The Log School-House on the Columbia | Page 9

outside. Boston tilicum, let me speak to you a little. I am a father."
"Yes, and a good father."
"I am a father--you no understand--Boston tilicum--father. I want you to teach him like a father--not you understand?"
"Yes, I understand."
"Father--teacher--you, Boston tilicum."
"Yes, I understand, and I will be a father teacher to your Benjamin."
"I die some day. You understand?"
"Yes, I understand."
"You understand, Boston tilicum, you understand. What I want my boy to become that I am for my boy. That you be."
"Yes, Umatilla, I believe an Indian's word--you may trust mine. I will be to your boy what you may have him become. The Indian is true to his friends. I believe in you. I will be true."
The old chief drew his blanket round him proudly.
"Boston tilicum," said he, "if ever the day of trouble comes, I will protect you and the log school-house. You may trust my word. Indian speak true."
The tall schoolmaster bowed.
"Nika atte cepa" (I like you much), said the chief. "Potlatch shall no harm you. Klahyam klahhye--am!" (Good-by).
Mrs. Woods hurried homeward and tried to calm her excited mind by singing a very heroic old hymn:
"Come on, my partners in distress, My comrades in the wilderness, Who still your bodies feel."
The blue skies gleamed before her, and overhead wheeled a golden eagle. To her it was an emblem, a good omen, and her spirit became quiet and happy amid all the contradictions of her rough life. She sat down at last on the log before her door, with the somewhat strange remark:
"I do hate Injuns; _nevertheless_--"
Mrs. Woods was accustomed to correct the wrong tendencies of her heart and tongue by this word "nevertheless," which she used as an incomplete sentence. This "nevertheless" seemed to express her better self; to correct the rude tendencies of her nature. Had she been educated in her early days, this tendency to self-correction would have made her an ideal woman, but she owed nearly all her intellectual training to the sermons of the Rev. Jason Lee, which she had heard in some obscure corner of a room, or in Methodist chapel, or under the trees.
Her early experience with the Indians had not made her a friend to the native races, notwithstanding the missionary labors of the Rev. Jason Lee. The first Indian that made her a visit on the donation claim did not leave a favorable impression on her mind.
This Indian had come to her door while she was engaged in the very hard work of sawing wood. He had never seen a saw before, and, as it seemed to him to be a part of the woman herself, he approached her with awe and wonder. That the saw should eat through the wood appeared to him a veritable miracle.
Mrs. Woods, unaware of her visitor, paused to take breath, looked up, beheld the tall form with staring eyes, and started back.
"Medicine-woman--conjure!" said the Indian, in Chinook.
Mrs. Woods was filled with terror, but a moment's thought recalled her resolution. She lifted her hand, and, pointing to the saw in the wood, she said, with a commanding tone:
"Saw!"
The Indian obeyed awkwardly, and wondering at the progress of the teeth of the saw through the wood. It was a hot day; the poor Indian soon became tired, and stopped work with a beating heart and bursting veins.
"Saw--saw!" said Mrs. Woods, with a sweep of her hands, as though some mysterious fate depended upon the order.
The saw went very hard now, for he did not know how to use it, and the wood was hard, and the Indian's only thought seemed to be how to escape. Mrs. Woods held him in her power by a kind of mental magnetism, like that which Queen Margaret exercised over the robber.
"Water!" at last gasped the Indian.
"Saw--saw!" said Mrs. Woods; then turned away to bring him water.
When she looked around again, an unexpected sight met her eyes. The Indian was flying away, taking the saw with him. She never beheld either again, and it was a long time before any Indian appeared at the clearing after this odd event, though Mrs. Woods ultimately had many adventures among the wandering Siwashes.
A saw was no common loss in these times of but few mechanical implements in Oregon, and Mrs. Woods did not soon forgive the Indian for taking away what he probably regarded as an instrument of torture.
"I do hate Injuns!" she would often say; but quite likely would soon after be heard singing one of the hymns of the missionaries at the Dalles:
"O'er Columbia's wide-spread forests Haste, ye heralds of the Lamb; Teach the red man, wildly roaming, Faith in Immanuel's name,"
which, if poor poetry, was very inspiring.
CHAPTER III.
BOSTON TILICUM.
Marlowe Mann--"Boston tilicum," as the Siwashes called all the missionaries, teachers, and traders from the East--sat down upon a bench of split log and leaned