Again we find him enlarging his field of work, teaching his savage friends, not only Christianity, but how to sow, and plant, and reap, and build houses, and prepare for civilization. He took no part in the new political life which he had made possible. He was a stranger to all things except those which concerned the work he was called to do. In his letter he speaks of earnestly desiring to return East and bring out the second company of immigrants the coming Spring, but the needs of his mission, his wasted fields, and his mill burned during his absence, seemed to demand his presence at home. The world speaks of this event and that, as "It so happened." They will refer to the advent of the Flathead Indians in St. Louis in 1832, as "It so happened." The more thoughtful readers of history find fewer things "accidental." In this great historic romance the Flathead Indians were not an accident. The American Board, the Methodist Board, Dr. Whitman and Jason Lee, and their co-workers, were not accidents. They were all men inspired to a specific work, and having entered upon it, the field widened into dimensions of unforeseen grandeur, whose benefits the Nation has never yet befittingly acknowledged. CHAPTER IV. THE WEDDING JOURNEY ACROSS THE PLAINS. The romance of the Oregon Mission did not end with the call of the Flathead Indians. This was savage romance, that of civilization followed. The Methodists sent the Lees in 1834, and the American Board tried to get the right men for the work to accompany them, but failed. But in 1835 they sent Dr. Marcus Whitman and the Rev. Samuel Parker to Oregon upon a trip of discovery, to find out the real conditions, present and prospective. They got an early start in 1835 and reached Green River, where they met large bodies of Indians and Indian traders, and were made fully acquainted with the situation. The Indians gave large promises, and the field seemed wide and inviting. Upon consultation it was agreed that Dr. Whitman should return to the States and report to the American Board, while Dr. Parker should go on to the Columbia. Two Indian boys from the Pacific Coast, Richard and John, volunteered to return with Dr. Whitman and come back with him the following year. The Doctor and his Indian boys reached his home in Rushville, New York, late on Saturday night in November, and not making known the event to his family, astonished the congregation in his church by walking up the aisle with his Indians, and calling out an audible exclamation from his good old mother, "Well, there is Marcus Whitman."