Missionary Work Among the Ojebway Indians | Page 8

more upon a beaten track; but whether it was the right one or not we could not tell. However we followed it, and almost before we were aware we found ourselves out of the bush and standing on a broad clay road, and at length we arrived at Forest Station in good time for the cars to Sarnia.
After this we visited Kettle Point every fortnight, and many were the amusing incidents connected with those trips. Sometimes I drove the whole distance in my own trap, at other times took train to Forest or Widder, and some of the Indians would meet me with a waggon or sleigh, as the case might be, at the Station. It was on the 9th of September that we commenced our school in the vacant log-house. We began with A, B, C, as no one yet knew anything. There were eleven children and five adults present. I was amused in the evening to see a game of draughts going on, on a log outside the Chief's house; the draught-board was a flat part of the log with squares carved out on its surface, the black men were squares of pumpkin rind with green side up, the white men the same with the green side down. That night we slept at Adam Sahpah's house.
Our sleeping places on these Kettle Point expeditions were various. One bitterly cold night in the late autumn, I remember, passing in a little boarded shanty used as a workshop. We were nearly perished in the morning, and were glad to get inside David Sahpah's comfortable log-house; a huge fire was blazing on the hearth, and the Indian women all busy, some with their pots and frying-pans, boiling potatoes and baking cakes, others dressing and cleaning the children. Mrs. Ahbettuhwahnuhgund gave me a chair, and down I sat by the blazing fire and gazed with a feeling of happy contentment into the yellow flames. The scene was certainly a novel one. In a dark corner by the chimney sat a dirty old couple on the couch where they had been passing the night; they were visitors from Muncey Town, and were staying a few nights only at Kettle Point. The old woman lighted up her pipe, and whiffed away with her eyes half shut; after enjoying it for about twenty minutes or so, her old husband thought she had had enough, and taking it from her put it in his own mouth and had his whiff. When he had done, he restored it again to his wife. Underneath another old bedstead were a couple of large dogs, which occasionally let their voices be heard in a dispute; some of the stones on one side of the fire-place had broken away, making a little window through which the dogs could reach the fire, and it was amusing to see how they put their noses and paws through the opening and warmed themselves just like human beings. Down in another corner sat an antiquated old woman enveloped in a blanket, and in vain endeavouring to comfort a little fat boy of about ten months who was crying, as only children know how to cry, for his mother. Finding that she could not content the baby, she at length got up, and taking off her blanket, put one end of it round the baby's shoulders, tucked the ends under its arms, and then with one sweep placed baby and blanket together on her back, and with one or two pulls once more got the blanket wrapped completely round her, and the little fat boy snugly ensconced between her shoulders; then she marched off to give him an airing. The bigger children were set to clean themselves, a tin bowl of water and a towel being given them in turns. I was wondering whether my turn would come, when Mrs. Ahbettuhwahnuhgund, having once more filled the bowl, addressed me with the words, "Maund'uhpe," which in polite English would mean, "Here you are!" "Ah, meegwach, ahpecte"--"thank you kindly"--said I, and forthwith began my ablutions, while the children stood around me in wonderment.
One night I slept with a pig. It was a vacant room in the Chief's new house. After our services were over and we had had supper, Mrs. Ahbettuhwahnuhgund took a clean blanket on her shoulder and a lantern in her hand, and calling me to follow led me to the apartment. There was a bedstead with a mattress on it in a corner, and on two chairs in the middle of the room lay a pig which had been killed the day before. Early next morning, before I was fully awake, the door opened, and Mrs. Ahbettuhwahnuhgund appeared with a knife in her hand. What could she want at this hour in the morning? I opened