On returning in the evening, I found my dog,
Ponty, a young pet, had torn my care-bought conjugations into small
pieces. What was to be done? It was useless to whip the dog, and I
scarcely had the courage to commence the labor anew. I consequently did
neither; but gathering up the fragments, carefully soaked the gnawed and
mutilated parts in warm water, and re-arranged and sealed them together.
And before bedtime I had restored the manuscript so as to be
intelligibly read. I imposed this task upon myself, but, had it been
imposed by another, I would have been ready to pronounce him a madman.
_27th_. I devoted the day and evening in transcribing words into my
"Ojibwa Vocabulary." This is a labor requiring great caution. The
language is so concrete, that often, when I have supposed a word had
been dissected and traced to its root, subsequent attention has proved
it to be a compound. Thus verbs have been inserted with pronouns, or
with particles, indicating negation, or the past or future tense, when
it has been supposed they had been divested of these appendages.
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