In carrying on missionary labor among a heathen people, the question, What shall be the relation of the children of the mission family to the people? is often a difficult and perplexing one. The springs of the home-life must be kept, as far as possible, from being contaminated. And yet the daily intercourse with those of impure thoughts and impure words is contaminating. Shall we make our family a _garden inclosed_? If so, the children when small must not learn the language of the natives. Mary and I adopted this principle and carried it out very successfully. Up to the time of our return in 1852, our children had hardly learned any Dakota. Now, our boy Alfred was fifteen years old, and had assigned to him duties which made it necessary that he should understand the Indians somewhat and make himself understood by them. So he commenced to learn the language. John P. Williamson had commenced to talk it much earlier. Doubtless the advantage in speaking a language is with those who learn in their very childhood, other things being equal. The reason for the exclusion had partly passed by, and the taking of Dakota children into our family, and being closely connected with a boarding-school of Dakota children, made it impossible, if it had been desirable, longer to keep up the bars. * * * * * By and by came along the third of March, 1854. The spring had opened early, the ground was bare of snow, and everything was dry. Our cellars had been in the habit of freezing, and to protect our potatoes and other vegetables we had been in the habit of stuffing hay under the floor, all around, in the fall. This hay had not yet been removed, and was very dry. The cellar was dark, and a lighted candle was needed by those who went down for any purpose. The mother was preparing for the family dinner, and so had sent down the little boys, Thomas and Henry, in their seventh and fifth years respectively, to bring her up potatoes. Through carelessness, and without thought, perhaps, they held the lighted candle too near the dried hay. It took fire immediately, and in a few seconds of time so filled the cellar with smoke that the boys with some difficulty made their escape.