Page:The Indian Dispossessed.pdf/145

 great nation may well join in Kipling's supplication:

The story of Joseph's band in the Indian Territory is told in successive annual reports:

"A day school was opened in February, 1880, and has been very successfully run under the care of James Reubens, a full-blood Nez Perce, with an average daily attendance of twenty.

"The Nez Perces are a religious people, and under the intelligent teachings of Mr. Reubens they are strict observers of the Sabbath, refusing to perform any labor whatever upon that day. Twice upon the Sabbath they meet together, and listen to the preaching of Mr. Reubens, and sing hymns, with an occasional prayer. Their services are conducted with as much order and the congregation is as much interested in the proceedings as any body of white people in any church in the land."

Again, in the following year:

"The Nez Perces, located at Oakland, comprise three hundred and twenty-eight souls, and I am sorry to be compelled to report that there has been a large amount of sickness and many deaths among them during the last year. This arises from the fact that they have not become acclimated, and are to a great extent compelled to live in tepees, the cloth of which 9