Mt Idaho I.T.

March 22, 1886

If you only could know how head & heart & hands of S.L. McB have been filled to overflowing with duties & cares with the New Carlisle. I know you & the other dear long suffering Philadelphia friends would forgive the long silence. I think the strongest woman, & Miss McB. never was a strong woman, could scarcely live through 10 consecutive months of such a whirl. I wish she had time now to write & then to read the storms of those months. I know it would interest them & she hopes to write it ere long. D.V. But if she should begin to today the long delayed deed which she want to transfer from her hands to theirs would be kept waiting so she only sends with it a business letter.

Only about 2 weeks ago Dr Lindsley wrote me that he had deposited it in his hand in the Portland Bank to my credit. Last week I had the new deed made out to the New York Board as you said & had it recorded in Recorders Office here, & now enclose it that the Phila. Friends may see it, & therefore forward it to Dr. Ellinwood – if they will be so kind. I send too the first deed made out in my name to show the succession though the Recorders here show that. The taxes are paid up to last November. Repairs, windows, locks etc needed when our boys took possession Miss McB paid last fall so that the property comes the Board without encumbrance. And would you please let Dr Ellinwood see this letter too, if it would not be too much trouble? It would save my writing the same things to him. I’m afraid of long letters if I begin to him & I want him to know some of the things I write about, school matters besides the deed etc. I had a long talk last week with Mr. L. P. Brown, a warm friend of the school, one of the most influential men in this region. He said that if the Board would located the school in Mt Idaho (winter quarters even, perhaps) the friends here would try to get an appropriation from the Government for it through the Idaho delegate, Mr. Hailey. (Of course no one can tell with certainty now if they should succeed, but their application or recommendation might be a help if the Board should apply to the Government for help for the schools.) He, Mr B. said that if houses should be built for our boys, box houses (like mine), double houses, for 2 families could be built at a cost of about $250.00 each lining with muslin, as all these box must be lined, & papering etc. would cost about $50.00 more. A lot 50 x 120 ft. could be bought for about $25.00 i.e. an appropriation of $1000 would give school home to 6 families of our boys. Property is very cheap in Mt Idaho now partly because of its distance from rivers & railroad, then the county is new. But railroads are creeping nearer, the country is filling up the Mt Idaho with its over 150 inhabitants enough for all our school purposes, in only a few years old. Still, Miss McB would not ask the risk of the Boards money as an investment in property on which they might not be able to realize soon, only in the event of its getting the money from the Government as help for the New Carlisle.

For rents eat up money so fast & leave us as unprovided for as ever at the end of the year. For instance, the $15.00 per mo. Or $180.00 per year for rents now. Winter quarters would need to be erected even at Kamiah [illegible] have tested & proved that here is the best place for studies. Miss McB, the boys too think that they can advance as much perhaps in one month here as in 2 at Kamiah. This is a year of ‘testing.’ We are testing now, while waiting for the Ides of March to pass – as Dr. E advised, how much our boys can study in farming months from the Reserve. Four of them were here a part of last week, (among them 2 of our boys who are hoping for licensure this Spring) (D.V.) but are now at K. ploughing, putting in their crops as they must. Then Presbytery meets next week in Walla Walla, which some of them must attend, D.V. They want to come here in farming months but how much they can come we cannot yet tell. Only this, for Miss McB I think, if God please, if the mountain cannot come to Mohammed then Mohammed must go to the mountain. But I must not forget that this is a business letter and begin talking ‘Nez Perce’

The Government could so easily help us in other matters too, as for instance in the wagons & harness, & stoves sent down so often to Indian Agencies. We needed so much even at Kamiah, a school wagon & harness for our boys to haul their firewood that Miss McB would have bough a wagon for them years ago had she been able. When there is snow they can do well enough with their sleds, but it is so hard to drag logs for miles in the mud or on bare ground on sleds with their little ponies. If Miss McB goes back to Kamiah for the farming months she will need to take back her cooking stove which she brought up last fall for our boys use (she has an open fire place for wood here) & will need to leave the stove there (hauling it back & forth would soon cost as much as a new stove)

Even last winter we needed another stove when the 7^th family was here & if more of our boys bring their families as they want to another year D.V. we will need more stoves & perhaps houses & Miss McB has reached the limit of her own resources even though reducing personal expenses to the very lowest, too low for health, perhaps. She has not had one dollar of help, save the printing press money, has been drawing on the ‘reserve fund’ of a few hundreds which she had before the Board took charge of her and her things. Another thing as this is a business letter, I’m afraid that the articles about the Nez Perces in the Feb. no of the Foreign Missionary though speaking kindly of the teacher of Men’s School might give some of the friends the impression that the school was stopped & so perhaps prevent the sending of missionary boxes for our boys & families which they need & will need, D.V. more that ever. They have a hard struggle & do bravely in providing for self & family while studying, but clothing & everything of the kind is very high here, so far from the line of transportation & freighters so heavy.

If the Phila friends have seen her Miss McB’s last letter to Dr Ellinwood (to which she has not yet had answer) she is only repeating, save the last item, what they already knew & know, that so far God has given success to the New Carlisle almost even beyond her dreams. To His Blessed Name be all the praise! Help her to thank our Father too, that the Kamiah church with which her school is so lined still holds steadfastly on its way in spite of the trials (caused, so everything points, by placing power in the hands of the heathen in exchange for help in securing peace) & that none of these things moved our boys (Acts 20^th, 24) or cause them to falter for an hour. God is so good to Miss McB to let her live to see this. What the future holds for us is in His hands. Pray much for us in the coming eventful weeks, on which to human view, so much depends. This month decides, D.V. for the next 4 years the Agency officials who had so much power to help or hinder. The first of next month Court meets here when the trial for the murder at the Kamiah S.S. pic-nic last summer will test the protection to the Nez Perces by territorial laws. The 15^th of next month Presbytery meets in Walla Walla. 2 of our boys applying for liscensure, D.V., & so much wisdom need in decisions touching the Nez Perce Mission.

Pray much for the Nez Perces for all the workers among them & all who have to do with them that God will work out His own will in greatest good to them & praise to His Own Name.
In the Master’s work
Lovingly

S.L. McBeth