be pronounced. We learned to speak the Chinook [1]Wa-Wa that winter. The mission children spoke it as habitually as they did their mother tongue. We talked Chinook every day with the Indians and half-bloods. There was one Indian who spoke both English and Chinook. He had a droll way of speaking in Chinook and then in English. He would say, "Nika tik-eh chuck," "I want water." "Nika hyas olo," "I am very hungry." "Potlatch tenas piah sap-po-lil," "Give a little bread," and so on. But we could not have had a better teacher than this waggish Indian. There were a few missionaries and Canadian families in the neighborhood. There was a school kept during the winter near where we lived. The children of the three Applegate families, with the French and mission children, made up a school of about twenty-five pupils. No Indian children attended this school. A pious young man, Andrew Smith by name, presided over this religious training school. As soon as a child could spell out words, however indifferently, he or she was required to read religious tracts, which were intended to make the child realize it was wicked and in danger of punishment. These tracts were alarming, more alarming and most alarming. They were our first, second and third readers. Occasionally our teacher would select a tract containing a choice lesson and read aloud to the school. One evening he read one that alarmed me greatly. I can recall the substance of it, which was as follows. There was a little boy whom his parents had never taught to pray to the Lord before retiring to rest at night. He did not know how to ask the Lord to forgive his sins and protect him from the evil one whilst he slept. One night he went to bed and fell asleep. He never awoke and was lost. I was a very small boy and that evening, after I retired I was thinking of the lost boy. It seemed plain that I was in as much danger as he. The chances would surely be against me should I fall asleep. The thought of awakening and finding myself in the "bad place" kept me from sleeping. After suffering for an hour or two from this conflict between drowsiness and fear, I got out of bed and sat down on the hearth of the old fireplace. I scraped together a few live coals from the ashes, intending to sit there until I
- ↑ Talk or language.
