Indians were dismissed, the door closed, and the evening spent in writing,
reading, studying the language, devotion, and conversation on the affairs
of the mission.

The local missions here referred to embraced Ossossane and the villages
of the neighborhood; but the priests by no means confined themselves
within these limits. They made distant excursions, two in company,
until every house in every Huron town had heard the annunciation of the
new doctrine. On these journeys, they carried blankets or large mantles
at their backs, for sleeping in at night, besides a supply of needles,
awls, beads, and other small articles, to pay for their lodging and
entertainment: for the Hurons, hospitable without stint to each other,
expected full compensation from the Jesuits.

At Ossossane, the house of the Jesuits no longer served the double
purpose of dwelling and chapel. In 1638, they had in their pay twelve
artisans and laborers, sent up from Quebec, [ Du Peron in Carayon,
173. ] who had built, before the close of the year, a chapel of wood.
[ "La chapelle est faite d'une charpente bien jolie, semblable presque en
facon et grandeur, a notre chapelle de St. Julien."--Ibid., 183. ]
Hither they removed their pictures and ornaments; and here, in winter,
several fires were kept burning, for the comfort of the half-naked
converts. [ Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 62. ] Of these they
now had at Ossossane about sixty,--a large, though evidently not a very
solid nucleus for the Huron church,--and they labored hard and anxiously
to confirm and multiply them. Of a Sunday morning in winter, one could
have seen them coming to mass, often from a considerable distance,
"as naked," says Lalemant, "as your hand, except a skin over their backs
like a mantle, and, in the coldest weather, a few skins around their feet
and legs." They knelt, mingled with the French mechanics, before the