But we got through at last, and, arriving at the head of the rapids, I found the boat lying there, all in readiness for our re-embarking.
Our Menomonee guide, _Wish-tay-yun_, a fine, stalwart Indian, with an open, good-humored, one might almost say _roguish_ countenance, came forward to be presented to me.
"_Bon-jour, bon-jour, maman_," was his laughing salutation. Again I was surprised, not as before at the French, for to that I had become accustomed, but at the respectable title he was pleased to bestow upon me.
"Yes," said my husband, "you must make up your mind to receive a very numerous and well-grown family, consisting of all the Winnebagoes, Pottowattamies, Chippewas, and Ottawas, together with such Sioux, Sacs and Foxes, and Iowas, as have any point to gain in applying to me. By the first-named tribe in virtue of my office, and by the others as a matter of courtesy, I am always addressed as '_father_'--you, of course, will be their '_mother_.'"
Wish-tay-yun and I were soon good friends, my husband interpreting to me the Chippewa language in which he spoke. We were impatient to be off, the morning being already far advanced, and, all things being in readiness, the word was given:
"_Pousse au large, mes gens!_" (Push out, my men).
At this moment a boat was seen leaving the opposite bank of the river and making towards us. It contained white men, and they showed by signs that they wished to detain us until they came up. They drew near, and we found them to be Mr. Marsh, a missionary among the Waubanakees, or the New York Indians, lately brought into this country, and the Rev. Eleazar Williams,[7] who was at that time living among his red brethren on the right bank of the Fox River.
To persons so situated, even more emphatically than to those of the settlements, the arrival of visitors from the "east countrie" was a godsend indeed. We had to give all the news of various kinds that we had brought--political, ecclesiastical, and social--as well as a tolerably detailed account of what we proposed to do, or rather what we hoped to be able to do, among our native children at the Portage.
I was obliged, for my part, to confess that, being almost entirely a stranger to the Indian character and habits, I was going among them with no settled plans of any kind--general good-will, and a hope of making them my friends, being the only principles I could lay claim to at present. I must leave it for time and a better acquaintance to show me in what way the principle could be carried out for their greatest good.