The Watchers of the Plains: A Tale of the Western PrairiesCullum, Ridgwell
General
The Watchers of the Plains: A Tale of the Western Prairies
Cullum, Ridgwell
Western stories
The service is over. It is perforce brief. The grown men and women come
out of the building. The spacious interior is cleared of all but the
children and a few grown-up folk who remain to hold a sort of
Sunday-school.
There are Wanaha and Seth. Rosebud, too, helps, and Charlie Rankin and his
young wife, who have a farm some two miles east of White River Farm. Then
there is the missionary, Mr. Hargreaves, a large man with gray hair and
rugged, bearded face, whose blue eyes look straight at those he is
addressing with a mild, invincible bravery. And the Agent, James Parker, a
short, abrupt man, with a bulldog chest and neck, and a sharp, alert
manner.
These are the workers in this most important branch of the civilizing
process. They are striking at the root of their object. The children can
be molded where the parents prove impossible. Once these black-eyed little
ones have mastered the English language the rest is not so difficult. They
have to be weaned from their own tongue if their Christian teachers would
make headway. A small, harmless bribery works wonders in this direction.
And all these children have learned to speak and understand the English
language.
Seth attempts no Bible instruction, and his is a class much in favor. His
pockets always contain the most home-made taffy. He has a method purely
his own; and it is a secular method. Only to the brightest and most
advanced children is the honor of promotion to his class awarded.
He is holding his class outside the building. His children sit round him
in a semicircle. He is sitting on an upturned box with his back against
the lateral logs of the building. There is a pleasant shade here, also the
pungent odor from the bright green bluff which faces him. The Indian
children are very quiet, but they are agog with interest. They have noted
the bulging pockets of Seth's Sunday jacket, and are more than ready to
give him their best attention in consequence. Besides they like his
teaching.
Seth's method is quite simple. Last Sunday he told them a little,
old-fashioned children's fairy story with a moral. Now he takes each child
in turn, and questions him or her on the teaching he then conveyed. But in
this direction they are not very apt, these little heathens.
The singing inside the Mission had died out, and the last chords on the
small organ had wheezed themselves into silence. Seth, having finished his
preliminaries, began serious business.
He deposited a large packet of treacle taffy upon the ground at his feet,
cut the string of it with his sheath-knife, opened it, and examined the
contents with a finely critical air. Having satisfied himself he set it
down again and smiled on his twelve pupils, all ranging from ten to twelve
years of age, sitting round him. He produced a well-thumbed volume from
his pocket, and, opening it, laid it upon his knee. It was there in case
he should stumble, for Seth was not a natural born teacher. He did it for
the sake of the little ones themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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