That autumn the Whitmans took 8-month-old Alice Clarissa on a visit to the Spaldings at Lapwai. It was time for Eliza Spalding’s first confinement, and Dr. Whitman had come to officiate. On November 15, the baby arrived. The Spaldings named their daughter Eliza, after her mother. Back home again, little Alice Clarissa provided her parents with untold happiness. But that happiness was to be tragically short lived. On a fine Sunday afternoon, June 23, 1839, Alice Clarissa Whitman met death by drowning. Unattended for a few minutes, she had wandered down to the steep bank of the nearby Walla Walla River and had fallen in. Though her body was found but a short time later, all attempts to revive her failed. Her heartbroken parents tried to console themselves with the thought that her demise was the will of God. Yet their loneliness was immense. Before long, however, the Whitmans once again had children in their home to care for and to raise. The first of these was Helen Mar, the half-breed daughter of the famous mountain man, Joe Meek. Helen Mar’s Nez Percé mother had deserted Meek, and when he journeyed to Waiilatpu in 1840, he persuaded Mrs. Whitman to accept the care of the child. The next year, another little part-Indian girl was added to the Whitman household when another famous mountain man, Jim Bridger, sent his 6-year-old Mary Ann to the Whitmans. In 1842 two Indian women brought a “miserable-looking child, a boy between three and four years old,” to Narcissa and asked her to take him in. This boy was also half-Indian; his Spanish father had once been an employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Narcissa tried to decline the responsibility, but her pity was too great. Taking the child, she named him after an old friend back home, David Malin. Then, when Marcus returned to Oregon in 1843 from his trip East, he brought with him his 13-year-old nephew, Perrin Whitman. Thus the Whitmans acquired their fourth youngster. The next seven children to be added to the household were all of one family. In 1844 Henry and Naomi Sager left Missouri with six children. On the trail to Oregon, Mrs. Sager gave birth to her seventh child. But tragedy rode with the Sagers. Henry died when the family reached the Green River; a month later, Mrs. Sager died near what is now Twin Falls, Idaho. The children, benumbed by the loss of both parents, were brought on by the wagon train. The women of the train took turns caring for the baby, while Dr. Dagan, a German immigrant, drove the Sager cart with the other six children toward the Whitmans’ mission. For many days, the emigrants’ wagons had been passing through Waiilatpu. Just before the seven orphans came, Narcissa had written home: “Here we are, one family alone, a way mark, as it were, or center post, about which multitudes will or must gather this winter.” On the morning the children arrived Mrs. Whitman was called to the yard to greet them. There she witnessed a poignant scene.