in explaining, but heretofore nothing had come of it. Much was made of it, and yet it was only a dispute as to who owned some twelve thousand and twenty acres of land, much of which was of little value.
Looking back now one wonders at the shortsightedness of statesmen who quarreled for forty-eight years over this garden patch of rocky land in Maine, when three great states were quietly slipping away with scarcely a protest. But this arrival of recruits, and this knowledge of the political situation revealed by General Lovejoy, at once settled Dr. Whitman upon his line of duty.
To Mrs. Whitman he at once explained the situation, and said he felt impelled to go to Washington. She was a missionary's wife, a courageous, true-hearted, patriotic woman, who loved and believed in her husband, and at once consented. Under the rules the local members of the Mission had to be consulted, and runners were at once dispatched to the several stations, and all responded promptly, as the demand was for their immediate presence.
There was a second rule governing such cases of leave of absence, and that was the sanction, from headquarters, of the American Board in Boston. But in this emergency Dr. Whitman preferred to take all the responsibility and cut 103 the red tape. Dr. Eells, one of the noblest of
