In this way I had forgotten my uncomfortable surroundings, when I heard one of my comrades call out my name.  I saw the missionary standing very near, tossing candies and gums into our midst.  This amused us all, and we tried to see who could catch the most of the sweetmeats.

Though we rode several days inside of the iron horse, I do not recall a single thing about our luncheons.

It was night when we reached the school grounds.  The lights from the windows of the large buildings fell upon some of the icicled trees that stood beneath them.  We were led toward an open door, where the brightness of the lights within flooded out over the heads of the excited palefaces who blocked our way.  My body trembled more from fear than from the snow I trod upon.

Entering the house, I stood close against the wall.  The strong glaring light in the large whitewashed room dazzled my eyes.  The noisy hurrying of hard shoes upon a bare wooden floor increased the whirring in my ears.  My only safety seemed to be in keeping next to the wall.  As I was wondering in which direction to escape from all this confusion, two warm hands grasped me firmly, and in the same moment I was tossed high in midair.  A rosy-cheeked paleface woman caught me in her arms.  I was both frightened and insulted by such trifling.  I stared into her eyes, wishing her to let me stand on my own feet, but she jumped me up and down with increasing enthusiasm.  My mother had never made a plaything of her wee daughter.  Remembering this I began to cry aloud.

They misunderstood the cause of my tears, and placed me at a white table loaded with food.  There our party were united again.  As I did not hush my crying, one of the older ones whispered to me, “Wait until you are alone in the night.”

It was very little I could swallow besides my sobs, that evening.

“Oh, I want my mother and my brother Dawee!  I want to go to my aunt!” I pleaded; but the ears of the palefaces could not hear me.

From the table we were taken along an upward incline of wooden boxes, which I learned afterward to call a stairway.  At the top was a quiet hall, dimly lighted.  Many narrow beds were in one straight line down the entire length of the wall.  In them lay sleeping brown faces, which peeped just out of the coverings.  I was tucked into bed with one of the tall girls, because she talked to me in my mother tongue and seemed to soothe me.

I had arrived in the wonderful land of rosy skies, but I was not happy, as I had thought I should be.  My long travel and the bewildering sights had exhausted me.  I fell asleep, heaving deep, tired sobs.  My tears were left to dry themselves in streaks, because neither my aunt nor my mother was near to wipe them away.

II.

The cutting of my long hair.