ary who had been in the field for
three years. From Fort Snelling they departed on September 5, 1837,
for their destination Lac-qui-parle, travelling with two one-ox carts
and a double wagon. On September 18 they arrived at the station to
which they had been appointed, and received a hearty welcome from the
two missionaries who had settled there some time before at the earnest
request of a Lac-qui-parle trader. Lac-qui-parle was a small place, a
mere collection of buffalo-skin tents, in which lived some 400 Red
Indians. Mr. and Mrs. Riggs found a home in a log-house belonging to
one of the other missionaries. Only one room could be spared them, and
although it was but 10 feet wide and 18 feet long they made themselves
comfortable. Mr. Riggs wrote as follows in his account of their work
among the Sioux[1]: 'This room we made our home for five winters.
There were some hardships about such close quarters, but, all in all,
Mary and I never enjoyed five winters better than those spent in that
upper room. There our first three children were born. There we worked
in acquiring the language. There we received our Dakota visitors.
There I wrote, and re-wrote, my ever-growing dictionary. And there,
with what help I could obtain, I prepared for the printer the greater
portion of the New Testament in the Dakota language. It was a
consecrated room.'

When Mrs. Riggs and her husband took possession of their one-room home
they had much difficulty in making it comfortable, as they had been
unable to bring on their furniture and domestic utensils. One person,
however, lent them a kettle, another provided them with a pan, and bit
by bit they collected the most necessary articles.

In the East missionaries have never experienced a difficulty in
obtaining servants, but in Dakota neither male nor female Sioux would
enter the Riggs' service. Consequently Mrs. Riggs had to perform all
the household duties. They bought a cow, but neither of them knew how
to milk her. Both Mr. and Mrs. Rigg tried to perform the task, but not
until the cow had experienced considerable discomfort did Mrs. Riggs
become acquainted with the art. Washing clothes was a performance
which filled the Sioux women with wonder, for they were in the habit of
wearing their garments unwashed until they became too old to be worn
any longer. Very soon they adopted the white woman's custom, and,
becoming fond of standing over the washing-tub, they took to washing