"What place more suitable for the meeting together of father, children, and children's children--thirty-four all told, counting those who have joined the family by marriage--than Santee Agency, Nebraska, a mission station of the A. B. C. F. M. "Though not of the family, I was honored by an invitation to attend the meeting, assured that a 'bed and a plate would be reserved for me'; and so, on the first Tuesday of September, I stood on the bank of the Missouri, opposite the agency, waiting for the ferry-man to set me across. I came at the right time, for presently the delegation from Fort Sully drove their two teams to the landing, and in a moment more Rev. J. P. Williamson, with his oldest daughter, from Yankton Agency, were added to our number. "They came from the east and the west and the north. These from Sisseton, these from Sully, and these from the land of Sinim, for the oldest daughter and her husband, Rev. Mark Williams, have been for thirteen years in Kalgan, Northern China, and now for the first time come back to see the father and the fatherland. The personal part of the meeting I have no right to mention. I speak only of its missionary character. The very prudential committee itself, in its weekly meetings, cannot be more thoroughly imbued with a missionary spirit than was every hour of this reunion. And how could it be otherwise? All the reminiscences were of their home on missionary ground, at Lac-qui-parle, at Traverse des Sioux, and at Hazelwood. Did they talk of present duties and doings? What could they have for their theme but life at Kalgan, at Good Will, at Santee, and at Sully! Did they look forward to what they would do after the family meeting was over? The larger part were to go two hundred miles and more overland, to attend the annual meeting of the Indian churches at Brown Earth. And, besides, how to reach out from their present stations and seize new points for work was the constant theme of thought. "Wednesday evening there was a gathering of the older ones and the larger children. The father read a sketch recalling a few incidents of the family life. The reading brought now laughter and then tears. Forty-two years could not come and go without leaving many a sorrow behind.