13 



ization and Christianity on the Kuskokwim. Work enough 

 there was to do. At times troops of natives covered with 

 boils, the heritage of a period of semi-starvation, clamor 

 for salves and medicines; the school must be taught, its 

 seventeen children clothed and fed — often washed, or even 

 disinfected, when first received ; there is a log-house to be 

 built with native help ; there are heavy parental anxieties 

 about little Katie, the missionaries' child, and sometimes 

 the utter cruelty of the unfeeling heathen is such that it 

 would depress any except the stoutest-hearted. Here is an 

 extract from the missionaries' Journal : 



" Some one tied a helpless little child of about two years 

 down to the water's edge at low tide. Its cries attracted 

 the attention of a passer-by, who found the water already 

 nearly up to his neck. The man took it to his home and 

 took good care of it. It was recognized as a Neposkiogamute 

 child, whose mother had died, the father leaving it in the 

 care of an old woman at Mumtrekhlagamute. The child 

 is sickly and doubtless was too much of a care for her. 

 The only surprise that people have about it is, that any one 

 should want to drown or kill a boy; their girls are often 

 killed, but seldom a boy." . . . '• At the mouth of the 

 river, an old woman was cut up into small pieces by a man, 

 who supposed he had lost his children through her witchery. 

 Some time ago quite a prominent native brought an 

 aunt down here. She was insane, and he was her only 

 living relative. This man wished to leave her among 

 strangers, and tried to bribe them to kill her. He was 

 finally compelled to take her back to his home. We heard 

 the other day that he deliberately froze her to death." 



Yet the brave couple, though sometimes in ill-health, 

 labor on undaunted. In spite of 30 degrees below zero, 

 Brother Kilbuck will walk twenty-five or thirty miles to 

 plan for the erection of chapels at two other villages. At 

 one time, his nose and lips are frozen ; at another, a blind- 

 ing snowstorm meets him on his way home. There must 

 sometimes be contests with the "shamans" who threaten 

 him with their " black art." 



But dawn is at hand. Day breaks soon after the darkest 

 hour. At Christmas the interest taken in the "old, old 



