JIMMIE (the rat)

You boy

Dear arch deacon:

my mama catch fish plenty. OLA Christmas merry to you

Ο 3

ago, an Indian chief whose name was Good Thunder, came to Bishop Whipple bringing his only child. She was a beautiful little girl of twelve, and her father said to the bishop: "I want my daughter to be like a white woman, not a wild woman. Will you take her to your home?"

The bishop took the child to Faribault and placed her in his Indian boardingschool, and she was baptized Lydia. In

this school the children were Ojibways; Lydia was a Sioux, and the Ojibways and the Sioux were enemies. Before long Lydia sickened, and the bishop sent for her father to come to her. He came very sadly, saying that the wild Indians among whom he lived, when they heard of Lydia's illness, had jeered at him and said: "You sent your child to a school of the Ojibways, who are your enemies; they have poisoned her and she will die, and we are glad of it."

But Lydia said: "Father, these Ojib

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THE REV. J. J. ENMEGAHBOWH One of the Indian clergy ordained by Bishop Whipple

way children are my sisters. There are no enemies among Christ's children. They love me, and bring me fresh flowers and berries every day."

Good Thunder took his child home, and the bishop followed them and was with her when she died, and heard her last words to her father: "Father, you must follow me to the Great Spirit's Home, for I shall be waiting for you."

In the early morning, while the dew was fresh upon them, the Indian women gathered hundreds of wild roses and

lined a little grave out on the broad green prairie, and there Lydia was laid. The Christian service was said, and there was sung in the Dakota the Dakota language "Mi-ta-Wa-ni-ki-ya," "Nearer, my God, to Thee."

This darling child, gone out of his sight, drew the father's heart after her. Good Thunder became a Christian, and was the first Sioux warrior Bishop Whipple baptized.

Then

Good Thunder was one of the Indians who helped save the white people in the outbreak of 1862. With the other Sioux he was sent out of the country, far away to the Dakota plains, but his heart yearned for his old home, and he left his own tribe and came back to Minnesota and bought eighty acres of land. he went to his old friend the bishop and said: "I cannot live without a tipi-wakan (sacred house). If you will build one, I will give you land." And of his eighty acres he gave twenty to the Church. So there at Birch Coolie to-day stands the church built on Good Thunder's land, and beside it the cross which marks his grave.

The priest who ministers in the church is the Rev. Henry Whipple St. Clair; and he can remember when, a boy with painted face and a feather in his hair, he sat in his blanket on the chancel step at Bishop Whipple's first service in the church at Faribault. Helping him in his

work is the bishop's niece, Miss Salisbury, and it is she who tells this story of the Babies' Branch at Birch Coolie. A little child led Good Thunder to the

T

HE Babies' Branch at Birch Coolie was formed in May, 1901, and was named after Bishop Whipple. It advances all the time. In the first year the children gave $22.31; the next year $26.26, and so on, until last year they gave $45.15-more than any other Babies' Branch in Minnesota.

The members of the branch know well the story of Jesus's love for little children, how He took them in His arms and blessed them, and so they have learned to love to help and give to others. Their offerings mean not only love but selfdenial, for pennies are scarce in the Indian homes and there are many needs. Sometimes when the yearly offering comes in, and I lift the boxes and find them so heavy, I wonder where the pennies come from. Many of the children earn their money, and they are all so interested. As I see them drop the coin

into the little red box and say the sweet Dakota prayer, I pray that the children of the Bishop Whipple Babies' Branch. may be leaders in the great missionary work for Christ.

There are several memorial boxes. An Indian mother's heart is very tender, and I know of no place where the memory of a little one gone out of her home is kept more sacred. One little box I lifted was heavy with coins, and so full that it could not hold another. The mother who brought it had filled it in memory of a little one in Paradise.

So you can imagine my joy when the children meet and make their yearly gift, and with them is always Mrs. Good Thunder, who came when the branch was organized and asked if she could not belong to it, saying, "I am old now, and like a child, and I want to belong to every good work in Birch Coolie."