We found the missionary, Mr. Speight, a Kentuckian, who
has wandered to this northern region, quite ill, and there was
consequently no service.
We walked through the village, which is prettily situated on a swift and
deep channel of the St. Mary, where the green waters rush between the
main-land and a wooded island. It stands on rich meadows of the river,
with a path running before it, parallel with the bank, along the velvet
sward, and backed at no great distance by the thick original forest,
which not far below closes upon the river on both sides. The inhabitants
at the doors and windows of their log-cabins had a demure and subdued
aspect; they were dressed in their clean Sunday clothes, and the peace and
quiet of the place formed a strong contrast to the debaucheries we had
witnessed at the village by the Falls. We fell in with an Indian, a quiet
little man, of very decent appearance, who answered our questions with
great civility. We asked to whom belonged the meadows lying back of the
cabins, on which we saw patches of rye, oats, and potatoes.
"Oh, they belong to the mission; the Indians work them."
"Are they good people, these Indians?"
"Oh yes, good people."
"Do they never drink too much whisky?"
"Well, I guess they drink too much whisky sometimes."
There was a single wigwam in the village, apparently a supplement to one
of the log-cabins. We looked in and saw two Indian looms, from which two
unfinished mats were depending. Mrs. Speight, the wife of the missionary,
told us that, a few days before, the village had been full of these
lodges; that the Indians delighted in them greatly, and always put them up
during the mosquito season; "for a mosquito," said the good lady, "will
never enter a wigwam;" and that lately, the mosquitoes having disappeared,
and the nights having grown cooler, they had taken down all but the one we
saw.
We passed a few minutes in the house of the missionary, to which Mrs.
Speight kindly invited us. She gave a rather favorable account of the
Indians under her husband's charge, but manifestly an honest one, and
without any wish to extenuate the defects of their character.
"There are many excellent persons among them," she said; "they are a kind,
simple, honest people, and some of them are eminently pious."
"Do they follow any regular industry?"
"Many of them are as regularly industrious as the whites, rising early and
continuing at their work in the fields all day. They are not so attentive
as we could wish to the education of their children. It is difficult to
make them send their children regularly to school; they think they confer
a favor in allowing us to instruct them, and if they happen to take a
little offense their children are kept at home.
