but they would run like wild hares, and I could not get near them.
I had always a love for children, and prided myself on my ability to win them; but these, I was afraid, were going to outdo me.
INDIAN CHURCH AND MISSION HOUSE AT NANAIMO.
Finally I took an Indian with me to the woods and secured two stout poles or posts, with which we fixed up a swing at the back of the school-house. Then I started again with my sign language, and at last succeeded in getting one of them into the swing. As I swung the little fellow to and fro I noticed the others peeping out curiously from among the bushes. Pointing to the swing and then to the school-house, I beckoned to them, as much as to say, “If you come here and have a swing you will have to go to school.” By this means I got acquainted with them and won their confidence.
As I saw the difficulty of reaching them, my struggle to secure a knowledge of their language became intense. Often in the night I would be found on my knees praying to God to help me to get my tongue around the difficult guttural tones.
One who has never tried it cannot fully realize the difficulty of securing a language without grammar or printed vocabulary. I had to make my own dictionary little by little. First I got a small book and put down English words on the one side, and when I learned their Indian equivalents put them down on the other. Day by day I got fresh words, and when walking about visiting the sick or looking after my pupils I would be pronouncing the words I had secured.
Finally I got my first sentence together and started through the village one morning shouting as hard as I could shout, and making the sounds as much like an old Indian as possible: “Muck-stow-ay-wilth May-tla ta school”—“All children come to school,” repeating this again and again as I went along.