this would make a good story
More missionary reporting from Reverend Stewart Sheldon, Dakota Territory:

On a recent missionary trip, in which I was favored by good foitune with the company of a young man, we were overtaken by night, and stopped at a farmhouse far out on the prairie. It was a rude structure, with kitchen, pantry, bedrooms, sitting rooms, and parlor all in one! "Can we stay over night?" we asked of the kind man who met us very smilingly at the door and followed us out to the road. Well, he would go in and ask his wife, who was not very well, and he hardly knew whether they could keep us or not. In a minute or two he returned, saying, "Drive in, and we'll do the best we can by you." Putting out our team, we went into the house, where was the good wife of the honest yeoman... the mother busied herself with preparing supper for us. She dressed a chicken and cooked it; made an English cherry pie and baked it; and brought out from the oven light hot bread made from the flour after we entered the house! All this she did in double-quick time, and we were soon eating with a hearty relish. As the hour for sleep came, we were pointed to our humble couch, and after a mutual putting out of lights, we retired for the night, in one corner of the cabin, the family occupying an opposite corner. If all parties were as tired as I was, they were soon lost in the realms of Morpheus. But we were aroused, after a little, by the barking of dogs, the howl of the coyote, the patter of rain on the dirt roof, and by and by the dripping down of water into our faces....

...There are diamonds in many a home missionary field, that need only polishing to shine with peculiar brightness. See that man of splendid physique, with sinews like steel, and muscles like hempen cord... He looks like a king. As he rests from his farm work, while the tea is in preparation, the flute or the organ is as much under his control as was the plow or the reaper that he has just left in the field. He is the life of the social circle, and not a child even escapes his notice. He leads the prayer-meeting in the absence of a minister, and is the soul of the Sabbath-school. Were he in the populous city, he would be foremost there as well. You say, in all justice, he was born to lead. His children are very like him. That daughter of fifteen years can herd and drive cattle almost equal to a Texan on his wild mustang. She can mount and ride a horse that many a man would feel was more than a match for him. See her on that little French roan, that bit and reins utterly fail to hold in check! She goes like the wind. Just twelve minutes, by the watch, and she has taken a circuit of three miles, remarking as she dismounts: "It was one of the best rides that I ever had!" The next moment she is at the organ, and her rich deep voice thrills you with its rare melody. "She is a queen, the belle of the town," you would say, to see her at the parish sociable. She is active in the Sabbath-school and at home, useful everywhere. Fancy work in the drawing-room, or culinary work in the kitchen, alike attest her skill. "Somewhat unpolished," many of you city folks might call these, yet are they jewels of the first water. And there are many like them, far out here at the front, away on these broad prairies, a dozen miles from the nearest post-office, where genuine lovers of nature may give free play to their emotions, and feel thoroughly at home. Does it not "pay," to bring the gospel into the homes and hearts of such people as these, who are fixing their own indelible impress upon these young farming communities? Years hence, the contrast in character between the cared-for and the neglected settlements will show that these home missionary efforts were worth almost any conceivable outlay of money, labor and prayer. May no degree of "hardness of the times," no absorption in other things, no blindness to the peril and the opportunity, avail to lessen the noble liberality of our fellow-Christians at the East, to whom, under God, these new States and Territories owe such a debt of gratitude.
- posted by pioneergirl at 3:01 AM