Among these Mandan people, whom he calls his children, lives an old man—a chief. He stands somewhat between the wild Indian and the civilized. With yearnings after the civilization of which he has heard and known, he is yet tied to the old ways through the want of a teacher and guide. He is intelligent, and anxious for a different state of affairs among his people. Two sons had he of great promise. The elder went out to war against some hostile Indians, and died. It was a great blow to his father, who had looked to his sons for the deliverance of his people. The younger son was sent to the Normal School at Santee, to become educated, and to learn of the white man’s ways. He is still there at school, and his old father waits at home patiently, while the years of preparation go on. He sends occasional messages of encouragement to his son, and is doing all in his power to prepare himself and people for the work ahead. In order that he may conform to the customs his son is adopting, he has even had his long hair shorn, a year before the boy’s return, that it may please him to see his father as white men are. Long hair is to the Indian very much what the cue is to the Chinaman—he is slow to part with it. A short time ago Santee students were engaged in writing letters to Eastern friends, and the old chiefs son, among the rest, wrote of his home, his people and his plans. He was trying to tell what I have told—the condition of his tribe, the lack of missionary work among them, and their inability to understand the teachers of the other tribes. As he wrote of this, and of his plan to go back to them as a teacher, his head dropped forward on his desk and the tears rolled down his cheeks as he realized the awful want of a starving nation—a nation crying out for the Gospel of Christ. Yet this was an Indian boy—was once a wild Indian, a savage! Why will not Christian people believe that the Indian is a _man_—is a man with a soul! Why are we all so slow to understand that the Indian has a heart and a mind! Surely God remembers the Mandans. God himself believes in the Indian. MRS. C. W. SHELTON. * * * * * THE CHINESE. FRUIT AT PETALUMA.