McLOUGHLIN AND THE IMMIGRANTS 277
mountains. Whitman's mission became a great inn thronged with the passing tide.
"The crowd and confusion almost drive me crazy," wrote Mrs. Whitman to her mother. "The doctor is as if a hundred strings were tied to him, all pulling in different directions."
With almost superhuman effort Dr. Whitman had extended his fields; to lighten his labors Mrs. Whitman herself had gone out to superintend the Indians gathering the garden stores.
"Can you look after an orphan family of seven children?" inquired the captain of a company at the Whitman door. "Father and mother died on the way, the youngest a baby, born on the Platte."
Dr. Whitman looked at his wife. Already they had adopted four children.
"Where are they?" he inquired, reaching for his hat.
"Back on the Umatilla."
"Have they no friends? "
"Not a relative in the world."
"Bring them on," said the doctor.
Two days later their wagon rolled in, two little boys weeping bitterly, four little girls huddled together, bareheaded, barefooted, a wee little baby, five months old, almost dead. For weeks the compassionate immigrants had cared for them and shared with them the last crust.
"We can get along with all but the baby. I don't see how we can take her," said Dr. Whitman.
"If we take any I must have the baby," cried the mother-heart of Mrs. Whitman, lifting the mite of humanity out of the arms of a tired old woman. "She will be a charm to bind the rest to me."
