Volume 41 — BUREAU OF WOMAN’S WORK.

MISS D. E. EMERSON, SECRETARY.

Please remember to renew the “shares” in the support of teachers. Those who desire it can have their shares transferred from year to year to new fields, thus obtaining more varied knowledge of the work from the missionary correspondence.

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS.

Missionary.—I am happy to write you that the $25 pledged for the support of a teacher is again ready for you. The letters received were enjoyed very much in the Society and I know greatly increased our interest and membership.

New York Missionary Union.—Our auxiliaries voted the $1,100 the coming year for the A. M. A. (support of three missionaries.) I have promised, as last year, bi-monthly letters from each of these teachers. Our auxiliaries much enjoy the letters and greatly miss them if anything delays.

Local Church Society, Conn.—The amount of our pledge is collected and will be forwarded. We have received the missionary letters monthly and we take them into our Mission Circle, and read them, and frequently they are read from the pulpit so that all may hear the good results of help given. We wish the good work God-speed.

It will be remembered that after the Annual Meeting in New Haven the Indian students from the Santee Normal Training School made a short campaign among the churches. The writer of the following letter was one of the students, and in it she tells a friend what she saw and thought as she went from place to place.

Dear Friend:

I will now try to tell you how much I enjoyed our trip East. We had good and hard times, too. We left Santee Oct. 12th. We were gone for eight weeks. It seems very nice to get back to Santee. I think more of the school every time I go away and come back.

We stopped over Sunday at Chicago; then we took train for New Haven, Conn., and it was a very tiresome journey, for we never had been on the train for such a long distance. We reached New Haven Tuesday evening; then the next afternoon we went to the meeting. The church was just packed, so they had the meeting in two churches and we had to go back and forth to sing. We sang in Dakota and English.

I want to tell you some of the places we went to. It will take me too long if I try to tell you all. We met a great many of our teachers’ friends.

We went to Essex and had a very pleasant afternoon at Miss Pratt’s home. We felt as though we were going to see some of our old acquaintances when we knew that we were to meet our teachers’ friends. As we went in Boston I thought of you and wondered how many times you had been in that depot. I like Boston very well, but not as well as I like our old home Santee.

At Providence I met one of my teachers, Prof. Wilson, and I went home with him and spent the night at his house and had a very good time.

At Northampton, after the service was out, two young ladies invited us to go with them the next morning to Smith College, so we went around and saw the most of the buildings; then again we went to South Hadley Seminary, and I could not make out which school I liked the best. I think I never saw so many young ladies at once as I did that morning.

When we were in Newport one thing we wanted to see very much was the ocean; but it rained when we reached the city, so we were afraid that after all we could not see the ocean; but some kind friends sent their carriages and drivers to take us out to the beach, and we girls got in one carriage, and we all enjoyed that ride very much because we saw the great waters we had heard so much about. As we went along and saw the large, beautiful houses closed, I wondered why the people built such beautiful houses just for the summer. I think they might have used their money some other way just as well as to spend all on houses like that. Perhaps it was wrong for me to wish it, but I did, when I saw so many right along the beach. I wished we had some of that money for our work out here, and if we did it would do more good than just to stand as those houses did, just for the looks.

At Groton we had a very pleasant evening with some young ladies who invited us to take tea with them. Many of them got so interested in our people that they kept asking us about one thing or another all the time. On our way home we stopped at New York and Brooklyn, and we saw the Suspension Bridge and we were surprised to see it; I wanted to see it very much; and one more thing too, and that was the Niagara Falls. We went across on Canada side and when we saw the Falls it seemed as though there never could be so much of water falling down at once. I think it is just grand to see it, and to hear the great noise it makes.

At Southport we had a very pleasant place to stay and we enjoyed being there with such good kind friends and to know that we had such friends at the East. One morning while we were staying there we had a very hard storm, but in the afternoon it cleared off and we went to the shore and gathered some shells and stones to take home with us. We were there for two or three days, while Miss Ilsley, Mr. Shelton and Mr. Riggs went to other places. At Norwich, Miss Ilsley wasn’t with us, so John played for the short time she was away. We missed her very much.

Sometimes the people asked us such funny questions. At Boston we had service Sunday evening, and after the close of the meeting one lady came up and said, “Is your teacher Indian?” It seems she would have known the difference between us and our teacher, for she was not Indian at all. Then again at one place—I don’t remember just where—one lady said to me, “How is it you all have such good teeth?” I told her “I don’t know.” Then again she said, “Do the Indians ever have the toothache?” I told her yes, and I think she was surprised to hear my answer.

Since I have come back I want to help more in this work, and I hope I will be able to do so in the future by God’s help.

Your friend,

Jennie W. Cox.