With great Pleasure and satisfaction I take my Pen in
Hand to try to
write You a Letter, and thereby to inform you that we arrived at
Butlers berry the
11th of July Well and safe, and
Mr.
Pomeroy
and
Sir Wheelock arrived the
17th
Sir Wheelock went in the
Castle to settle a school there, and the Indians were very
much Pleased with his Discourse, and liked very well to have a school there and they
made fair promises that they would send their Children every Day Steady; and
so I entered the
Castle
22nd of July in order to open the School, and I told the In
dians that
I should have been glad to opened the school on the
23rd but the Indians
were very loathe to send their Children, for what reason I know not, I went to
the Indians day after Day to get some of their
Children to School, but all this
signified nothing, the Indians would make excuses that they had work for
them to do, so that they could not send them yet,
but they would send them
Tomorrow, and so on till the
30th I told them I would leave them, that I could
not stay with them Doing Nothing and on the Morrow they sent Five
Children, and so on 'til
Mr Wheelock came from
the
Upper Castle;
And then I related him
all what was done, He told the Indians that
Mr
Kinne would Preach to them on Sunday following Two of the Clock
in
the afternoon, so the Indians gathered but they could get no In
terpreter, for the Preacher, they got an Interpreter for
Sir Wheelock to interpret what he had to
say, and so he told them that it was God’s
Day that he would have it kept for
him etc. at last he told them
that he had let them have the benefit of a school master to teach
their Children and when he came in the
Castle
that he ex
pected to find a dozen or fourteen Children in the School all
busy with their Books, but at his expectation, he found but
Five Children which
made his heart ache
and the Indians so
unwilling to send their Children
“it seems that they wanted no Schooling and
then he asked them what should he
do, must he take away so great a blessing
that
was given them or no, but he would fain try them a little longer he would
let me
stay with them till the’ fall and so he ended. The Indians replied
that they would give
an Answer Wednesday following, and on Wednesday the
Indians met they said they
thanked him for his good will in trying to do them a
little good but what can we
do there are some that do not want schooling and we are mixed some good and some bad
they said they had been and sought out as many as wanted to have a school and they
said they could send 15 Children to school the greatest part of the
time and if
Sir Wheelock thought fit to take me away why they
could not help it there was
as many as were at home, by and by the
rest of the Indians
would come home and likely they would
have a mind to send their Children at School too, they
say also that they are
going out to hunt and that they must needs take their Children with them
that they cant leave
their Children alone etc.
etc. — — — —
Sir if I have missed any thing or said any thing Wrong I hope your Son
will bring it right I cant tell it no straighter. I have now Eighteen scholars which
come very Steady, but it is very hard to bring them to I do my best that I can and
yet the Indians will complain that I am not severe enough will it do for me
to
be a thrashing them continually, how oft have I corrected them within a Week
sometimes twice or thrice a Day I hate forever to be a whipping, whipping too
much
wont do, I told them if I was not severe enough they must in consequence
get a Severer one but I hope Sir in time to bring them to by the help of God
which I cannot do without, all these means wont do, they are stubborn People
sometimes I am ready to give out With these Indians and with the Pains I have, I have
a hard head ache certain time in the afternoon which sometimes is so hard that I
hardly know
that I am about etc. The Indians say that I shall not come home these
three years they think that I am their servant
and are obliged to keep school for them
and yet they wont send their Children
It is true I should be glad to
keep School here all my Days but all these things makes me
faint hearted together my wanting to see my father Mother and relations —