Mt Idaho
July 19^th 1883
Rev Dr J.C. Lowrie

Dear Sir
It is too bad to break in upon the resting time I hope Dr Lowrie is having these hot days with ‘another of Miss McBeths letters.’ But he has had a long rest from the infliction from answering too) and she only purposes a short letter, today. I find in my portfolio, a letter began to him last April but laid aside from the doubt if I should send it – because of some things in it. (If Dr Lowrie could only see the package of such unfinished letters in my trunk at Kamiah, letters begun to him in some crisis or ‘perplexity’ and then laid aside.) He will see the reasons why with the contents when the books are opened ‘up yonder.’ Perhaps I want him to look at the Kamiah church and sending it can do no hurt, at least, save to tire Dr Lowrie. I had not yet begun to write in it about my school.

I told Dr Lowrie last fall, I think about the prostration (physical) caused in part by the intense heats of the summer in the Kamiah valley, and also about beginning to prepare my Nez Perce and English Dictionary for the press &c. I regained about my usual health after that cold weather began, and, in December added two new pupils (Abram Johnson, and Moses Montieth) to my class in the place of two of those who had gone from us, making my class only one less in number than it was the year before. Mark Williams, and James Hayes helping me my Dictionary. Mark worked in his own home (He is not now a pupil. He copied the English words from an Eng. Dic (Websters Academic) in which I had marked in past vacations the words for which I had or though I could find the Nez Perce equivalents. I attending to him usually out of school hours.) We have now finished copying for the press, all of the Eng words, (from 15,000 to 20,000 but I may not be able to find or us to make all of the Nez Perce for this together with parts of speech &c.

James Hays work: The Nez Perce had to be done under my own eye. His little writing table in the school room stood near his teacher to whom he could turn in the pauses of the lessons, when in perplexity, when at his writing and who could help him for a little while after school (when she was not too utterly wearied. Teaching in two languages is exhausting.)

The Nez Perce part of the Dic is very slow and difficult work. Every word particulary of those collected n the first years needing to be tested for fear of mistakes (A mistake of one word sometimes does much hurt.) We had no standard (printed) even to guide in spelling and as the Nez Perce is spelled phoneticaly we need to be sure we have all the sounds and no more. But I must not write more begin Nez Perce this morning.

Am I not rich to have a boy who can help me embody in characters the strange sounds of the language and who now could almost finish the work? There is one thought which spurs me always. No one else has ever taught my boys for a day. Since Father Spauldings death no one else is able to teach them and there is no present prospect so far as human kind can reach that there will ever be any one else (unless God should raise up James Hayes of which more anon D.V.) And the ‘night cometh’ we do not know when – and there is so much work waiting to be done.

It was this thought which spurred me last fall & winter. The two languages and work in the Dic. (in two languages) used to leave me ‘wrung out’ at the close of the days work and left me little strength to meet the demands of the hot days (in the narrow Kamiah valley lying deep down among the mountains where the bald mountains sides reflect the heat and rarify it at this altitude. (The house being only one thickness of boards & with no shade around it gets very hot. All the houses save the Indians & mine are two thickness of boards with a space between.)

About the last of May the danger of a total ‘break down’ (which I wished to avoid if God willed for my works sake) seemed eminent. (Our boys really needed the days for their work after the years losses from drought and storms. So I packed up my M.S.S. and took it with me to this little mountain village, our nearest town, six to nine miles from the border of the Reserve though thirty miles from Kamiah where I could have care if needed and yet be near enough to reach the Nez Perce (who trade here, principally, i.e. the Kamians). There was no time to write and wait for answers from Eastern friends and believe me, there was nothing else to be done than what I did. As soon as I had gained a little strength (I have been gaining ever since I came, (Miss McB ‘is immortal’ till the Master sees her work is done) James Hays came to me here and spent eleven precious days helping me with the Dictionary.

To go back in my story. The week I left Kamiah Silas Whitman reached Kamiah to late to see me, then followed me to Mt Idaho, having travelled, on horseback about 180 miles through the heat, seeking help from his teacher. "When I first went to the Umatillas’ he said " I was full of ‘himtakpama’" (sermon material, or material for sermons) "but, as the river flows in the spring time, the waters have been going down and down and down until they are very low." (In other words, he had about ‘preached himself out’ preaching as he has done, perhaps three times a week usual.) "I forget the English words" he said "and we cannot study without help. Help us?’

I am so sorry for our boys who have gone from us. If we could imagine a white licentiate raised in heathen darkness who began his study of letters (or any alphabet) in the Greek, knew little of the Gospel until he began the study of his Greek Bible, then after less than five years he should be sent out to preach to the heathen with his Greek Bible in his hand without a Dictionary or other helps when he forgot a word, or came across a new one, he could understand the position of our boys among the Umatillas.

I promised Silas to visit them this month, and spend what strength the Master gave me in teaching them. I can not let them have the M.S.S. we have in preparation for the press of course. But I have copied from it (with the help of James and others) what we have finished and have now ready to take to them a M.S.S. Dic of over 4600 Nez Perce words with their English Definitions (over 9000 words in all) with parts of speech &c, which I hope to take to them shortly, God willing. These 4600 Nez Perce words in the M.S.S. Dic. I have made for our Umatilla boys are perhaps not over one fourth of the Nez Perce words I have collected or can get so this Dic is very far from finished. But they need the 4600 words in their hands if God willing [ill] that much finished work not dependent on the continuance of Miss McBs breaths. And now each one of my boys to make a M.S.S. Dic for themselves from what I have prepared for them. (A printing press years ago would have saved me all this labor and expense.) But enough of the Dic.

There are so many others things I want to write. I too, wish that Dr Lowrie could fly across the Continent to Nez Perce land sometimes writing is such slow work. And he could see for himself, if God spares him. I hope to be back to my work in Kamiah about the last of Aug of 1^st of Sept. I had such a good visit from Robert yesterday. The first good long talk I have had with him since he returned from Portland. He has been the Spokane country with Mr D since his return and conducted the July camp meeting at Lapwai, and administered the sacrament of the Lords Supper there with no help save Enoch who is still weak he tells me. Mr D with James Hayes & Peter Lindsley conducted the Camp meeting at Kamiah this year and Mr D administered the Communion. I am glad Robert went to Portland if only for a short time. He gained much knowledge which is of use in his church and S.S. work. ‘And I heard such good preaching’ he said ‘ and understood every word, almost.’ Even that short stay improved him much. Silas could only spend parts of two days with me in Mt Idaho with his questioning. Long ago I dared to say ‘aloud’ and say still "Thank God for Robert Williams" and I say such words even to myself very slowly remembering the ‘pit’’ from which out boys were ‘digged’ full grown heathen.

A year or more ago I added ‘Thank God for James Hayes.’ As Silas went from my home at Mt I after seeing the spirit of the man and how he had developed since I saw him last, shewing that his temptations & trials had only driven him closer to the source of all strength I whispered to myself for the first time ‘Thank God for Silas Whitman."

I thank God for the past year too in our work at Kamiah. I think it has been a profitable one, even with its many shortcomings. I always have a pleasant school so that perhaps I sometimes forget to write it down that my boys are only comforts to me, save as I sympathize with them in their privations last year from causes beyond their power to control. I wanted to talk with Dr Lowrie especially about Peter Lindsley and Solomon Whitman and ask Dr Lowrie if I could not keep James Hayes and try to teach him to help in or continue the teaching [illegible] but I should not have written that without writing more which I hope to do again God willing I must not write more today or I cannot finish.
[illegible]

S.L. McBeth