I made myself known, and was shown to my room,—­a small, carpeted room, with ghastly walls and ceiling.  The two windows, both on the same side, were curtained with heavy muslin yellowed with age.  A clean white bed was in one corner of the room, and opposite it was a square pine table covered with a black woolen blanket.

Without removing my hat from my head, I seated myself in one of the two stiff-backed chairs that were placed beside the table.  For several heart throbs I sat still looking from ceiling to floor, from wall to wall, trying hard to imagine years of contentment there.  Even while I was wondering if my exhausted strength would sustain me through this undertaking, I heard a heavy tread stop at my door.  Opening it, I met the imposing figure of a stately gray-haired man.  With a light straw hat in one hand, and the right hand extended for greeting, he smiled kindly upon me.  For some reason I was awed by his wondrous height and his strong square shoulders, which I felt were a finger’s length above my head.

I was always slight, and my serious illness in the early spring had made me look rather frail and languid.  His quick eye measured my height and breadth.  Then he looked into my face.  I imagined that a visible shadow flitted across his countenance as he let my hand fall.  I knew he was no other than my employer.

“Ah ha! so you are the little Indian girl who created the excitement among the college orators!” he said, more to himself than to me.  I thought I heard a subtle note of disappointment in his voice.  Looking in from where he stood, with one sweeping glance, he asked if I lacked anything for my room.

After he turned to go, I listened to his step until it grew faint and was lost in the distance.  I was aware that my car-smoked appearance had not concealed the lines of pain on my face.

For a short moment my spirit laughed at my ill fortune, and I entertained the idea of exerting myself to make an improvement.  But as I tossed my hat off a leaden weakness came over me, and I felt as if years of weariness lay like water-soaked logs upon me.  I threw myself upon the bed, and, closing my eyes, forgot my good intention.

II.

A trip westward.

One sultry month I sat at a desk heaped up with work.  Now, as I recall it, I wonder how I could have dared to disregard nature’s warning with such recklessness.  Fortunately, my inheritance of a marvelous endurance enabled me to bend without breaking.

Though I had gone to and fro, from my room to the office, in an unhappy silence, I was watched by those around me.  On an early morning I was summoned to the superintendent’s office.  For a half-hour I listened to his words, and when I returned to my room I remembered one sentence above the rest.  It was this:  “I am going to turn you loose to pasture!” He was sending me West to gather Indian pupils for the school, and this was his way of expressing it.