, and that they wanted him to be their
chief--to wear the silver medal with the face of the Great Mother (the
Queen) upon it, and to be their voice to speak to the Queen's
representative, (the Governor), on all matters that referred to the
happiness and welfare of the tribe.

I had been informed of the decision of the people, and had accepted an
invitation to be present at the council when Big Tom was to be
appointed. In other days, I had attended conventions among my white
friends, and there had observed the readiness with which proffered
honours, political and ecclesiastical, were accepted. Here, however,
was a surprise in store for us; an exception to the general rule, so
marvellous that it is worth pondering.

When the office of chief was offered to him, the big man, who looked
every inch a chief, instead of accepting the position at once, became
deeply affected, and seemed utterly unable to make any suitable reply.
He tried, we thought, to express his thanks for the great honour; but
all he really did was in broken words to ask for an adjournment of the
council until the next day. While disappointed at the adjournment, I
was pleased at the thought that Big Tom, taken unawares, had felt that
he could not give the oration which the occasion demanded, and so had
asked for time to get his thoughts in order, when he would give us a
speech worthy of the great event; for Big Tom was a speaker of no mean
order, although rather slow until he warmed up to his subject.

On the reassembling of the council, we were all there, eager to hear an
Indian oration under the best auspices. It was a speech, calm,
eloquent, delightful; but how different from what had been expected.
What a chance was here for an ambitious, aspiring man! How he could
have talked about himself; what he had done, and what he was going to
do! But in Big Tom's address there was nothing of the kind. Quietly
and modestly he talked, warming up as he proceeded. The only brief
report I have of his address is the following, and it fails to do
justice to the occasion or to the man:

"Long ago when the missionaries came and preached to us, for a time we
refused to listen to them, and would not become Christians. Then, after
a while, many of us who had been in darkness, began to feel in our
hearts, that what they told us was for our good; and so we accepted
these things, and they have done us good. When I got the assurance in
my heart that I was a child o