and has pleasant memories of that little school.
Amid many discouragements the study of the Chippewa was pursued by
this missionary family, and although they made 'but slow progress' and
it was 'hard work to commit their words to memory' and 'extremely
difficult to construct a sentence according to the idioms of their
language,' they 'hope and expect we shall be able to surmount every
difficulty.'

"While thus toilfully but hopefully preparing for his anticipated
work, getting acquainted with Indians, their life and character, and
as yet uncertain at what precise point to commence his mission, Mr.
Denhey, a Moravian missionary, desired to occupy the field upon the
St. Clair River, which Mr. Bacon in some measure occupied the year
before, and to this Mr. Bacon assented. His attention had been called
to Mackinac and L'Arbre Croche, but he resolved to visit the Indians
upon the Maumee, and ascertain by personal interviews and examination
what encouragement there was for a mission in that vicinity. For this
purpose, with his brother-in-law and a hired man, on 29th of April,
1802, he left in a canoe for the 'Miami,'as the Maumee was then
called. He found most of the Indian chiefs engaged in a drunken
debauch, and it was not until the 14th of May, and after repeated
efforts, that he succeeded in gathering a full council, and addressing
them upon the subject of establishing a mission among them. He felt it
his duty to have translated the message sent to the Indians by the
Missionary Society. The poor savages listened courteously to this long
piece of abstruse theological narrative and argument, but they must
have been terribly bored, notwithstanding Mr. Bacon's efforts to
'express the ideas in language better adapted to the capacity and more
agreeable to their ways of speaking.' No wonder that Little Otter was
'too unwell to attend in the afternoon.' After this translation, Mr.
Bacon made a well conceived speech of considerable length, setting
forth the advantages which the Indians would derive from a mission.
There was no little point in the polished reproof of Little Otter, in
the commencement of his speech, who said: 'Now brother, if you will
listen to us we will give you an answer. But it is our way to be very
short. Our white brothers, when they make speeches, are very lengthy.
They read and write so much that they get in a great many little
things. But it is not so with your red brothers. When we go on any
great busine