During this first year that Mary and I spent in the Dakota country, there were coming to us continually new experiences. One of the most common, and yet one of the most thrilling and abiding, was in the birth of our first-born. In motherhood and fatherhood are found large lessons in life. The mother called her first-born child Alfred Longley, naming him for a very dear brother of hers. The Dakotas named this baby boy of ours Good Bird (_Zitkadan Washtay_). They said that it was a good name. In those days it was a habit with them to give names to the white people who came among them. Dr. Williamson they called _Payjehoota Wechasta_--Medicine man, or, more literally, Grass-root man--that is, _Doctor_. To Mr. G. H. Pond they gave the name _Matohota_, Grizzly-bear. Mr. S. W. Pond was _Wamdedoota_, Red-eagle. To me they gave the name of _Tamakoche_, His country. They said some good Dakota long ago had borne that name. To Mary they gave the name of _Payuha_. At first they gutturalized the h, which made it mean _Curly-head_--her black hair did curl a good deal; but afterward they naturalized the h, and said it meant _Having-a-head_. The winter as it passed by had other lessons for us. For me it was quite a chore to cut and carry up wood enough to keep our somewhat open upper room cosey and comfortable. Mary had more ambition than I had to get native help. She had not been accustomed to do a day's washing. It came hard to her. The other women of the mission preferred to wash for themselves rather than train natives to do it. And indeed, at the beginning, that was found to be no easy task. For, in the first place, Dakota women did not wash. Usually they put on a garment and wore it until it rotted off. This was pretty much the rule. No good, decent woman could be found willing to do for white people what they did not do for themselves. We could hire all the first women of the village to hoe corn or dig potatoes, but not one would take hold of the wash-tub. And so it was that Mary's first washer-women were of the lowest class, and not very reputable characters. But she persevered and conquered. Only a few years had passed when the wash-women of the mission were of the best women of the village. And the effort proved a great public benefaction. The gospel of soap was indeed a necessary adjunct and outgrowth of the Gospel of Salvation. "Dec. 13.