The Log School-House on the Columbia

An elderly woman and a German girl were walking along the old Indian trail that led from the northern mountains to the Columbia River. The river was at this time commonly called...

Marlowe Mann was a graduate of Harvard in the classic period of the college. He had many scholarly gifts, and as many noble qualities of soul as mental endowments. He was used t...

Marlowe Mann--"Boston tilicum," as the Siwashes called all the missionaries, teachers, and traders from the East--sat down upon a bench of split log and leaned upon his desk, wh...

Mrs. Woods was much alone during this summer. Her husband was away from home during the working days of the week, at the saw and shingle mill on the Columbia, and during the sam...

Benjamin continued to attend the school, but it was evident that he did so with an injured heart, and chiefly out of love for the old chief, his father. He had a high regard for...

One morning, as Mrs. Woods sat in her door picking over some red whortleberries which she had gathered in the timber the day before, a young cow came running into the yard, as i...

One day in September Mrs. Woods was at work in her cabin, and Gretchen was at school. Mrs. Woods was trying to sing. She had a hard, harsh voice always, and the tune was a battl...

In the log school-house, Lewis and Clarke's Expedition was used as a reading-book. Master Mann had adopted it because it was easy to obtain, and served as a sort of local geogra...

"Go to the chief's lodge, Gretchen, and stay until the Potlatch, and I will come to visit you." Such were the words of Mrs. Woods, as her final decision, after long considering...

One day Rev. Jason Lee came up from the Cascades, in a boat, to visit Mr. and Mrs. Woods on their donation claim. Mr. Lee at this tine was inspired with missionary zeal for the...

Besides the Narrative of Lewis and Clarke, which was used in the school as a reader, Mr. Mann made use of another book in his teaching which greatly delighted his pupils and oft...

One day a man in a buckskin habit came to the door of the school-house and looked in upon the school. His face was that of a leader of men, hard and powerful; one could see that...

One evening, as Gretchen was sitting outside of the lodge, she saw the figure of a woman moving cautiously about in the dim openings of the fir-trees. It was not the form of an...

A potlatch among the tribes of the Northwest means a feast at which some wealthy Indian gives away to his own people or to a friendly tribe all that he has. For this generosity...

An hour passed in this mysterious and strange tranquillity--the noon hour of night. The warriors seemed contented and satisfied. Many of them were old; some of them remembered t...

It was sunset on the bluffs and valleys of the Columbia. Through the tall, dark pines and firs the red west glowed like the lights in an oriel or mullioned window. The air was v...

As Gretchen was hurrying home on the evening after these exciting scenes, she met Mrs. Woods in the trail, and she saw at a glance that her foster-mother was in great distress.

The next day witnessed a strange scene at the log school-house on the Columbia. It was a red October morning. Mrs. Woods accompanied Gretchen to the school, as she wished to hav...