Chapter XI: Jane Addams 297 (5)

Miss Fletcher realized that the only remedy for this condition was for each Indian to secure from the Government a legal title to a portion of the tribal grant which he might hold as an individual. She left her happy work with the music and went to Washington to explain to the President and to Congress the situation as she knew it. The cause was, at this time, greatly furthered by the appearance of a book by Helen Hunt Jackson, called "A Century of Dishonor," an eloquent presentation of the Indians' wrongs and a burning plea for justice.

There was need, however, of some practical worker, who knew the Indians and Indian affairs intimately, to point to a solution of the problem. The conscience of the people was aroused, but they did not know how it was possible to prevent in the future the same sort of wrongs that had made the past hundred years indeed "a century of dishonor." Then the resolute figure of Miss Alice Fletcher appeared on the scene. She was well known to the government authorities for her valuable scientific work. Here was some one they knew, who really could explain the exact state of affairs and who could also interpret fairly the mind of the Indian. She could be depended on as one who would not be swayed by mere sentimental considerations. She would know the practical course to pursue.

"Let the Indians hold their land as the white men hold theirs," she said. "That is the only way to protect them from wrong and to protect the Government from being a helpless partner to the injustice that is done them."

Now, it is one thing to influence people who are informed and interested and quite another to awaken the interest of those who are vitally concerned with totally different things. Miss Fletcher realized that if anything was to be actually accomplished she must leave no stone unturned to bring the matter to the attention of those who had not heretofore given a thought to the Indian question and the responsibility of the Government. She presented a petition to Congress and worked early and late to drive home to the people the urgent need of legislation in behalf of the Indians. She spoke in clubs, in churches, in private houses, and before committees in Congress. And actually the busy congressmen who always feel that there is not half time enough to consider measures by which their own States and districts will profit, gave right of way to the Indian Land Act, and in 1882 it became a law.

There was the need of the services of some disinterested person to manage the difficult matter of dividing the tribal tracts and allotting to each Indian his own acres, and Miss Fletcher was asked by the President to undertake this work.

"Why do you trust Miss Fletcher above any one else?" asked President Cleveland on one occasion when he was receiving a delegation of Omahas at the White House.

"We have seen her in our homes; we have seen her in her home. We find her always the same," was the reply.

The work which Miss Fletcher did in allotting the land to the Omahas was so successfully handled that she was appealed to by the Government to serve in the same capacity for the Winnebago and Nez Percé Indians. The law whose passage was secured by her zeal was the forerunner the Severalty Act of 1885 which marked a change in policy of the Government and ushered in a better era for all the Indian tribes.

"What led you to undertake this important work?" Miss Fletcher was asked.

"The most natural desire in the world--the impulse to help my friends where I saw the need," she replied. "I did not set out resolved to have a career--to form and to reform. There is no story in my life. It has always been just one step at a time--one thing which I have tried to do as well as I could and which has led on to something else. It has all been in the day's work."

Miss Fletcher has been much interested in the work of the Boy and Girl Scouts and in the Campfire Societies, because she feels that in this way many children are brought to an appreciation of the great out-of-doors and win health, power, and joy which the life of cities cannot give. For them she has made a collection of Indian games and dances.

"Just as the spirit of Sir Walter Scott guides us through the Scottish lake country and as Dickens leads us about old London, so the spirit of the Indians should make us more at home in the forests of America," said Miss Fletcher. "In sharing the happy fancies of these first children of America we may win a new freedom in our possession of the playground of the great out-of-doors."

THE "WHITE MOTHER" OF DARKEST AFRICA:

MARY SLESSOR

I am ready to go anywhere, provided it be forward.

DAVID LIVINGSTONE.

God can't give His best till we have given ours!

MARY SLESSOR.

THE "WHITE MOTHER" OF DARKEST AFRICA

Among all the weavers in the great factory at Dundee there was no girl more deft and skilful than Mary Slessor. She was only eleven when she had to help shoulder the cares of the household and share with the frail mother the task of earning bread for the hungry children. For the little family was worse than fatherless. The man who had once been a thrifty, self-respecting shoemaker had become a slave to drink; and his life was a burden to himself and to those who were nearest and dearest to him.

"Dinna cry, mither dear," Mary had said. "I can go to the mills in the morning and to school in the afternoon. It will be a glad day, earning and learning at the same time!"

So Mary became a "half-timer" in the mills. At six o'clock every morning she was at work among the big whirling wheels. Even the walls and windows seemed to turn sometimes as the hot wind came in her face from the whizzing belts, and the roar of the giant wheels filled all her day with din and clamor.

But as Mary worked week after week, she learned more than the trick of handling the shuttle at the moving loom. She learned how to send her thoughts far away from the noisy factory to a still place of breeze-stirred trees and golden sunshine. Sometimes a book, which she had placed on the loom to peep in at free moments, helped her to slip away in fancy from the grinding toil. What magic one could find in the wonderful world of books! The wheels whirled off into nothingness, the walls melted away like mist, and her spirit was free to wander through all the many ways of the wide world. And so it was that she went from the hours of work and earning to the hours of study and learning with a blithe, morning face, her brave soul shining through bright eager eyes.

"When we're all dragged out, and feel like grumbling at everything and nothing seems of any use at all, Mary Slessor is still up and coming, as happy as a cricket," said one of the girls who worked by her side. "She makes you take heart in spite of yourself, and think it's something to be glad over just to be living and working."

"It's wonderful the way your hand can go on with the shuttle and do the turn even better than you could if you stopped to take thought," Mary would explain. "That leaves your mind free to go another way. Now this morning I was not in the weaving shed at all; I was far away in Africa, seeing all the strange sights the missionary from Calabar told us about last night at meeting."

Heaven was very near to Mary Slessor, and the stars seemed more real than the street lamps of the town. She had come to feel that the troubles and trials of her days were just steps on the path that she would travel. Always she looked past the rough road to the end of the journey where there was welcome in the Father's house for all His tired children. There was, moreover, one bit of real romance in that gray Scotch world of hers. The thrill of beauty and mystery and splendid heroism was in the stories that the missionaries told of Africa, the land of tropical wonders--pathless forests, winding rivers under bending trees, bright birds, and brighter flowers--and people, hundreds of black people, with black lives because the light of truth had never shone in their world. She knew that white people who called themselves Christians had gone there to carry them away for slaves; and to get their palm-oil and rubber and give them rum in exchange--rum that was making them worse than the wild beasts of the jungle. How Mary Slessor longed to be one to carry the good news of a God of Love to those people who lived and died in darkness! "Somebody must help those who can't help themselves!" she said to herself.

"The fields are ripe for the harvest but the laborers are few," one of the missionaries had said. "We fear the fever and other ills that hide in the bush more than we fear to fail in God's service. Men have gone to these people to make money from the products of their land; they have bought and sold the gifts of their trees; they have bought and sold the people themselves; they are selling them death to-day in the strong drink they send there. Is there no one who is willing to go to take life to these ignorant children who have suffered so many wrongs?"

These words sank deep into Mary Slessor's heart. But it was plain that her mission was to the little home in Dundee. She was working now among the turning wheels all day from six until six, and going to school in the evening; but she found time to share with others the secret of the joy that she had found, the light that had made the days of toil bright. The boys that came to her class in the mission school were "toughs" from the slums of the town, but she put many of them on the road to useful, happy living. Her brave spirit won them from their fierce lawlessness; her patience and understanding helped to bring out and fortify the best that was in them.

Once a much-dreaded "gang" tried to break up the mission with a battery of mud and jeers. When Mary Slessor faced them quietly, the leader, boldly confronting her, swung a leaden weight which hung suspended from a cord, about her head threateningly. It came nearer and nearer until it grazed her temple, but the mission teacher never flinched. Her eyes still looked into those of the boy's--bright, untroubled, and searching. His own dropped, and the missile fell forgotten to the ground.

"She's game, boys!" he cried, surprised out of himself.

And the unruly mob filed into the mission to hear what the "game" lady had to say. Mary Slessor had never heard of the poet, Horace; but she had put to the proof the truth of the well-known lines, which declare that "the man whose life is blameless and free from evil has no need of Moorish javelins, nor bow, nor quiver full of poisoned arrows."

As in her work with the wild boys of the streets, so in her visits to the hopeless people of the dark tenements, Mary Slessor was a powerful influence because she entered their world as one of them, with a faith in the better self of each that called into new life his all-but-extinguished longing for better things.

"As she sat by the fire holding the baby and talking cheerily about her days at the mills and the Sabbath morning at chapel, it seemed as if I were a girl again, happy and hopeful and ready to meet whatever the morrow might bring," said a discouraged mother to whom Mary had been a friend in need.

"It is like hearing the kirk-bells on a Sunday morning at the old home, hearing your voice, Mary Slessor," said a poor blind woman to whom Mary had brought the light of restored faith.

For fourteen years this happy Scotch girl worked in the factory for ten hours each day, and shared her evenings and Sundays with her neighbors of the mission. Besides, she seized moments by the way for study and reading. Her mind was hungry to understand the meaning of life and the truths of religion. One day, in order to find out the sort of mental food she craved, a friend lent her Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus."

"How are you and Carlyle getting on together?" he asked quizzically when they next met.

"It is grand!" she replied with earnest enthusiasm. "I sat up reading it, and was so interested that I did not know what the time was until I heard the factory bells calling me to work in the morning."

Thus her mind was growing and expanding, while her spirit grew through faithful work and loyal service. Her simple, direct speech had an eloquent appeal that went straight to the heart. In spite of an unconquerable timidity that made her shrink from platform appearances, her informal addresses had wide influence. Once she rose in her place at a public meeting and gave a quiet talk on the words: _The common people heard him gladly._ "And," it was said, "the common people heard _her_ gladly, and crowded around, pleading with her to come again."

In 1874, when every one was stirred by the death of David Livingstone, Mary Slessor's life was transfigured by a great resolve. The years had brought changes. Her father was dead, and her sisters were old enough to share the burden of supporting the family.

"The time has come for me to join the band of light-bearers to the Dark Continent," said Mary, with a conviction that overcame every obstacle. "It is my duty to go where the laborers are few. Besides, there must be a way to work there and send help to mother at home."

She knew that the missionaries were given a stipend to support them in the manner of the country from which they came. "I shall as far as possible live on the food of the country," she said. "It may be that by sharing to a greater extent the conditions of life of the people, I can come to a fuller understanding of them and they of me. Besides, it will not be so hard to leave home if I can feel that I am still earning something for mother."

So Mary Slessor went, after a few months of special preparation to teach the natives of Calabar. She was at this time twenty-eight years old. Ever since she was a mere slip of a girl, she had longed to serve in that most discouraging of fields--"the slums of Africa," it was called. The people who inhabited that swampy, equatorial region were the most wretched and degraded of all the negro tribes. They had for ages been the victims of stronger neighbors, who drove them back from the drier and more desirable territory that lay farther inland; and of their own ignorance and superstitions, which were at the root of their blood-thirsty, savage customs.

It was in September, 1876, that the vessel _Ethiopia_ sailed out of the clean, blue Atlantic into the mud-colored Calabar River. At its prow stood Mary Slessor, gazing soberly at the vast mangrove swamps and wondering about the unknown, unexplored land beyond, where she should pitch her tent and begin her work. Though white men had for centuries come to the coast to trade for gold dust, ivory, palm oil, spices, and slaves, they had never ventured inland, and the natives who lived near the shore had sought to keep the lion's share of the profit by preventing the remoter tribes from coming with their goods to barter directly with the men of the big ships. So only a few miles from the mouth of the Calabar River was a land where white people had never gone, whose inhabitants had never seen a white face. It was to this place of unknown dangers that Mary Slessor was bound.

For a time she remained at the mission settlement to learn the language, while teaching in the day school. As soon as she gained sufficient ease in the use of the native speech, she began to journey through the bush, as the tropical jungles of palms, bananas, ferns, and thick grass were called. Her heart sang as she went along, now wading through a spongy morass bright with orchids, now jumping over a stream or the twisted roots of a giant tree. After the chill grayness of her Scottish country, this land seemed at first a veritable paradise of golden warmth, alluring sounds and scents, and vivid color. Now she paused in delight as a brilliant bird flashed through the branches overhead; now she went on with buoyant step, drinking in the tropical fragrance with every breath. Surely so fair a land could not be so deadly as it was said. She _must_ keep well for the task that lay before her. She could not doubt that each day would bring strength for the day's work.

With two or three of the boys from the Calabar school as guides, she made the journey to some of the out-districts. Here a white face was a thing of wonder or terror. The children ran away shrieking with fear; the women pressed about her, chattering and feeling her clothing and her face, to see if she were real. At first she was startled, but she soon divined that this was just the beginning of friendly acquaintance.

Miss Slessor soon showed an astonishing mastery of the language, and an even more amazing comprehension of the minds of the people. She realized that the natives were not devoid of ideas and beliefs, but that, on the contrary, certain crude conceptions, strongly rooted through the custom and tradition of ages, accounted for many of their horrible practices. They put all twin babies to death because they believed that one of them was a demon-child whose presence in a tribe would bring untold harm on the people. They tortured and murdered helpless fellow creatures, not wantonly, but because they believed that their victims had been bewitching a suffering chief--for disease was a mysterious blight, caused by the "evil eye" of a malicious enemy. When a chief died many people were slaughtered, for of course he would want slaves and companions in the world of spirits.

It was wonderful the way Mary Slessor was able to move about among the rude, half-naked savages as confidently as she had among her people in Scotland, looking past the dirt and ugliness to the human heart beneath, tortured by fear or grief, and say a word that brought hope and comfort. She feared neither the crouching beasts of the jungle nor the treacherous tribes of the scattered mud villages. Picking her way over the uncertain bush trails, she carried medicine, tended the sick, and spoke words of sympathy and cheer to the distressed. Sometimes she stayed away over several nights, when her lodging was a mud hut and her bed a heap of unpleasant rags.

The people soon learned that her interest went beyond teaching and preaching and giving aid to the sick. She cared enough for their welfare to lead them by night past the sentries of the jealous coast tribes to the factory near the beach, where they could dispose of their palm oil and kernels to their own profit. She won in this way the good will of the traders who said:

"There is a missionary of the right sort! She will accomplish something because she is taking hold of all the problems that concern her people, and is working systematically to improve all the conditions of their lives."

One day she set forth on a trip of thirty miles along the river to visit the village of a chief named Okon, who had sent begging her to come. A state canoe, which was lent by King Eyo of Calabar, had been gaily painted in her honor, and a canopy of matting to shield her from the sun and dew had been thoughtfully erected over a couch of rice bags. Hours passed in the tender formalities of farewell, and when the paddlers actually got the canoe out into the stream it was quite dark. The red gleam of their torches fell upon venomous snakes and alligators, but there was no fear while her companions beat the "tom-tom" and sang, as they plied their paddles, loud songs in her praise, such as:

"Ma, our beautiful, beloved mother is on board!
Ho! Ho! Ho!"

Such unwonted clamor no doubt struck terror to all the creatures with claws and fangs along the banks.

After ten hours' paddling, she arrived at Okon's village. A human skull stuck on a pole was the first sight that greeted her. Crowds gathered about to stare and touch her hand to make sure that she was flesh and blood. At meal times a favored few who were permitted to watch her eat and drink ran about, excitedly reporting every detail to their friends.

For days she went around giving medicines, bandaging, cutting out garments, and teaching the women the mysteries of sewing, washing, and ironing. In the evenings all the people gathered about her quietly while she told them about the God she served--a God of love, whose ways were peace and loving kindness. At the end they filed by, wishing her good night with much feeling before they disappeared into the blackness of the night.

These new friends would not permit her to walk about in the bush as she had been used to doing. There were elephants in the neighboring jungle, they said. The huge beasts had trampled down all their growing things, so that they had to depend mainly on fishing. One morning, on hearing that a boa constrictor had been seen, bands of men armed with clubs and muskets set off, yelling fearsomely, to hunt the common enemy. But more terrible to Mary Slessor than any beast of prey were the skulls, horrible images, and offerings to ravenous spirits, that she saw on every side. How was it possible to teach the law of love to a people who had never known anything but the tyranny of fear?

"I must learn something of the patience of the Creator of all," she said to herself again and again. "For how long has He borne with the sins and weakness of His poor human children, always caring for us and believing that we can grow into something better in spite of all!"

After two weeks in "Elephant Country," Miss Slessor made ready to return to the mission. Rowers, canoe, and baggage were in readiness, and a smoking pot of yams and herbs cooked in palm oil was put on board for the evening meal. Scarcely had they partaken, however, when Mary saw that the setting sun was surrounded by angry clouds, and her ear caught the ominous sound of the wind wailing in the tree-tops.

"We are coming into a stormy night," she said fearfully to Okon, who was courteously escorting the party back to Old Town.

The chief lifted his black face to the black sky and scanned the clouds solemnly. Then he hastily steered for a point of land that lay sheltered from the wind. Before they could reach the lee side, however, the thunder broke, and the wild sweep of the wind seized the canoe and whirled it about like a paper toy. Crew and chief alike were helpless from terror when Mary took her own fear in hand and ordered the rowers to make for the tangle of trees that bordered the bank. The men pulled together with renewed hope and strength until the shelter of the bush was reached. Then springing like monkeys into the overhanging branches, they held on to the canoe which was being dashed up and down like a straw. The "White Mother," who was sitting in water to her knees and shaking with ague, calmed the fears of the panic-stricken children who had buried their faces in her lap, and looked about in awed wonder at the weird beauty of the scene. The vivid flashes of lightning shattered the darkness with each peal of thunder, revealing luxuriant tropical vegetation rising above the lashed water, foaming and hissing under the slanting downpour of the rain, and the tossing canoe with the crouching, gleaming-wet figures of the frightened crew.

This was but one of many thrilling adventures that filled the days of the brave young missionary. When the appeal came, no matter what the time of midday heat or midnight blackness, she was ready to journey for hours through the bush to bring succor and comfort.

Once the news came that the chief of a village had been seized by a mysterious illness. Knowing that this would mean torture, and death, perhaps, to those suspected of having enviously afflicted him by the "evil eye," she set off along the trail through the dense forest to use all her influence to save the unfortunate victims.

Mary Slessor]

"But, Ma," the people would protest, "you don't understand. If you god-people not punish evil, bad ones say, 'God-ways no good!' Bad ones go round cast spells with no fear. No one safe at all."

Of all their superstitious fears, the horror of twin babies was the most universal. With great difficulty Miss Slessor managed to save a few of these unfortunate infants. At first some of the people refused to come into the hut where a twin child was kept; but when they saw that no plague attacked the place or the rash white "Ma," they looked upon her with increased respect. The "White Mother" must have a power much greater than that of the witch-doctors.

The witch-doctors knew a great deal, no doubt. When a man had a tormented back they could tell what enemy had put a spell on him.

"Oh, yes, Ma, the witch-doctor he knows," declared a chief who was suffering with an abscess, "just see all those claws, teeth, and bones over there. He took them all out of my back."

But if "Ma" did not understand about such spells, she had a wonderful magic of her own; she knew soothing things to put on the bewitched back that could drive the pain away and make it well. The influence of the healer was often stronger than the influence of the witch-doctor and the superstitious fears of all the tribe. Again and again her will prevailed in the palaver, and the chief to please her would spare the lives of those who should by every custom of the land be put to death.

"Ma" required strange things of them, but she was the best friend they had ever had. When she stood up before them and spoke so movingly it seemed as if she would talk the heart right out of the sternest savage of them all! She made them forget the things that they had known all their lives. Who would have believed that they would even dream of allowing a chief's son to go unattended into the spirit-world? Yet when she begged them to spare the lives of the slaves who should have been sent with him, they had at last consented. And it didn't take a witch-doctor to tell one that a twin-child should never be allowed to live and work its demon spells in the world. Still they allowed her to save some of them alive. It was said that prudent people had even gone into the room where the rescued twins were kept and had touched them without fear. They had been almost persuaded that those queerly born babies were just like other children!

The "White Mother" of Calabar always had a family of little black waifs that she had rescued from violent death or neglect. Besides the unfortunate twins, there were the children whose slave mothers had died when they were tiny infants. "Nobody has time to bring up a child that will belong to somebody else as soon as it is good for something," it was said. So the motherless children were left in the bush to die.

Mary Slessor loved her strange black brood tenderly. "Baby things are always gentle and lovable," she used to say. "These children who have had right training from the beginning will grow up to be leaders and teachers of their people."

For twelve years Miss Slessor worked in connection with the established mission at Calabar, journeying about to outlying villages as the call came. It had for long been her dream, however, to go still farther inland to the wild Okoyong tribe whose very name was a terror throughout the land. Her mother and her sister Janie, who together made "home" for her, had died.

"There is no one to write and tell all my stories and troubles and nonsense to," she said. "But Heaven is now nearer to me than Britain, and nobody will be anxious about me if I go up country."

In King Eyo's royal canoe she made the journey to the strange people. Leaving the paddlers, who were mortal enemies to the Okoyong tribe, at the water's edge, she made her way along the jungle trail to a village four miles inland. Here the people crowded about her greatly excited. They called her "Mother," and seemed pleased that she had come to them without fear. The chief, Edem, and his sister, Ma Eame, received her in a friendly fashion. Her courage, frankness, and ready understanding won favor from the beginning.

"May I have ground for a schoolhouse and a home with you here?" she asked. "Will you have me stay as your friend and help you as I have helped the people of Calabar?"

Eagerly they assented. It would be a fine thing to have a "White Mother" in their country.

"Will you grant that the house I build shall be a place of refuge for those in distress--for those charged with witchcraft or threatened with death for any other cause? Will you promise that they shall be safe with me until we can consider together their case?"

The people looked at the strange white woman wonderingly. Why should she ask this thing? What difference could it make to her?

"All life is precious," she said simply, as if she had read their thoughts. "I am here to help you--to care for those who are sick or hurt, and I must be allowed to see that each one who is in any sort of trouble is treated fairly. Will you promise that my house shall be a place of refuge?"

Again they gravely assented. So, greatly encouraged, she returned to Calabar to pack her goods and prepare to leave the old field for the new.

All her friends gathered about her, loudly lamenting. She was surely going to her death, they said. Her fellow workers regarded her with wonder and pity. "Nothing can make any impression on the Okoyong save a consul and a British gunboat," they declared. But Mary Slessor was undaunted. She stowed her boxes and her little family of five small waifs away in the canoe as happily as if she were starting out on a pleasure trip. To a friend in Scotland, she wrote:

I am going to a new tribe up-country, a fierce, cruel
people, and every one tells me that they will kill me. But I
don't fear any hurt--only to combat their savage customs will
require courage and firmness on my part.

The life in Okoyong did indeed require fortitude and faith. Remote from friends and helpers, in the midst of that most dreaded of all the African tribes, she patiently worked to lighten the darkness of the degraded people and make their lives happier and better. With her rare gift of intuition she at once felt that Ma Eame, the chief's sister, had a warm heart and a strong character.

"She will be my chief ally," she said to herself, and time proved that she was right. A spark in the black woman's soul was quickened by the White Mother's flaming zeal. Dimly she felt the power of the new law of love. Often at the risk of her life, should she be discovered, she kept the missionary informed in regard to the movements of the people. Whether it was a case of witchcraft or murder, of vengeance or a raid on a neighboring tribe, "Ma" was sure to find it out; and her influence was frequently strong enough to avert a tragedy.

As at Calabar, she found that the greatest obstacle in the way of progress was the general indulgence in rum, which the white people gave the natives in exchange for their palm oil, spices, rubber, and other products.

"Do not drink the vile stuff--do not take it or sell it," she begged. "It is like poison to your body. It burns out your life and heart and brings every trouble upon you."

"What for white man bring them rum suppose them rum no be good?" they demanded. "He be god-man bring the rum--then what for god-man talk so?"

What was there to say? With a heavy heart the White Mother struggled on to help her people in spite of this great evil which men of the Christian world had brought upon these weak, ignorant black children. And she did make headway in spite of every discouragement. "I had a lump in my throat often, and my courage repeatedly threatened to take wings and fly away--though nobody guessed it," she said.

For years this brave woman went on with her work among the wild tribes of Nigeria. As soon as she began to get the encouragement of results in one place she pressed on to an unworked field. Realizing that her pioneer work needed to be reënforced and sustained by the strong arm of the law, she persuaded the British Government to "take up the white man's burden" and (through the influence of consuls and the persuasive presence of a gunboat or two) assume the guardianship of her weak children. In spite of failing health and the discouragement of small results, she went from one post to another, leaving mission houses and chapel-huts as outward signs of the new life to which she had been a witness. "I am ready to go anywhere, provided it be forward," was her watchword, as well as Dr. Livingstone's.

There are many striking points of likeness between the careers of these two torch-bearers to the Dark Continent. As children both had worked at the loom, studying hungrily as they toiled. Both did pioneer work, winning the confidence and love of the wild people they taught and served. No missionary to Africa, save Dr. Livingstone alone, has had a more powerful influence than Mary Slessor.

When at last in January, 1915, after thirty-nine years of service, she died and left to others the task of bearing on the torch to her people, Sir Frederick Lugard, the Governor-General of Nigeria said:

"By her enthusiasm, self-sacrifice, and greatness of character she has earned the devotion of thousands of natives among whom she worked, and the love and esteem of all Europeans, irrespective of class or creed, with whom she came in contact."

She was buried in the land to which she had given her long life of service. At the grave when the women, after the native fashion, began their wild wail of lament, one of them lifted up her voice in an exalted appeal that went straight to the heart:

"Do not cry, do not cry! Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Ma was a great blessing."

Of all the words of glowing tribute to her faithful work, we may be sure that none would have meant more to the lowly missionary than this cry from the awakened soul of one of her people of the bush.

THE HEROINE OF RADIUM:

MARIE SKLODOWSKA CURIE

One truth discovered is immortal and entitles its author
to be so; for, like a new substance in nature, it cannot be
destroyed.

HAZLITT.

THE HEROINE OF RADIUM

You would hardly think that a big, bare room, with rows of battered benches and shelves and tables littered with all sorts of queer-looking jars and bottles, could be a hiding-place for fairies. Yet Marie's father, who was one of the wise men of Warsaw, said they were always to be found there.

"Yes, little daughter," he said, "the fairies you may chance to meet with in the woods, peeping from behind trees and sleeping in flowers, are a tricksy, uncertain sort. The real fairies, who do things, are to be found in my dusty laboratory. They are the true wonder-workers, and there you may really catch them at work and learn some of their secrets."

"But, Father, wouldn't the fairies like it better if it wasn't quite so dusty there?" asked the child.

"No doubt of it," replied the professor.

"We need one fairy more to put us to rights."

At a time when most little girls are playing with dolls, Marie was playing "fairy" in the big classroom, dusting the tables and shelves, and washing the glass tubes and other things that her father used as he talked to his students. "I think we might see the fairies better if I make all these glasses clear and shiny," said Marie.

"Can I trust your little fingers not to let things fall?" asked her father. "Remember, my funny glasses are precious. It might cost us a dinner if you should let one slip."

The professor soon found that his little daughter never let anything slip--either the things he used or the things he said. "Such a wise little fairy and such a busy one!" he would say. "I don't know how we could do our work without her."

If Professor Ladislaus Sklodowski had not loved his laboratory teaching above all else, he would have known that he was overworked. As it was, he counted himself fortunate in being able to serve Truth and to enlist others in her service. For the professor's zeal was of the kind that kindles enthusiasm. If you had seen the faces of those Polish students as they hung on his words and watched breathlessly the result of an experiment, you would have known that they, too, believed in the wonder-working fairies.

It seems as if the Polish people have a greater love and understanding of the unseen powers of the world than is given to many other nations. If you read the story of Poland's tragic struggles against foes within and without until, finally, the stronger surrounding countries--Germany, Austria, and Russia--divided her territory as spoil among themselves and she ceased to exist as a distinct nation, you will understand why her children have sought refuge in the things of the spirit. They have in a wonderful degree the courage that rises above the most unfriendly circumstances and says:

One day with life and heart
Is more than time enough to find a world.

Some of them, like Chopin and Paderewski, have found a new world in music; others have found it in poetry and romance; and still others in science. The child who dreamed of fairies in her father's classroom was to discover the greatest marvel of modern science--a discovery that opened up a new world to the masters of physics and chemistry of our day.

Marie's mother, who had herself been a teacher, died when the child was very small; and so it happened that the busy father had to take sole care of her and make the laboratory do duty as nursery and playroom. It was not strange that the bright, thoughtful little girl learned to love the things that were so dear to her father's heart. Would he not rather buy things for his work than have meat for dinner? Did he not wear the same shabby kaftan (the full Russian top-coat that looks like a dressing-gown) year after year in order that he might have material for important experiments? Truth was, indeed, more than meat and the love of learning more than raiment in that home, and the little daughter drank in his enthusiasm with the queer laboratory smells which were her native air and the breath of life to her.

The time came when the child had to leave this nursery to enter school, but always, when the day's session was over, she went directly to that other school where she listened fascinated to all her father taught about the wonders of the inner world of atoms and the mysterious forces that make the visible world in which we live. She still believed in fairies,--oh, yes!--but now she knew their names. There were the rainbow fairies--light-waves, that make all the colors we see,--and many more our eyes are not able to discover, but which we can capture by interesting experiments. There were sound-waves, too, and the marvelous forces we call electricity, magnetism, and gravitation. When she was nine years old, it was second nature to care for her father's batteries, beakers, and retorts, and to help prepare the apparatus that was to be used in the demonstrations of the coming day. The students marveled at the child's skill and knowledge, and called her with admiring affection "professorowna," (daughter-professor).

There was a world besides the wonderland of the laboratory, of which Marie was soon aware. This was the world of fear, where the powers of Russia ruled. In 1861 the Poles had made a vain attempt to win their independence, and when Marie was a little girl (she was born in 1867), the authorities tried to stamp out any further sparks of possible rebellion by adopting unusually harsh measures. It was a crime to speak the Polish language in the schools and to talk of the old, happy days when Poland was a nation. If any one was even suspected of looking forward to a better time when the people would not be persecuted by the police or forced to bribe unprincipled officials for a chance to conduct their business without interference, he was carried off to the cruel, yellow-walled prison near the citadel, and perhaps sent to a life of exile in Siberia. Since knowledge means independent thought and capacity for leadership, the high schools and universities were particularly under suspicion. Years afterward, when Marie spoke of this reign of terror, her eyes flashed and her lips were set in a thin white line. Time did not make the memory less vivid.

"Every corridor of my father's school had finger-posts pointing to Siberia!" she declared dramatically.

When Marie was sixteen, she graduated from the "gymnasium" for girls, receiving a gold medal for excellence in mathematics and sciences. In Russia, as in Germany, the gymnasium corresponds to our high school, but also covers some of the work of the first two years of college. The name gymnasium signifies a place where the mind is exercised and made strong in preparation for the work of the universities.

The position as governess to the daughters of a Russian nobleman was offered to the brilliant girl with the sweet, serious eyes and gentle voice. As it meant independence and a chance to travel and learn the ways of the world, Marie agreed to undertake the work.

Now, for the first time in her life, the young Polish girl knew work that was not a labor of love. Her pupils cared nothing for the things that meant everything to her. How they loved luxury and show and gay chatter! How indifferent they were to truth that would make the world wiser and happier.

"How strangely you look, Mademoiselle Marie," said the little Countess Olga one day, in the midst of her French lesson. "Your eyes seem to see things far away."

Marie was truly looking past her pupils, past the rich apartment, beyond Russia, into the great world of opportunity for all earnest workers. She had overheard something about another plot among the students of Warsaw, and knew that some of her father's pupils had been put under arrest.

"Suppose they should try to make me testify against my friends," said the girl to herself. "I must leave Russia at once. My savings will surely take me to Paris, and there I may get a place as helper in one of the big laboratories, where I can learn as I work."

The eyes that had been dark with fear an instant before became bright with hope. Eagerly she planned a disguise and a way to slip off the very next night while the household was in the midst of the excitement of a masquerade ball.

Everything went well, and in due time she found her trembling self and her slender possessions safely stowed away on a train that was moving rapidly toward the frontier and freedom. No one gave a second thought to the little elderly woman with gray hair and spectacles who sat staring out of the window of her compartment at the fields and trees rushing by in the darkness and the starry heavens that the train seemed to carry with it. Her plain, black dress and veil seemed those of a self-respecting, upper-class servant, who was perhaps going to the bedside of a dying son.

"I feel almost as old as I look," Marie was saying to herself. "But how can a girl who is all alone in the world, with no one to know what happens to her, help feeling old? Down in my heart, though, I know that life is just beginning. There is something waiting for me beyond the blackness--something that needs just little me."

It was a wonderful relief when the solitary journey was over and the elderly disguise laid aside. "Shall I ever feel really young again?" said the girl, who was not quite twenty-four. But not for a moment did she doubt that there was work waiting for her in the big, unexplored world.

During those early days in Paris, Marie often had reason to be grateful for the plain living of her childhood that had made her independent of creature comforts. Now she knew actual want in her cold garret, furnished only with a cot and chair, like a hermit's cell. She lived, too, on hermit's fare--black bread and milk. But even when it was so cold that the milk was frozen,--cold comfort, indeed!--the fire of her enthusiasm knew no chill. Day after day she walked from laboratory to laboratory begging to be given a chance as assistant, but always with the same result. It was man's work; why did she not look for a place in a milliner's shop?

One day she renewed her appeal to Professor Lippman in the Sorbonne research laboratories. Something in the still, pale face and deep-set, earnest eyes caught the attention of the busy man. Perhaps this strange, determined girl was starving! And besides, the crucibles and test-tubes were truly in sad need of attention. Grudgingly he bade her clean the various accessories and care for the furnace. Her deftness and skill in handling the materials, and a practical suggestion that proved of value in an important experiment, attracted the favorable notice of the professor. He realized that the slight girl with the foreign look and accent, whom he had taken in out of an impulse of pity, was likely to become one of his most valuable helpers.

A new day dawned for the ambitious young woman. While supporting herself by her laboratory work, she completed in two years the university course for a degree in mathematics, and, two years later, she won a second degree in physics and chemistry. In the meantime her enthusiasm for science and her undaunted courage in the face of difficulties and discouragements attracted the admiration of a fellow-worker, Pierre Curie, one of the most promising of the younger professors.

"I love you, and we both love the same things," he said one day. "Would it not be happier to live and work together than alone?"

And so began that wonderful partnership of two great scientists, whose hard work and heroic struggle, crowned at last by brilliant success, has been an inspiration to earnest workers the world over.

Madame Curie set up a little laboratory in their apartment, and toiled over her experiments at all hours. Her baby daughter was often bathed and dressed in this workroom among the test-tubes and the interesting fumes of advanced research.

"Irene is as happy in the atmosphere of science as her mother was," said Madame Curie to one of her husband's brother-professors who seemed surprised to find a crowing infant in a laboratory. "And if I could afford the best possible nurse, she could not take my place! For my baby and I know the joy of living and growing together with those we love."

What was the problem that the mother was working over even while she sewed for her little girl, or rocked her to sleep to the gentle crooning of an old Polish folk-song whose melody Chopin has wrought into one of his tenderest nocturnes?

The child who used to delight in experiments with light-waves in her father's laboratory, was interested in the strange glow which Prof. Becquerel had found that the substance known as uranium gave off spontaneously. Like the X-rays, this light passes through wood and other bodies opaque to sunlight. Madame Curie became deeply interested in the problem of the nature of the Becquerel rays and their wonderful properties, such as that of making the air a conductor for electricity. One day she discovered that pitchblende, the black mineral from which uranium is extracted, was more _radioactive_ (that is, it gave off more powerful rays) than the isolated substance itself, and she came to the conclusion that there was some other element in the ore which, could it be extracted, would prove more valuable than uranium.

With infinite patience and the skill of highly trained specialists in both physics and chemistry, Madame Curie and her husband worked to obtain this unknown substance. At times Pierre Curie all but lost heart at the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in the way. "It cannot be done!" he exclaimed one day, with a groan. "Truly, 'Nature has buried Truth deep in the bottom of the sea.'"

"But man can dive, _cher ami_," said his wife, with a heartening smile. "Think of the joy when one comes up at last with the pearl--the pearl of truth!"

At last their toil was rewarded, and _two_ new elements were separated from pitchblende--polonium, so named by Madame Curie in honor of her native Poland, and radium, the most marvelous of all radioactive substances. A tiny pinch of radium, which is a grayish white powder not unlike coarse salt in appearance, gives out a strange glow something like that of fireflies, but bright enough to read by. Moreover, light and heat are radiated by this magic element with no apparent waste of its own amount or energy. Radium can also make some other substances, diamonds for instance, shine with a light like its own, and it makes the air a conductor of electricity. Its weird glow passes through bone almost as readily as through tissue-paper or through flesh, and it even penetrates an inch-thick iron plate.

The Curies now woke to find not only Paris but the world ringing with the fame of their discovery. The modest workers wanted nothing, however, but the chance to go on with their research. You know how Tennyson makes the aged Ulysses look forward even at the end of his life to one more last voyage. The type of the unconquerable human soul that ever presses on to fresh achievement, he says:

All experience is an arch where-thro'
Gleams that untravel'd world, whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.

So it was with Pierre Curie and his wife. Their famous accomplishment opened a new world of interesting possibilities, a world which they longed above all things to explore.

Their one trouble was the difficulty of procuring enough of the precious element they had discovered to go on with their experiments. Because radium is not only rare, but also exceedingly hard to extract from the ore, it is a hundred times more precious than pure gold. It is said that five tons of pitchblende were treated before a trifling pinch of the magic powder was secured. It would take over two thousand tons of the mineral to produce a pound of radium. Moreover, it was not easy to secure the ore, as practically all the known mines were in Austria, and those in control wanted to profit as much as possible by this chance.

"It does seem as if people might not stand in the way of our obtaining the necessary material to go on with our work," lamented Pierre Curie. "What we discover belongs to the world--to any one who can use it."

"We have passed other lions in the way. This, too, we shall pass," said Madame Curie, quietly.