“Play,” she said.  “Music is a kind of prayer.”  And Gretchen touched the musical glasses.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE LIFTED CLOUD—­THE INDIANS COME TO THE SCHOOLMASTER.

The next day witnessed a strange scene at the log school-house on the Columbia.  It was a red October morning.  Mrs. Woods accompanied Gretchen to the school, as she wished to have a talk with Mr. Mann.

As the two came in sight of the house, Mrs. Woods caught Gretchen by the arm and said: 

“What’s them?”

“Where?”

“Sittin’ in the school-yard.”

“They are Indians.”

“Injuns?  What are they there for?”

“I don’t know, mother.”

“Come for advice, like me, may be.”

“Perhaps they are come to school.  The old chief told them that I would teach them.”

“You?”

“They have no father now.”

“No father?”

“No chief.”

Mrs. Woods had been so overwhelmed with her own grief that she had given little thought to the death of Benjamin and the chief of the Cascades.  The unhappy condition of the little tribe now came to her as in a picture; and, as she saw before her some fifty Indians seated on the ground, her good heart came back to her, and she said, touched by a sense of her own widowhood, “Gretchen, I pity ’em.”

Mrs. Woods was right.  These Indians had come to seek the advice of Mr. Mann in regard to their tribal affairs.  Gretchen also was right.  They had come to ask Mr. Mann to teach their nation.

It was an unexpected assembly that Marlowe Mann faced as he came down the clearing, but it revealed to him, at a glance, his future work in life.

The first of the distressed people to meet him was Mrs. Woods.

“O Mr. Mann, I am all alone in the world, and what am I goin’ to do?  There’s nothin’ but hard days’ work left to me now, and—­hymns.  Even Father Lee has gone, and I have no one to advise me.  You will be a friend to me, won’t you?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Mann.  “I need you, and the way is clear.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have a letter from Boston.”

“What is it, Marlowe Mann?”

“The Indian Educational Society have promised me a thousand dollars for my work another year.  I must have a house.  I would want you to take charge of it. But—­your tongue?”

“O Master Mann, I’ll give up my tongue!  I’ll just work, and be still.  If an Injun will give up his revenge, an’ it’s his natur’, ought not I to give up my tongue?  When I can’t help scoldin’ I’ll just sing hymns.”

Mr. Mann gazed into the faces of the Indians.  The warm sunlight fell upon them.  There was a long silence, broken only by the scream of the eagles in the sky and the passing of flocks of wild geese.  Then one of the Indians rose and said: 

“Umatilla has gone to his fathers.