Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/459

Rh wish to stay liere loiigci' if we could do it ia peace. We I'eel sonietimes as if our i|uietness were past for this country, at least I'or a season."

Such was the growing uneasiness at the Mission. It awakened api)i'elien- sions, but did not weaken purpose or paralyze activity. The same zeal, wai'ui aud unabated, for the welfare of the Indians, was manifest through it all. .Mcan- w hile the increased immigration t)rught to the Whitman household cai-c and work of another kind. The long journey was a severe tax upon the strongest, luit for the weak it was doubly trying. Some fell by the way; mothers — now and then both father and mother — sickened and died, leaving dependent families of young children; invalids unable to complete the journey without a period of rest; wives approaching confinement; families of slender means which the cxai't- ing journe.v had exhausted — such from time tn time, toolc i-efuge uiidci- the hos- pitable roof of the mission.

]Irs. Whitman in letters to friends gives us vivid i)ictures of the family at Waiilatpu these years after the great immigration. In January following iicr return from her stay at the Methodist Mission dui'ing her husband's absence, she wi-ites to one of her friends : "My family consists of six children, aud a Frenchman that came from the mountains and stops with us without invitation. IMary Ann, however, is with Mrs. Littlejohn now. Two English girls, Ann and Emma Hobson, one thirteen and the other seven, of the party, stopped with us; husband engaged to take them in the first party of the journey, but when they arrived here, they went di- rectly to Walla Walla, being persuaded not to stay by some of the party on ac- count of the Indians. When I arrived at Walla Walla they saw me and made themselves known to me and desired to come home with me. The girls were so urgent to stop that I could not refuse them, and their father was obliged to give them up. I felt unwilling to increase my family at that time, but now do not regret it. as they do the greater part of my work and go to school besides." A day or two later Mrs. Whitman writes of the household to which she re- turneti : "When I arrived home I found ]Ir. and Mrs. Littlejohn occupying my bed- room. She was sick, having been confined a few days before I came. The room east of the kitchen, Mr. East and family occupied — four children, all small. Mr. Looney with a family of six children and one young man In' the name of Smith, were in the Indian room. My two boys, Perrin Whitman, and David, slept up- stairs. Alex, the Frenchman, in the kitchen and Mary Ann and Helen in the trundle bed in the room with IMr. Littlejohn. The dining room alone remained for me. Husband and mj^ two English gii-ls ; all of these we fed from our table except Mr. Looney 's family, and our scanty fare consisted of potatoes and corn meal, with a little milk occasionally, and cakes from the burnt wheat. This was a great change for me from the well furnished tables of Waskopum and Willamette.'" It was due to the memory of the mission liy the wayside to present one more picture of its hospitable home. In a letter datiMl .pril 26, 1846, Mrs. Whitman again writes : "You will be astonished to know that we have eleven children in our family, and not one of them our own by birth, but .so it is. Seven orphans were brought to our dooi- in October. 1S44. whose parents both died on the way to this coun-