"Our garden enclosure extends around the back side and both ends of our mission house, while in front is a double log cabin, with a porch between. Back of the porch we have a _very small_ bedroom, which our children now occupy, and back of our cabin, as it was first erected, we have a larger bedroom, which, by way of distinction, we call the _nursery_. The door from this room opens into the garden. The room does not extend _half_ the length of the double log cabin, so that Mr. Hopkins has a room corresponding with our nursery, and then, between the two wings, we have two small windows, one in the children's bedroom, and the other in our family-room. Shading the latter are Alfred's morning-glories and a rose-bush. A shoot from this wild rose has often attracted my attention, as, day after day, it has continued its upward course. It is now _seven feet high_--the growth of a single season--and is still aspiring to be higher. Bowed beneath it is a sister stalk laden with rose-buds. Last year it was trampled upon by drunken Indians, but now our fence affords us some protection, and we flattered ourselves that our pumpkins and squashes would be unmolested. But we found, to our surprise, one day, that our garden had been stripped of the larger pumpkins the night previous. Our situation here, at a point where the roving sons of the prairie congregate, exposes us to annoyances of this kind more frequently than at other stations among the Sioux. I can sympathize very fully with Moffat in like grievances, which he mentions in his 'Southern Africa.'"
"For several Sabbaths past we have had a _small_ congregation. It encourages us somewhat to see even a few induced to listen for a short time to the truths of the Gospel. But our chief encouragement is in God's unfailing promises. The Indians here usually sit during the whole service, and sometimes smoke several times.
"For some weeks I have been teaching the female part of our school. Some days half a dozen black-eyed girls come, and then, again, only one or two. Their parents tell them that we ought to pay them for coming to school, and, although there have been no threats of cutting up the blankets of those who read, as there was last winter, they are still ridiculed and reproached. We have in various ways endeavored to reward them for regular attendance, in such a manner as not to favor the idea that we were hiring them."