The Log School-House on the Columbia Part 25

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE LIFTED CLOUD--THE INDIANS COME TO THE SCHOOLMASTER.

The next day witnessed a strange scene at the log school-house on the Columbia. It was a red October morning. Mrs. Woods accompanied Gretchen to the school, as she wished to have a talk with Mr. Mann.

As the two came in sight of the house, Mrs. Woods caught Gretchen by the arm and said:

"What's _them_?"

"Where?"

"Sittin' in the school-yard."

"They are Indians."

"Injuns? What are they there for?"

"I don't know, mother."

"Come for advice, like me, may be."

"Perhaps they are come to school. The old chief told them that I would teach them."

"You?"

"They have no father now."

"No father?"

"No chief."

Mrs. Woods had been so overwhelmed with her own grief that she had given little thought to the death of Benjamin and the chief of the Cascades. The unhappy condition of the little tribe now came to her as in a picture; and, as she saw before her some fifty Indians seated on the ground, her good heart came back to her, and she said, touched by a sense of her own widowhood, "Gretchen, I pity 'em."

Mrs. Woods was right. These Indians had come to seek the advice of Mr.

Mann in regard to their tribal affairs. Gretchen also was right. They had come to ask Mr. Mann to teach their nation.

It was an unexpected a.s.sembly that Marlowe Mann faced as he came down the clearing, but it revealed to him, at a glance, his future work in life.

The first of the distressed people to meet him was Mrs. Woods.

"O Mr. Mann, I am all alone in the world, and what am I goin' to do?

There's nothin' but hard days' work left to me now, and--hymns. Even Father Lee has gone, and I have no one to advise me. You will be a friend to me, won't you?"

"Yes," said Mr. Mann. "I need you, and the way is clear."

"What do you mean?"

"I have a letter from Boston."

"What is it, Marlowe Mann?"

"The Indian Educational Society have promised me a thousand dollars for my work another year. I must have a house. I would want you to take charge of it. _But_--your tongue?"

"O Master Mann, I'll give up my tongue! I'll just work, and be still. If an Injun will give up his revenge, an' it's his natur', ought not I to give up my tongue? When I can't help scoldin' I'll just sing hymns."

Mr. Mann gazed into the faces of the Indians. The warm sunlight fell upon them. There was a long silence, broken only by the scream of the eagles in the sky and the pa.s.sing of flocks of wild geese. Then one of the Indians rose and said:

"Umatilla has gone to his fathers.

"Benjamin has gone to his fathers. We shall never see Young Eagle's plume again!

"Boston tilic.u.m, be our chief. We have come to school."

Mr. Mann turned to Gretchen. Her young face was lovely that morning with sympathy. He said in a low voice:

"You see _our_ work in life. Do you understand? Will you accept it?"

She understood his heart.

"I will do whatever you say."

In 1859 a great Indian Reservation was established in what is known in Oregon as the Inland Empire of the Northwest. It contained about two hundred and seventy thousand acres, agricultural land and timber-land. The beautiful Umatilla River flows through it. The agency now is near Pendleton, Oregon. Thither the Umatillas were removed.

Marlowe Mann went there, and Gretchen as his young wife, and in their home Mrs. Woods for many years could have been heard singing hymns.

Their home stood for the Indian race, and the schoolmaster and his wife devoted themselves to the cause of Indian education. Through the silent influence of Mr. Mann's correspondence with the East, Indian civilization was promoted, and the way prepared for the peaceful settlement of the great Northwest.

Gretchen taught the Indians as long as she lived. Often at evening, when the day's work had been hard, she would take her violin, and a dream of music would float upon the air. She played but one tune at last as she grew serenely old. That tune recalled her early German home, the Rhine, her good father and mother, and the scenes of the great Indian Potlatch on the Columbia. It was the _Traumerei_.

Her poetic imagination, which had been suppressed by her foster-mother in her girlhood, came back to her in her new home, and it was her delight to express in verse the inspirations of her life amid these new scenes, and to publish these poems in the papers of the East that most sympathized with the cause of Indian education.

The memory of Benjamin and the old chief of the Cascades never left her.

It was a never-to-be-forgotten lesson of the n.o.bility of all men whose souls have the birthright of heaven. Often, when the wild geese were flying overhead in the evening, she would recall Benjamin, and say, "He who guides led me here from the Rhine, and schooled me for my work in the log school-house on the Columbia."

Such is not an overdrawn picture of the early pioneers of the Columbia and the great Northwest.

Jason Lee was censured for leaving his mission for the sake of Oregon--for turning his face from the stars to the sun. Whitman, when he appeared ragged at Was.h.i.+ngton, was blamed for having left his post. The early pioneers of the great Northwest civilization lie in neglected graves. We are now beginning to see the hand of Providence, and to realize how great was the work that these people did for their own country and for the world.

And Marlowe Mann--whose name stands for the Christian schoolmaster--no one knows where he sleeps now; perhaps no one, surely but a few. He saw his college-mates rise to honor and fame. They offered him positions, but he knew his place in the world.

When his hair was turning gray, there came to him an offer of an opportunity for wealth, from his remaining relatives. At the same time the agency offered him the use of a farm. He accepted the latter for his work's sake, and returned to his old friends a loving letter and an old poem, and with the latter we will leave this picture of old times on the Oregon:

"Happy the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound; Content to breathe his native air On his own ground.

"Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, Whose flocks supply him with attire; Whose trees in summer yield him shade, In winter, fire.