Chapter XX: Bakula at School

After much nursing Bakula recovers--He becomes a school-boy--He
struggles with the alphabet--He learns to understand
pictures--Routine life--Bakula itinerates with his white man--He
does not relish sleeping in the wet bush--He is convicted of sin--He
inquires the way of salvation--The lads play a trick on a
witch-doctor--Bakula is received into the Church--He returns to his
town.

After a long, weary walk Bakula reached his uncle’s town, and, staying only to tell him the news, and show him his scalded arm, continued his journey to the mission station. By the time he arrived he was feverish and his arm very painful. The missionary in charge of the medical work at once dressed the inflamed arm and put the exhausted lad to bed.

For many days Bakula was delirious, repeating with monotonous reiteration his innocence and the dipping of his arm in the boiling oil. At times the missionaries feared he would die; that the strain, the scalding, and the fatiguing walk would prove too much for him; but at last he began to recover--skilled treatment, regular food, and careful attention triumphed; and the lad was in due time walking about, little the worse, except for the scars on his arm, for the ordeal through which he had passed.

THE REV. JOHN H. WEEKS AND HIS
BOYS. [_Rev. J. H. Weeks._]

Bakula, on his recovery, found himself in a new world. When asked if he would like to stay on the station and be taught, he, immediately and gladly, accepted the invitation, and was handed over to the white man in whose district[64] his town happened to be.

Footnote 64:

See note 52, p. 357.

Bakula had always thought that “books talked” to the white men. In common with other natives he had said, when he saw a white man looking at a book and laughing: “The book is saying something funny to him.” He was therefore disappointed to find that the white teacher gave him no “medicine” to cause him to understand “book language,” and performed no magic over him to open his ears to the “whispers of book talk”; but that it was a matter of learning properly those curiously twisted and contorted marks called a, b, d, e; and he also found that so many of them changed their appearance when _written_, and again altered “their legs and arms” when they grew into _big_ letters that he was puzzled, and sometimes feared that he would never know them.

How elusive those letters were! Just as he had mastered them on the printed sheet they changed themselves on the blackboard; and when he wanted to write the “full-grown ones,” and drew them as he remembered them on the sheet, he was told they were wrong, and had to train his hand to all kinds of curves and scrolls. It was like learning four alphabets; but by perseverance and attention he conquered them, so that, no matter what their disguises might be, he recognized them, and would say: “Oh yes, Mr. S; you can curve your back like this, S, or lean half yourself on a stick thus, [cursive s], but I know you.”

Meanwhile he had learned to put two letters together and make syllables, and from that accomplishment he was led on to connect the syllables and form words; and from that point the school work became more interesting. Now that the building was showing above the ground he could see the reason for all the foundation work. By the time he had been in the school about two years he was nearing the top classes, and, laughing at the mistakes of newer boys, encouraged them, by his own example, to conquer their difficulties.

Bakula also found there was another language to learn--that of pictures. He had seen pictures at a distance in the houses of the traders, and they had simply been a blurred whole, like the pages of a book written in unknown characters. In the house of the white man, where he spent many a pleasant evening, he saw some copies of the _Graphic_.

At first he was unable to take in a picture as a whole. He held the illustrations upside down, or sideways, and more often the wrong way than the right one. In time, order seemed to emerge out of the chaos of marks and lines, then he would pick out a feature and say: “That is a nose, or a mouth, or an eye,” as the case might be, and thus he traced out a man or a woman and said: “Why, it is a person!” He did the same with a house, picking out the details, as a door or window, etc., and the same with scenery.

Later he could take in all the details at once. He had to learn to understand pictures by the same method that he learned to read--first the a, b, d, then the _t a t a_ = tata (or father), and lastly the whole word or sentence at a glance. Sometimes he had to appeal to the white man to explain a difficult detail, as a railway, a ship, or a horse; but gradually the pictures opened up a mine of information, and introduced him to new worlds of wonder.

A white man laughingly joked him one day about the pain and inconvenience Congo women suffered in wearing heavy brass collars round their necks, and on their legs anklets of great weight in order to be in the fashion; but Bakula quickly turned over the pictures, and finding a fashion plate that depicted a woman with a very tiny waist, he seriously asked: “Which is the more ridiculous--to wear a brass collar round the neck, or to have a waist like a wasp’s?”

During all these months Bakula had worked each day for four hours either on the farm or in the brick-field--puddling clay, fetching water, carrying the clay, or, as he became more expert, making bricks.

The life on the station was very regular. At 6 a.m. the boys rose to the clanging of a bell, and went to work either on the farm, the brick-field, or in the houses of the missionaries; from 8 to 9.30 was taken for breakfast and a short service, and then each gang of boys arranged themselves outside the house of the white man who was working the district from which they came. They stood in lines according to ages. At these parades the white man listened to all complaints, settled all palavers, instructed his group of boys in station matters, taught them, when necessary, on points of behaviour, and gave them the tickets for the day’s rations. The hours from 10 to 12 were spent in school, and from then until 2 p.m. at dinner and play.

Then came two more hours of schooling, and from four o’clock until sunset at six[65] the boys engaged in farming, brick-making, or working in their masters’ houses. Thus each day there were four hours for work, four hours for school, three hours for eating and playing, and one hour for religious instruction.

Footnote 65:

See note 53, p. 358.

On Saturdays there was no school, but the boys worked at their various employments or tidied up the station, except from 8 to 10 a.m., when the lads had their breakfasts, religious service, and the usual daily parade outside the houses of their respective white men. At one o’clock the stop bell rang, and every boy received a piece of soap and went off after dinner to do his washing and have a swim in a neighbouring river.

Besides the employments already mentioned there were others, as printing, bookbinding, composing, carpentry, bricklaying, washing and ironing, cutting out and sewing jackets for the boys on the station, cooking, and house-cleaning. For these occupations special lads who showed aptitude were selected and taught, and they received small rewards according to their skill and industry.

On Sundays there were services, and a Sunday-school on the station, and all scholars, unless ill, attended them. The missionaries, according to opportunity, health and weather, visited the neighbouring towns, both on week-days and Sundays, to hold services in them.

Bakula sometimes accompanied his white man on these preaching journeys to help in the singing at the services, and to carry a small load. At one place the people were so hostile that they would not allow the little party to remain in their village. They were not sufficiently courageous to demonstrate against the visitors with guns and knives, but were superstitious enough to drive them out with abuse, the shaking of their fetishes, and threats of what they would do if the white man and his boys tried to enter their village. It was a cold, wet evening, and the party was anything but cheerful sitting there in the bush with the rain falling in a continuous, monotonous patter about them.

Bakula now knew what it was to be misunderstood, and did not relish the experience. His intentions were friendly. Why were the people so foolish! He resented the treatment meted out to him and his white man, and, turning to the missionary, he said: “God is very strong, ask Him to punish these people severely for their conduct to us.”

To him the teacher replied: “Supposing the white man had asked God to punish you and your people for driving him out of your town. Where would you be now? Not sitting there, but dead, without an opportunity of hearing of His great love. We will not ask God to punish them; but we will pray that He may do for these people what He has done for you, Satu, and your towns-folk: so change their hearts and superstitious thoughts about us that another day they will gladly invite us to stay in their town.”

Before very long the rain had ceased, some grass and wood were collected, and the white man, soaking a paper with kerosene, and putting the grass and wood over it, soon had a blazing fire that thawed the hearts and tongues of the lads. In a few minutes they were laughing and joking as though they were in their cosy houses on the station, instead of being in the wet bush outside a hostile, inhospitable village with a very superstitious people shaking their charms at them not fifty yards away. Bakula never forgot this incident, and his constant prayer was: “O God, open the hearts of the people to understand Thy messengers and to receive Thy message.”

Bakula was a great acquisition to the other boys on the station. He entered heartily into all their games, was a leader in many of their sports, and told them many a story around their evening fires. His humorous, merry ways, his amusing manner in telling a story, his cheerful, obliging disposition, his common-sense way of looking at things, his marked ability in school, and his genuine earnestness made him the favourite of all on the station, both white and black. He had discarded all his charms and had learned that a lad’s position was not due to them, but to his own disposition and willingness to oblige others.

One morning, when Bakula had been on the station about three years, he heard one of the white men give an address on the Parable of the Ten Virgins, and the narrative and teaching so stirred his heart with the fear that he would be left in the outer darkness, that all through the day he was unusually quiet, and at meal-times scarcely ate anything.

At night he started up more than once from horrid dreams with the awful words ringing in his ears: “I know you not.” For several days he bore this soul agony, and at last resolved to lay the whole matter before his white friend.

It was easy to converse with the white man about pictures, _Mputu_, and many other palavers when other boys were about, or even alone; but Bakula shrank from talking about the inmost feelings of his heart, although he knew he would be listened to kindly and sympathetically. With much shyness, therefore, he went one evening to his teacher and asked for a talk with him. He was received with a smile of welcome and taken into the white man’s room, and the door was shut upon them. The white man had noticed Bakula’s quietness, had partly surmised the reason, and was not surprised at the request for a talk on God’s palaver.

Now that Bakula was sitting there he found it difficult to begin. When he opened his mouth no sound issued, for a lump seemed to rise in his throat and block the passage. His friend chatted to him until he felt more at ease, and then he poured out all the pent-up feelings of his heart, and gave expression to the thoughts of his long broodings. He told the white man of the address he had heard, of his dreams, of his fears that Christ would not know him, and of the many sins of adultery, robbery, cheating, lying and false accusation of which he had been guilty. He laid bare his whole previous life in all its ghastly wickedness until the white man felt it crowding on and pressing down his own soul.

Tears rolled down the lad’s cheeks as he asked if God’s Son would know such a guilty one as he, and could He forgive so many sins? The teacher spoke to him quietly and earnestly, read to him various passages from God’s own Word, and, after praying with him, dismissed him to his bed comforted and happy.

It was very late when Bakula left the white man’s house, but it was quite early when he arose next morning from a refreshing sleep. The sun was shining not only on the hills and valleys around him, but also into his heart, and he could not repress one hymn he had learned in school, though he had never fully realized its beauty and meaning until now: “Jesus loves me, this I know; for the Bible tells me so.”

The boys who occupied the dormitory with him turned and asked: “What is the matter with you?”

“Oh, I had a long talk with the white man last night about God’s palaver,” he answered cheerfully, “and I feel very happy now.” And at once he told them of the address, and pleaded with them to prepare for the coming of Christ, so that He might know them on His arrival.

Several months passed, during which time Bakula took part in the prayer meetings, and at the services of the Christian Band he often gave a short address. He was eager to accompany the teacher to the various towns in the neighbourhood, and frequently used the scars on his arm as a text. He then, with soul-earnestness and much eloquence, declaimed against the trickery and lies of the witch-doctors, the uselessness of their charms, and the deception of their ordeals.

On one occasion the white man, Bakula, and some other lads were spending the evening in a town. The service was over, the teacher had retired to his hut, and Bakula and his companions had stretched themselves upon their mats in another hut that had been lent to them. During the night they were disturbed by the entrance of a witch-doctor, who hid something in a saucepan. Thinking he was up to one of his tricks, Bakula removed the thing and put it in another place.

In the morning the _nganga_, who was employed to destroy the power of an evil spirit that was troubling a family in the town, was up early shouting at the spirit to desist. He threatened it, fired his gun repeatedly at it, and after much rushing about and wild gesticulations, he declared at last that he had caught the evil spirit. He led the suffering family to the hut he had visited during the previous night, and entering it triumphantly, prepared his clients, by his boastful talk, for a great _dénouement_; but, behold, the entrapped spirit was gone.

When the lads, later in the day, brought out the “something,” they found it was tied up in imitation of a corpse, and on opening it, discovered inside a piece of _kwanga_, or native bread, and inside that a fowl’s bladder full of blood. The lads had a hearty laugh over the incident, and their disbelief in _ngangas_ was greatly strengthened by this exposure of their trickery.

If the witch-doctor had found the bundle where he had placed it, he would, after much incantation and dancing, have pierced it with his knife, and as the blood flowed from it he would have claimed to have trapped and killed the evil spirit. The deluded family would have paid him a large fee, and after a time, feeling no better, would have sent for another _nganga_ and been deceived in another way. They were saved at least the payment of one large fee by the lads to whom they had lent the house.

The white men on the station watched Bakula very carefully, and often spoke about him to each other as one whose life and conduct showed that he was fully fit to be a member of the Church that had recently been formed there. But no pressure was put on him, as it was felt desirable, on account of the persecution all native Christians then suffered, that the request for baptism and Church membership should be entirely spontaneous.

After many months Bakula applied for baptism and entrance to the Church. He was told of all it might mean to him--persecution, ridicule, and perhaps death. But his answers were such that he was duly received into the little Church, and with quivering heart and tears of joyous amazement in his eyes he partook for the first time of the Lord’s Supper.

During these years he had paid more than one visit to his home. His mother had received him with hearty welcomes, Satu had had long and frequent talks with him about the white men and their teaching, and the lads and lasses in the town had regarded his accomplishments in reading and writing with awe, envy, and superstitious fear.

Old Plaited-Beard always looked at him askant, with eyes full of hatred and malignity; but Tumbu, his slave friend, never left his side during those visits except to sleep. He followed him like a faithful dog, with eyes full of admiration and humble love.

The time came at last for Bakula to return to his town and live there. He asked his white friend for a few slates, pencils, reading-sheets and spelling-books, as he had decided to start, if possible, a school among his own people. These were gladly given to him, and, taking farewell of his many friends, both black and white, he commenced his return journey.

How different was this last going from his first coming! The darkness had given place to the light, the tangled, crooked path had become straight, though narrow and rough, and the evil spirits of fetishism no longer haunted his life with terror and horror, for they had been displaced by the ministering angels of God.