The 28th was Sunday. The two missionaries broke their fast in the lodge of Sticcas, the chief who had guided the immigration of 1843 over the Blue Mountains; and the doctor could not help remarking upon the meal of beef, bread, potatoes, and squash, as a gratifying proof that under his teaching the Cayuses had made some progress. Everything about the little village was orderly and still, as became the sabbath. It was the calm preceding the cyclone.
While Spalding remained to hold religious services, Whitman proceeded to the camps of Tauitau and Five Crows on the south side of the Umatilla, where, after calling on his patients, he dined with Bishop Blanchet at his mission in a friendly manner. According to Spalding, the doctor appeared to have been agreeably entertained, and to have considered certain negotiations for the sale of Waiilatpu to the Catholics if a majority of the Cayuses wished him to go away; an engagement having been entered into that the bishop or vicar-general should pay a visit to Waiilatpu in a few days.[1] Leaving Spalding to visit and comfort the sick, Whitman left for home Sunday evening. Spalding himself visited the priests, taking tea with them, and on Tuesday evening returned to the lodge of Sticcas to sleep.
That evening Sticcas communicated to Spalding
- ↑ From a chance remark of Spalding's, and from a quotation from him in Brouillet's Authentic Account, 21, I have no doubt that Whitman was about to accept an offer for Waiilatpu, from which he was convinced he must now go. The quotation is as follows: 'Dr Whitman twice during the last year called the Cayuse together, and told them if a majority wished he would leave the country at once… Dr Whitman held himself ready to sell the Waiilatpu station to the Catholic mission whenever a majority of the Cayuses might wish it.' In 1866–7 Spalding revived the memories of twenty years before, and delivered a course of lectures on the subject of the Waiilatpu mission, which were published in the Albany Or. States Rights Democrat, extending over a period from November 1866 to February 1867. In one these he says: 'The same week—referring to his arrival at Whitman's station—I visited Walla Walla, and a conference was partly agreed upon with the priests. They asked and I agreed to furnish them all needed supplies from my station.' He, however, denied in these lectures, what he had admitted previously, that Whitman dined with the priests, and says he declined on a plea of hastening home to look after the sick. Such is the effect of sectarianism that the most religious feel justified in lying to sustain a point.
