“In the school on the Indian reservation where I live twenty-five or
thirty Indian children are taught the English language. At one time a
new boy came who knew how to talk our language somewhat but not very
well. Soon after he came he was at work with the other boys and the
teacher, when, in pronouncing one English word, he did not pronounce it
aright. He was corrected but still did not say it right. Again he was
told how, but still it seemed as if his tongue were too thick; and
again, but he did not get the right twist to it. At last one of the
scholars thought that he was doing it only for fun and that he could
pronounce it correctly if he only would do so, so he said: ‘O boys, it
is not because his tongue is crooked but because his ears are
crooked!’”
Query: Are there not some others who have crooked ears?
What does Paul say? “Five times received I forty stripes save one.”
Well, I have never been treated so, for the people are as kind as can
be. “Shipwrecked”? No, only cast twice on the beach by winds from a
canoe. “A night and a day in the deep”? No, only a whole night and a
part of several others on the mud-flats, waiting for the tide to come.
No danger of drowning there. So I have determined to take more of such
spice if it shall come.