ed to take them
in the first part of the journey but when they arrived here they went directly to Walla Walla, being persuaded not to stay by some of the party on account of the Indians. When I arrived at Walla Walla they saw me and made them- selves 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 again writes of the household to which she returned : -
"When I arrived home I found Mr. 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 by the name of Smith, were in the Indian room. My tvvo boys, Perrin Whitman and David, slept upstairs, Alex, the Frenchman, in the kitchen, and Mary Ann and Helen in the trundle bed in the room with Mr. Littlejohn. The dining room alone re- mained for me, husband, and my two English girls ; all of these we fed from our table except Mr. Looney's family, and our scanty fare consisted of potatoes and cornmeal, 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 by the wayside to present one more picture of its hospitable home. In a letter dated April 2, 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 door in October, 1844, whose parents both died on the way to this country. Destitute and friendless, there was no other alternative — we must take them in or they must perish. The youngest was an infant five months old — born on the way — nearly famished but just alive; the eldest was thirteen, two boys and five girls ; the boys were the oldest. The eldest girl was lying with a broken leg by the side of her parents as they were dying, one after the other. They were an afflicted and distressed family in the journey and when the children arrived here they were in miserable condition. You can better imagine than I can describe my feelings under these circumstances. Weak and feeble as I was, in an Indian country without the possibility of obtaining help, to have so many helpless chil- dren cast upon our arms at once, rolled a burden on me insupportable. Nothing could reconcile me to it but the thought that it was the Lord that brought them here, and He would give me grace and strength so to discharge my duty to them as to be acceptable in His sight."
Such was the enlarged scope of the Whitman mission and the increased burden put upon its heads by the increased immigration. The burden was made heavier by the fact that the stream of immigration which brought these new inmates to the Whitman home, increased the irritation of the Indians to the point where more than once during these years it seemed as if the mission must be abandoned for lack of protection. The letters of this period make frequent mention of this impending peril. One letter, however, of Mrs. Whitman's, written in the midsummer of 1846 speaks with joy of a season of relief from these painful apprehensions :
"The Indians are quiet now, and never more friendly. ... So far as the Indians are concerned our prospects of permanently remaining among them were never more favorable than at present. . . . It is a great pleasure to them to see so many children growing up in their midst. Perrin, the elder, is able to read Nez Perces to them and when husband is gone takes his place and holds meetings with them. This delights
