The Log School-House on the Columbia Part 19

His spirit had inspired first of all this orphan girl from the Rhine, who had been led here by a series of strange events. This girl had learned faith from her father's prayers. On the Rhine she had never so much as heard of the Columbia--the new Rhine of the sundown seas.

CHAPTER XIII.

A WARNING.

One evening, as Gretchen was sitting outside of the lodge, she saw the figure of a woman moving cautiously about in the dim openings of the fir-trees. It was not the form of an Indian woman--its movement was mysterious. Gretchen started up and stood looking into the darkening shadows of the firs. Suddenly the form came out of the clearing--it was Mrs. Woods. She waved her hand and beckoned to Gretchen, and then drew back into the forest and disappeared.

Gretchen went toward the openings where Mrs. Woods had so suddenly and strangely appeared. But no one was there. She wondered what the secret of the mysterious episode could be. She returned to the lodge, but said nothing about what she had seen. She pa.s.sed a sleepless night, and resolved to go to see her foster-mother on the following day.

So, after school the next afternoon, she returned to her old home for a brief visit, and to gain an explanation of the strange event of the evening before.

She found Mrs. Woods very sad, and evidently troubled by some ominous experience.

"So you saw me?" was her first salutation. "I didn't dare to come any further. They did not see me--did they?"

"But, mother, why did you go away--why did you come to the lodge?"

"O Gretchen, husband has been at home from the s.h.i.+ngle-mill, and he has told me something dreadful!"

"What, mother?"

"There's a conspiracy!"

"Where?"

"Among the Injuns. A friendly Injun told husband in secret that there would be no more seen of the log school-house after the Potlatch."

"Don't fear, mother; the chief and Benjamin will protect that."

"But that isn't all, Gretchen. Oh, I am so glad that you have come home!

There are dark shadows around us everywhere. I can feel 'em--can't you?

The atmosphere is all full of dark faces and evil thoughts. I can't bear to sleep alone here now. Gretchen, there's a plot to capture the schoolmaster."

"Don't fear, mother. I know Umatilla--he will never permit it."

"But, Gretchen, the Injun told husband something awful."

"What?"

"That the schoolmaster would one day perish as Dr. Whitman did. Dr.

Whitman was stricken down by the Injun whom he regarded as his best friend, and he never knew who dealt the blow. He went out of life like one smitten by lightning. O Gretchen!"

"But, mother, I do not fear. The Indians thought that Dr. Whitman was a conjurer. We make people true, the master says, by putting confidence in them. I believe in the old chief and in Benjamin, and there will no evil ever come to the schoolmaster or the log school-house."

"Gretchen, are you sure? Then I did not bring you away out here for nothing, did I? You may be the angel of deliverance of us all. Who knows?

But, Gretchen, I haven't told you all yet."

Mrs. Woods's face clouded again.

"The Injun told husband that some of the warriors had formed a plot against _me_, and that, if they were to capture me, they would torture me.

Gretchen, I am afraid. Don't you pity me?"

"Mother, I know my power over the chief and Benjamin, and I know the power of a chief's sense of honor. I do pity you, you are so distressed. But, mother, no evil will ever come to you where I am, nor the school where I am. I am going to be a teacher among these Indians, if I live; I feel this calling, and my work will somehow begin here."

"A teacher among the Injuns! You? You a teacher? Are anvils going to fly?

Here I am, a poor lone woman, away out here three thousand miles from home, and tremblin' all over, at every sound that I hear at night, for fear I shall be attacked by Injuns, and you are dreamin', with your head all full of poetry, of goin' away and leavin' me, the best friend that you ever had on the earth, as good as a mother to you; of goin' away--of leavin' me, to teach a lot of savages! Gretchen, I knew that the world was full of empty heads, but I never realized how empty the human heart is until now! Been a mother to you, too!"

"O mother, I never thought of leavin' you unless you wished it."

"What did you think was goin' to become of me? I never kissed any child but you, and sometimes, when you are real good, I feel just as though I was your mother."

"I thought that you would help me."

"Help you, what doin'?"

"To teach the Indians."

"To teach the Injuns--Indians you call 'em! I'd like to teach one Injun to bring back my saw! I never tried to teach but one Injun--and he was _him_.

You can't make an eagle run around a door-yard like a goose, and you can't teach an Injun to saw wood--the first thing you know, the saw will be missin'.--But how I am runnin' on! I do have a good deal of prejudice against the savages; nevertheless--"

"I knew, mother, that you would say 'nevertheless.' It seems to me that word is your good spirit. I wish you would tell me what thought came to your mind when you said that word."

"'Nevertheless?'"

"Yes."

"Well, the Master--"

"He said--"

"Yes--preach the gospel to every creature! I suppose that meant Injuns and all."

"Yes--he said '_teach_'--so the schoolmaster explained it."

"Did he? Well, I ought to obey it in spirit--hadn't I?--or at least not hinder others. I might help you teach it if I could get into the right spirit. But what put that thought into your head?"

"Mrs. Spaulding, the missionary, has been to visit the school. She sang so beautifully! These were the words:

"'In the desert let me labor, On the mountain let me tell.'

"When she sung that, it all came to me--what I was--what I was sent into the world to do--what was the cause of your loving me and bringing me out here--I saw a plan in it all. Then, too, it came to me that you would at first not see the calling as I do, but that you would say _nevertheless_, and help me, and that we would work together, and do some good in the world, you and I. Oh! I saw it all."

"Gretchen, did you see all that? Do you think that the spirit has eyes, and that they see true? But how could I begin? The Injuns all hate me."

"Make them love you."