“A little paper, the ‘Northern Star,’ is printed at the school, and gives all the latest items of news concerning it. It costs fifty cents a year, and the gentle lady who conducted us through the buildings was so pleased when two or three of us subscribed. Of course the paper comes irregularly in the winter, when the sea-passages are dangerous with fogs and icebergs; but you are sure to get all your numbers sooner or later.
“I wish you could have seen Mr. Percival sitting in the Mission Parlor, holding a dot of a Thlinket child on each knee! One of them was named Marion, and the other had a long, funny Indian name that I forgot the beginning of, before she’d got to the end of it.
“The scholars had a prayer meeting at the close of day, and sang our dear, familiar hymns with strange words to them. Here is one verse of ‘I am so glad that Jesus loves me,’ in the Thlinket tongue:
“‘Hä ish dickeewoo ŭhtoowoo yŭkeh
Hä een ukkonniknooch dookoosăhŭnne,
Thlēkoodze ut dookookwoo kädā häteen:
Uh yŭkeh klŭh hutsehunne Jesus.
Cho. Uhtoowoo yŭkeh Jesus hŭtsehŭ,
Jesus hutsehun, Jesus hutsehun;
Uhtoowoo yŭkeh Jesus hutsehun;
Jesus kluh hutsehun.’
“It seems as if Our Father must smile tenderly when he hears such uncouth sounds. Yet he understands them all, and answers each shyly murmured Sitka prayer, just as he does the ‘Now I lay me,’ lisped by New England baby lips.
“The long, beautiful Northern day drew to a close. We left the bustling town, and walking past the Mission School, kept on around the shore of the bay. Now the path wound in and out of the forest; now it emerged upon the beach, where the ripples softly patted the sand and laughed and played together. Before long we reached the banks of Indian River, and crossed it by a rustic foot-bridge. The air was fragrant with odors of balsam fir and all the cool, delicious scents of the forest. We turned back toward the ship. Although it was near the hour of ten, the western sky was all golden with sunset. Against it rose the delicate spire of the Russian church, and the sturdy bulk of the castle. Out across the bay the gulls and ravens wavered their slow way among the islands.”
[CHAPTER XII.]
THE “CHICHAGOFF DECADE.”
“We have two whole days before us,” said Kittie the next morning, as she promenaded up and down the deck with Fred, “and the steamer is going right over the same path we took in coming. Can’t we get up something new so as to have some fun?”