and sorrow.

Again I asked: "Tell me, what have you done with the old man with the
snow-white hair?"

Then there was a little whispering among them, and one of them, speaking
out softly, said in the Cree language, "Non pimmatissit;" the English of
which is, "He is not among the living."

The poor Indians, who have not as yet come to understand that death is a
conquered foe, never like to use the word; and so, when speaking of
those who have gone, they say they are "not among the living."

When in this expressive way I learned that my old friend was dead, my
heart was filled with sorrow, as I saw also were theirs. After a little
pause I said, "Tell me how he died."

At first there was a great deal of reluctance to answer this question;
but when they saw I was not only anxious but resolved to know all about
it, they took me into a wigwam where most of his relatives were, and
there a young man, a grandson, got up and told me this pathetic story.

He said: "Missionary, you had not been long gone with your canoe last
summer before Mismis," (the Indian word for "grandfather"), "got very
sick, and after some weeks he seemed to know that he was going to leave
us. So he called us all around him, and said a great many things to us.
I cannot remember them all, as he spoke many times; but I do remember
that he said, `how I wish the Missionary would soon come again to talk
to me and comfort me! But he is far away, and my memory is bad, and I
have forgotten what he used to say to me. My body is breaking up, and
so also is my memory getting bad. Tell him his coming was like the
sunlight on the waters; but it was so seldom that he came that all in my
mind has got so dark, and my memory is so bad, that I have forgotten all
he used to say to me. The good things he used to tell us about the Good
Spirit and His Son, and what we ought to do, have slipped away from me.
O that he were here to help me! Tell him, as long as I was able; I used
to go up to the point of land that runs out into the lake, and watch if
I could see his canoe returning. But it came not. Tell him I have,
since the winter set in, listened for the sound of the bells on his dog-
trains. But I have not heard them. O that he were here to help me! He
is far away; so get me my old drum and medicine bag, and let me die as
did my fathers. But you, young people, with good memories, who can
remember all the Missionary has said to you, listen to his words, and
wo