As our tribe is one large family, where every person is related to all the others, he addressed me:—­

“Cousin, I came from the morning church service to talk with you.”

“Yes?” I said interrogatively, as he paused for some word from me.

Shifting uneasily about in the straight-backed chair he sat upon, he began:  “Every holy day (Sunday) I look about our little God’s house, and not seeing you there, I am disappointed.  This is why I come today.  Cousin, as I watch you from afar, I see no unbecoming behavior and hear only good reports of you, which all the more burns me with the wish that you were a church member.  Cousin, I was taught long years ago by kind missionaries to read the holy book.  These godly men taught me also the folly of our old beliefs.

“There is one God who gives reward or punishment to the race of dead men.  In the upper region the Christian dead are gathered in unceasing song and prayer.  In the deep pit below, the sinful ones dance in torturing flames.

“Think upon these things, my cousin, and choose now to avoid the after-doom of hell fire!” Then followed a long silence in which he clasped tighter and unclasped again his interlocked fingers.

Like instantaneous lightning flashes came pictures of my own mother’s making, for she, too, is now a follower of the new superstition.

“Knocking out the chinking of our log cabin, some evil hand thrust in a burning taper of braided dry grass, but failed of his intent, for the fire died out and the half-burned brand fell inward to the floor.  Directly above it, on a shelf, lay the holy book.  This is what we found after our return from a several days’ visit.  Surely some great power is hid in the sacred book!”

Brushing away from my eyes many like pictures, I offered midday meal to the converted Indian sitting wordless and with downcast face.  No sooner had he risen from the table with “Cousin, I have relished it,” than the church bell rang.

Thither he hurried forth with his afternoon sermon.  I watched him as he hastened along, his eyes bent fast upon the dusty road till he disappeared at the end of a quarter of a mile.

The little incident recalled to mind the copy of a missionary paper brought to my notice a few days ago, in which a “Christian” pugilist commented upon a recent article of mine, grossly perverting the spirit of my pen.  Still I would not forget that the pale-faced missionary and the hoodooed aborigine are both God’s creatures, though small indeed their own conceptions of Infinite Love.  A wee child toddling in a wonder world, I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers.

Here, in a fleeting quiet, I am awakened by the fluttering robe of the Great Spirit.  To my innermost consciousness the phenomenal universe is a royal mantle, vibrating with His divine breath.  Caught in its flowing fringes are the spangles and oscillating brilliants of sun, moon, and stars.