Missionary Work Among the Ojebway Indians Part 12

The spot selected for the Wawanosh Home was rather more than a mile above the village of Sault Ste. Marie. I bought five acres of bush land at three pounds an acre as a site for the Inst.i.tution, and a ten-acre cultivated lot, just opposite, for L60.

Immediately after making the purchase, we took all our boys up there for a "clearing bee;" they hoisted the Union Jack on the site of the new Home, and within a few days had cleared a considerable piece of land and commenced digging the foundations. It was to be a stone building of two storeys high with a frontage of about forty-five feet, and a wing running back, and to cost about L700. During the summer our boys got out all the stone necessary for building, most of it was collected on the s.h.i.+ngwauk land, and they were paid 20 cents a cord for piling it.

We were anxious as soon as possible to get the new Home into operation. After the summer of 1876 no girls returned to the s.h.i.+ngwauk, and we doubled our number of boys. It seemed hard to shut the girls out from the privileges of Christian care and education, and we were naturally desirous of receiving back as soon as possible those whom we had already commenced teaching. For this reason we thought it well at once to make a beginning by erecting the back wing of the Inst.i.tution first. During the winter stone and sand were hauled, and on the 5th of May, 1877, building operations commenced. We took the contract ourselves. I had a good practical man as carpenter at the s.h.i.+ngwauk, and we got our plans and specifications; then an estimate was made, and after being approved by a third party--a person experienced in such matters--the work began. Mrs. Fauquier, our Bishop's wife, and two or three other ladies kindly joined with me as a committee to manage the Inst.i.tution, a lady was engaged as lady Superintendent, a man and wife as gardener and matron, and about the first week in September the girls began to arrive.

We only took ten girls that winter, as we were of course cramped for room.

It was rather uphill work bringing into operation the Wawanosh Home, but difficulties during the progress of a work often have the effect of making it more solid and strong in the end. To induce Sunday Schools and friends to aid us, I divided the estimated cost of the building with its fittings and furniture, into forty-four lots, and a considerable number of these lots were "taken up." Still we were short of money. When the Spring of 1878 came, all our money for building was gone, and the fund to meet current expenses, even with only ten girls to provide for, was found to be insufficient. It was very discouraging.

Sorrowfully I told our lady Superintendent that we must close the Inst.i.tution for the present,--and sorrowfully I dismissed the girls for their holidays and told them that they must not come back until they heard from me that we were able to receive them.

But G.o.d heard our prayers and opened the way for us.

On Sunday Sept. 7th, I had just returned from Garden River where I had been to hold service with the Indians, and on my arrival found a sail- boat lying at our dock. An Indian had come over a hundred miles and had brought five little girls for the Wawanosh Home. Two of them had been with us the winter before and had misunderstood me about coming back, and the other three were new ones,--they all looked so happy and pleased. But their faces fell when I explained to the man our circ.u.mstances, that we had closed for want of funds, and could not see our way towards re-opening for the present. The Indian said it seemed very hard to have come such a long distance and then to have to go all the way back again. "Can you not manage to take them," he said; "I will help you all I can,--I will bring you some barrels of fish in the Fall"

I told the man they could all remain with us that night, and I would let him know what could be done after I had thought it over. I went to see Mrs. Fauquier, and the other ladies came together, and we talked it over and had much earnest prayer. It seemed to us all that it was the hand of G.o.d pointing out the way, and that we ought to have faith to go on. The end of it was that we kept those five children; the lady who had had charge of the Home the previous winter most generously agreed to remain for another year at a reduced salary and to do without the services of a matron. And so the Wawanosh Home was open again.

Two weeks later I received a letter from England: "I have good news to tell you. Miss ---- wrote a few days ago to ask how much money was wanted to complete the Girls' Home. We sent her word that the original estimate was L700, and that about L500 had been collected. I to-day received from her a cheque for L350! Of this L100 is her annual subscription, and L250 for the completion of the Home. You will I am sure look on it as G.o.d's gift in answer to the prayer of faith." The following January a letter came from the Indian Department at Ottawa, saying that the Government had in reply to my request, made a grant of L120 towards the building expenses of the Wawanosh Home, and that this grant would be continued annually, provided there were not less than fifteen girls, towards the maintenance of the Inst.i.tution.

Thus did Almighty G.o.d open the way for us, and clear away all our difficulties. By the middle of the summer of 1879 the building was completed, the ground in front cleared and formed into a garden, with a picket fence and two gates, and a drive up to the front door, and at the back a stable, cow-house, pig-styes, &c.

The cottage on the other side of the road was now occupied by Mrs.

Bridge, the laundress, and a year or two later, we built a new laundry.

The new Home was opened on the 19th of August, 1879, and that winter we had fourteen girls.

The following letter from an English lady who visited the Wawanosh Home in the summer of 1880, gives a good idea of the Inst.i.tution and its surroundings:--

"I drove to see the Indian girls' Home, and was surprised to find in these wilds such an English stone building, but with the advantage of a nice verandah and green blinds which keep the house cool in summer. The inside of the house I thought very, nice; all the rooms are high and of a good size; a hall, school-room, cla.s.s-room, and dining-room, and prettily furnished sitting-room for the lady superintendent, a laundry, and good kitchen with a large stove--all these are on the ground floor.

Upstairs there is a large dormitory with eight double beds and a smaller one with four beds. These rooms are more airy and give more s.p.a.ce to each girl than in many inst.i.tutions I have seen in England. A small room is set apart for the sick. The lavatory is well fitted up, and everything is clean and neat. The girls do the work partly themselves under the matron, and learn to become servants. The Home has only been fully opened a year, so of course it is still rough round the house, but soon the ground will be laid out. On one side of the house will be the vegetable garden, which the girls will be taught to keep weeded and in order. On the other side of the house the committee intend putting up a gymnasium with money a lady in England has collected: It is a room very much wanted, for, in the winter, with the snow three to four, and sometimes five feet deep, it is impossible to send children out, and if they do not get exercise they would suffer. The room is to be 40 feet by 20, with one end divided off for a meat-house and tool-house; when I say a meat-house I mean a place to keep meat, for they kill cattle and sheep enough for the winter at the beginning of the very cold weather, it freezes hard and keeps well. The gymnasium will, when finished, only cost about 200 dollars. The children look very happy and very little amuses them. I showed them some English village children's games, and left them delighted."

There is always a "but," that is, kind friends are wanted to provide for some of the new girls just come to the Home. If any one would give or collect four s.h.i.+llings a week, that is sufficient to feed a child.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

A SAD WINTER.

The winter of 1882 was a sad time. There was great mortality all through the country, and our Homes did not escape.

Our kind friend, Mrs. Fauquier, who, though a constant invalid, had done very much to promote the interests and welfare of our Girls' Home, was called away to the Heavenly Rest on the 4th of November, 1881.

During the last few years of her life she had made the Wawanosh Home her special care, her work for Christ. Those girls were always in her thoughts: she it was who devised their uniform dress of blue serge trimmed with scarlet, and got friends in England to supply them; she chose the furniture for the Home and fitted the lady superintendent's rooms so prettily and tastefully. Many were the kind words of counsel that the girls received from her, and it used to be her delight to have them to visit her in the afternoon at the See House.

Only a month had pa.s.sed after we heard of Mrs. Fauquier's death,--she died in New York,--when the appalling tidings reached us that the Bishop, too, was gone. He had died suddenly in Toronto on December 7th.

In the same mail bag which brought the sad news was a letter to me from him, written only an hour or two before he died.

"The sad void," he wrote, "which my dear wife's departure hence has made seems to grow wider and deeper; and it seems difficult to settle down to work as of old. I must try to realize more fully than I have done in the past what a blessing her presence for more than thirty years has been. How true it is that we seldom appreciate our blessings and privileges until they are taken from us."

The church at Sault Ste. Marie was draped with black the following Sunday, and the Indian children of the Homes wore black scarves in token of respect for him who had had their welfare so much at heart.

The next death was that of our carpenter's wife: she had been ailing all through the previous autumn, and died January 2nd.

Then three days later we lost one of the Indian boys, a little fellow named Charlie Penahsewa, who had only been with as a few months. We buried him the next day in our little cemetery at 7 p.m. The boys carried torches.

Several other boys were at this time in the sick room, two or three also of the Wawanosh girls were ill, and the doctor was to and fro at both the Homes.

Poor little Beaconsfield, one of the Michipicotin boys who had been baptized at the same time as Frederick, was among the sick. His only name when he first came to us, nearly five years before, was Chegauns (little man close by); he was a little wild pagan boy, but with soft eyes and gentle disposition, like Frederick, and was very quick to learn. A kind lady in Kingston undertook his support, and took great interest in him, and at her wish we named him "Benjamin Beaconsfield."

We had every reason to hope and believe that there was a work of grace in his heart. The little fellow had a tender conscience, and would come and tell me if he had been playing on Sunday or had told an untruth, and would ask me to pray for him. Another boy in the sick room was little Peter, Peterans as we called him [ans at the end of a word makes its diminutive]; he was a grandchild of my old friend, widow Quakegwah, at Sarnia. We sent him and another little fellow who was ailing to the Wawanosh, for change of air and more careful nursing. But it was all in vain. Beaconsfield died on the 16th of January, and little Peter died at the Wawanosh on the 8th of February. They were both buried in our little cemetery.

After this I had to go down to Toronto to attend to diocesan matters, and was away about two months, going through the Muskoka district, and being present in Montreal when the Provincial Synod met, and our new Bishop, Dr. Sullivan, was unanimously elected.

When I returned to the s.h.i.+ngwauk things looked brighter; the sick room was empty, and every one seemed more cheery. But our hopes were doomed to be disappointed. I had only been home three days when my dear boy, William Sahgucheway, the captain of our school, was taken suddenly ill with inflammation, and a day or two later we were in the greatest alarm about him. I felt about him as I had about Frederick--that surely his life would be spared to us, he of all others was the one whom we looked to as the pride and hope of our Inst.i.tution; he was nineteen years of age, and was looking forward and preparing for the ministry. But it was not to be. G.o.d had called him, and eight days after he was taken ill and died. In the next chapter I shall give a little account of his life.

Three days after William was buried, the bodies of our late dear Bishop and Mrs. Fauquier arrived in charge of two of their sons, it having been their expressed wish to be buried in our little cemetery with our Indian children. On Monday, the 22nd, the long funeral cortege moved slowly to the cemetery. There was a large gathering of people both from the Canadian and American sides--people of all cla.s.ses and creeds. First, the clergy in their surplices, then the Indian boys, two and two, one of them, who had been supported by the late Bishop, carrying a banner with the words, "He rests from his labours;" then came the hea.r.s.e bearing the late Bishop's remains, with four horses, all draped, and the Wawanosh girls followed, one of them bearing a banner with the words, "She is not dead, but sleepeth;" then the hea.r.s.e, and members of the family and other mourners--a long mournful procession. A vault had been prepared, and the coffins, covered with flowers, were laid within it, and the latter part of the Burial Service read. Thus the good, kind-hearted, self-sacrificing Bishop, the first Bishop of this wild Missionary diocese, and his afflicted yet devoted wife, who had laboured so earnestly for the welfare of the Indians during the latter part of their lives, were now laid side by side in the Indian cemetery to await the joyful resurrection to eternal life.

The very next grave to the Bishop's was that of Frederick, the Neepigon boy.

Before the summer holidays commenced, the cemetery gate had once more to be opened and the earth once more to be turned, for another boy, Simon Altman, from Walpole Island, was dead. This was the fifth boy who had died during the winter, not from any malignant disease or fever, but from various causes, and seven bodies in all had been committed to the silent dust. For a time we were afraid that the saddening effect of so many deaths would lead to a complete break up of our work, as the Indians are of course very superst.i.tious and might be afraid to send any more of their children to us.

Next autumn our number at both the Homes was very much reduced, still we were able to keep on, and now our pupils are once more steadily on the increase.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

WILLIAM SAHGUCHEWAY.

William Sahgucheway was born on the Indian Reserve of Walpole Island about the year 1862, the exact date is not known. His father and mother both died eight or ten years ago, and since then he had lived with an uncle and aunt, of both of whom he was very fond. He had two younger brothers, but no sisters. One of the brothers, Elijah, was a pupil with William at the s.h.i.+ngwauk Home for two or three years. He left when the Home was temporarily closed in the spring of 1880, and before it had re-opened he had been called home to his Saviour. William felt the death of his little brother very deeply. In a letter dated June 4th he says, "Last Sunday my brother Elijah died: but now he is with Jesus and the angels. This text he had in his Bible. 'Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord' (Rev. xiv. 13); and also the Bible was dated May 30th, 1879. This is important to me, like if it were telling me how he died and when he died."

William Sahgucheway came first to the s.h.i.+ngwauk Home on the 17th of June, 1875. I had paid a visit to Walpole Island that summer, and William was one who, in company with five or six other children, came back with me to Sault Ste. Marie. He was at that time a bright, intelligent looking lad of twelve or thirteen years of age, and being an orphan, he was made rather a special favourite from the first; the attachment grew, and soon the boy learned to look upon me as his father, and always commenced his letters "My dear Noosa" (father) when writing to me. William like the other boys in the Inst.i.tution, was supported by the contributions of Sunday school children, and it was quite hoped that he would at no distant day have become a student at Huron Theological College.

William's Indian name was "Wahsashkung"--s.h.i.+ning light. A most appropriate name, for his presence always seemed to bring light and happiness; he was always so cheerful, so ready to help, so self- denying; grown people and little children were equally his friends.

We always regarded that verse in Matt. v. as specially his verse,--"Let your light so s.h.i.+ne before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

William accompanied me on many of my travels. He was with me on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Neepigon in 1878, when that pagan tribe was discovered, who for thirty years had been waiting for a Missionary to come to them.

He befriended the pagan boy, Ningwinnena, and taught him to pray and love his Saviour. And when the poor boy died at Christian, six months after entering the Inst.i.tution, William was among those who knelt at his bedside and watched his last expiring breath. In 1879 William accompanied me to England, and while there wrote a little journal of his travels, extracts from which were published. Wherever he went he made friends, and many white people on both sides of the Atlantic will long remember his bright, intelligent face, his gentle voice, and kind obliging manner.

In the spring of 1880, when I was dangerously ill and my life despaired of, William was one of the few Indian boys who were privileged to come to my bedside, and the only one who was allowed to take turn in watching beside me at night; for whenever there was anything to be done requiring special effort or care, it was always William who was wanted, and William who was ready.

About three years before this time the dear boy became truly in earnest about religion, and dedicated his life to the Saviour. From his earliest boyhood he would appear to have been a child of grace, avoiding what was bad, with a desire to follow what was pure and good; but with nearly all followers of Christ there is probably some period in life which may be looked back to when the seeds of truth began more distinctly to germinate in the soul, and that blessed union with the Saviour, which is the joy of all true believers, was for the first time perhaps fully realized and felt. It was on the 23rd March, 1877, that this dear boy, William, after a long earnest talk, knelt down beside me and yielded his heart to the Saviour: "Tabaningayun Jesus, kemeenin ninda noongoom suh tebekuk, kuhnuhga kayahhe che tebanindezosewaun keen dush chetebanemeyun"--"Lord Jesus, I give my heart to Thee this night, no longer to belong to myself, but to belong to Thee." I gave him a Bible the same evening, and it became his most valued treasure; on the first leaf is the verse, "Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out," and on the last leaf, "G.o.d is love."

I always tried to impress on those who had dedicated themselves to the Saviour's service, that they should prove the fact of their union with Christ by working for Him and bearing fruit to the glory of His name.

William seemed to be especially impressed with this, and rarely a week pa.s.sed without his trying to exercise some influence for good among his companions. Many are the boys now in the Inst.i.tution who can trace their first serious thoughts on their spiritual condition to his intercourse with them. In January, 1878, a boys' prayer meeting was commenced weekly, and continued almost without interruption, except during holidays. The boys met on Wednesday evenings after prayers-- quite by themselves--one read a portion of Scripture in his own language, and others offered a few words of simple prayer. It was due to William and one or two like-minded companions that these little gatherings were kept together, and there can be little doubt that much blessing resulted.