Much slower progress was made in education and religious instruction. To the Whitmans’ disappointment, the Cayuse became less and less interested in learning the principles of Christianity. The demands made of them were too great for their simple and seminomadic way of life. Then, too, the Whitmans found they had less and less time to devote to Indian affairs. In addition to the multitude of details involved in the everyday job of acquiring food and shelter, the arrival of the annual emigrant trains from the United States demanded much time and energy from the Whitmans. Waiilatpu became not only an Indian mission but also an important station on the Oregon Trail. At Lapwai, Spalding was having greater success among the Nez Percé and was able to convert several important Indian leaders. In 1839 he obtained a printing press from the American Board mission in Hawaii and printed parts of the Bible in the Nez Percé language. Both he and Asa Smith had difficulty in devising a workable alphabet. But on the second attempt, they contrived one that captured the sounds of the Nez Percé tongue. At Tshimakain and Kamiah the work of teaching and converting Indians proved a laborious and slow task. Although they recognized the difficulties facing them, the missionaries clung tenaciously to the idea of preparing the Indians for the day when white settlers would pour into the fertile lands of the Far West. Meanwhile, the signs of white migration were becoming more plentiful at Waiilatpu, situated as it was on the main route of travel from the East. One of the ways in which this movement was making itself apparent was in the increasing number of white children who were to be seen at Whitman’s station. _The Mission Children_ On her 29th birthday, March 14, 1837, Narcissa Whitman gave birth to her only child, a baby girl who was named Alice Clarissa after her two grandmothers. Alice was the first child born of United States citizens in the Pacific Northwest. Her arrival was a great joy not only to her parents but to the Cayuse as well. The Indians had been aware of the baby’s coming, and after her birth all the chiefs and elders of the tribe visited the house to see the _temi_ or “Cayuse girl,” as they promptly named her because she was born on their lands.