"The fields are white already to harvest." Great is the opportunity of the rich and enlightened churches. The helpfulness of our schools to my people and to the country, is beyond calculation. Our missionary schools are like so many lighthouses along this dark belt of the Union. Their light is being reflected by thousands of colored youth who without these schools would have grown up in gross ignorance.
This brings to mind an incident of my life, which now I believe was providential. Seventeen years ago, when my education was very limited, while working in a restaurant, I visited Talladega College and was deeply impressed with the school, and the intelligence and advancement of the boys. I decided that I would enter school immediately, and did so, though my money was scarce and a few weeks before I had agreed to continue work in the restaurant at twelve dollars per month, board and bed furnished. That was good wages for a boy of my age, but I know now that giving it up and going to school was a thousand times higher wages for me. I felt my imperfections so keenly then I was ashamed to talk to the boys in the college. The stimulation for an education, which I received on that visit to Talladega College has never left me. I regard it most fortunate for an ignorant young man to visit our best schools.
THE INDIANS
FORT YATES, DAKOTA.
MISS M.C. COLLINS.
During the recent measles epidemic a large number of children died on the Agency. At this village, a little child had been conjured until they thought it was dying, and then they sent for me. I found the poor little one all bruised with the hands of the conjurer. I showed the mother how to bathe it, and I poulticed the throat and sent Josephine over again to change the poultice, and she reported the child as breathing quietly. The next morning the swelling had gone down and the baby seemed much better; all day it continued to improve, and the next day sat up and ate rice soup which I carried it. The mother said, "She is well now!" I said, "O, no, she is not; keep her in the house three days and I will visit her, then she will be well perhaps." If an Indian is not in a dying condition, they do not consider anything the matter. So, after I left, she took her child out and walked about two miles. The child caught cold, and that afternoon grew worse. They had an Indian to conjure it, and it died immediately. They sent for me to come and pray with them. Josephine went for Elias, and we went to the desolate home. The baby had been dead an hour and was closed up in a box, the grandfather singing a mourning song, the mother wailing, "O my daughter, my daughter, I loved her and she has left me." Over and over again she cried out in her sorrow. The grandmother had cut her flesh, and the streams of blood running down from her hair over her face only made all seem more desolate, and more weird and terrible. They were trying to be Indians, and yet they had asked for me to come. I suppose it was to give the child the full benefit of both religions, so that there should be no mistake in the future world.
My Bible class now numbers ten; six of them are candidates for church membership. One of them spoke very nicely at our last prayer meeting. Among other things he said: "No man can kill God's Word. It will live and his church will grow. We have tried to kill it in this village, but look at it now. It has taken hold of us, and we who have fought against it are now its followers. No man can kill God, because he alone is the creator of life, and it is only foolish to try to stand upon his word and keep it down. The Indian customs fall before the Word of God wherever the Bible has gone. My friends, stop fighting against God, believe on him and rejoice." This is Wakutemani (Walking Hunter) whom I named Huntington Wolcott for Mr. Wolcott of Boston. Because he said he wanted a long name and the name of a good man, I combined the two. He is now ambitious to become a teacher. He will be ready for an out-station whenever you are able to build one. He says they have already asked him to come up on Oak Creek to teach them, and I gave him a Bible and hymn books and primer, and he goes about reading and singing and praying for Christ. May he be indeed the Walking Hunter, going about seeking souls. God be with him to the end.
Nearly all of our Indians signed the bill to open the reservation. John Grass took the lead. He is a very wise man, and a good one for an Indian who represents the wild Indians. I attended all the sessions of the Council except the last. I see by the papers that a Roman Catholic priest on this Agency says he touched the pen first, and that caused all the Indians to sign. Grass says he wants me to dispute that, that he refused to sign last year because he did not like the bill. This year, the Commissioners were men of brains and the bill was a better one, and was so explained that the Indians understood it, and that they of their own accord thought the best thing they could do was to sign it, that the said priest had no power or influence over them whatever. He said, "Tell our friends this for me, and tell them the Commissioners know that we signed it of our own will because we believed it was for the good of our people." I told him I would write it East.