Chapter III: Foreword (2)

When the deed was done, Poit came to himself. He shouted in dismay and terror, "Ak kai! Ak kai!" and rushed away.

He had run only a short distance when he sat down to think. He believed that he had either killed Mr. Grubb outright or that Mr. Grubb would soon die from his wounds or that he would be slain by a jaguar whose tracks they had crossed. He decided craftily that he would set out straightway for the mission and say that he had seen a jaguar about to leap, and that, shooting at the jaguar, he had killed Mr. Grubb.

He had not gone very far when he met an Indian with paint marks on his body, which showed that he was in mourning. Poit supposed this meant that Mr. Grubb was dead—someone must have found Mr. Grubb's body before the jaguar devoured it. He ran back into the forest. By this time he was out of his mind with fear. For hundreds and hundreds of years the Indians had killed foreigners without thinking anything about it; but now there was a change. Here was an Indian mourning for a foreigner! Poit was puzzled and frightened. He did not yet know that all the Indians were crying out for vengeance upon the man who had tried to murder their benefactor.

But what neither Poit nor the mourning Indian knew was that Mr. Grubb was still alive. How he reached the mission was a miracle. He was more dead than alive from the wound which pierced his lung, and from exhaustion. Sometimes he staggered along leaning on two Indians; sometimes he rode a horse on whose back he had to be supported. Often his companions had to lay him down on the ground lest he should die. He suffered from the heat by day and was tortured by the mosquitoes by night. As though this were not enough, one night a goat belonging to an Indian jumped on him by accident!

But at last he reached the mission and had proper medical attention, and all along the weary way the Indians saw his agony and understood that he was suffering because he had come to help them. They thought not only of him, but of the Master about whom he had told them, and they believed that he had been saved by a miracle.

Though Mr. Grubb still lived, the Indians decided that Poit must die, and they searched for him until they captured him. He pleaded with them desperately, reminding them that he was their relative whom they had known all their lives and that Mr. Grubb was only a stranger; but they would not listen.

When he heard that Poit was to die, Mr. Grubb tried to save him, but in vain. He did, however, succeed in saving Poit's family whom the Indians would have killed also. This forgiving spirit amazed and touched them still more.

Now this story is sad and dreadful and there would not be any reason for telling it if Poit's death were the end. But in a way, it was only a beginning.

Mr. Grubb had to make two journeys for further medical attention, one to Ascuncion, nearly four hundred miles away, and one to Buenos Ayres, nine hundred miles away. It was December when Poit attacked him; it was June before he was able to take up his work. When he did so, the seed so strangely sown by poor Poit had ripened. Two Indians who had been impressed by Mr. Grubb's devotion and by his almost miraculous recovery asked to be baptized. Thus the foundation of the Church in the Chaco was laid.

Mr. Grubb is still working, and the extent of his influence has greatly increased. The Indians in the distant settlements no longer wait for him to seek them out; they come to see for themselves what he has done and to hear the story he has to tell. The government has named him the "pacificator of the Indians."

Do you not suppose that sometimes as he thinks of his years in the Chaco, he thinks with pity of poor Poit and hopes that his cry "Ak kai! Ak kai!" showed repentance as well as fear of punishment?

IV

TREE-NOT-SHAKEN-BY-THE-WIND

Ten-year-old Fred Hope looked up at the men who looked down at him. He was very happy because he had just taken the pencil and paper which one of the men handed him, and written

Fred Hope $1.00

He lived on a farm near Flat Rock, Illinois, and many times he had seen his father sign his name to a subscription paper when the deacons had been collecting money for the church and had made up his mind that some day he would sign his own name. At last he had done so, and his eyes were shining.

"Now," said he, "I've got to find a way to make that dollar."

He took a hoe and some beans and went into the garden to begin to earn his dollar. He planted the beans and watched eagerly to see them grow. It was a bad year for beans in Illinois and there was no crop. But he did not give up. From beans he turned to rats. The rats had been eating his father's grain and Fred made a contract to rid the place of rats at five cents apiece. It happened there were more rats than beans in Flat Rock that year and no Indian chief ever counted with more pride his scalps of white men than Fred the notches which numbered the rats he had slain. Soon the dollar was paid, and his father's grain was safe.

The next money Fred made was to pay his way to college. When he had almost enough saved, his mother said:

"Father does not see how he can get along without you on the farm. He has had a great deal of trouble and lost a lot of money."

"Of course I'll stay, and I'll find a way to go to college later on," answered Fred.

When he was twenty-four years old he went to Maryville College in Tennessee. There he had to begin with the small boys in the preparatory department.

"You might just as well give up," said some of his friends. "You are so far behind you can never catch up."

But Fred only laughed. "I'll find a way. When I can't raise beans I always catch rats."

He worked as hard at his lessons as he had on the farm, and played as well as he worked. He was the best man on his football team, and when he graduated he was president of his class.

While he was at school he thought he would like to be a missionary, but he did not wish to be a preacher and he had never heard of a missionary who was not a preacher. At last he settled it this way:

"If God wants me to be a missionary and there is any way I can be a missionary without being a preacher then I'll be one."

A few years later as a steamer neared the west coast of Africa, Fred Hope jumped from one of the berths. He called to his wife to dress as fast as she could so they should not miss the first glimpse of the shore.

He had found a way; he was going to Elat on the west coast of Africa to take charge of the Frank James Industrial School. As he stood on the deck in the gray light of the early morning, he seemed to see John Ludwig Krapf and Robert Moffat and David Livingstone and all the men and women who had found a way to give their lives to Africa, and his heart was glad.

He could see two white dwelling houses surrounded by tall coconut-palms and other tropical plants, beyond the dashing surf at the Batanga landing. How anxious he was to reach them! The travelers were lowered to the small boat in a "Mammy chair," a seat swung by ropes from the deck of the steamer. Then the sturdy black men pulled for the shore, their wet backs gleaming in the sunlight.

A boy who had come from Elat to meet them was waiting with two bicycles. Mr. Hope had never been on a bicycle, so he practised riding round and round, to the amusement of all the crowd. Then he and Mrs. Hope started on their long journey of one hundred and ten miles in the narrow path through the African jungle.

On either side of them giant trees reached upward for many, many feet before spreading out branches to the sunlight above. Underneath the trees there was no sunshine, only the gloom of dense foliage. It made them feel as though they were in a great cathedral,—the quiet, the great pillars of the trees, and the dim light.

As they rode on through the villages and the bush, people crowded round them curiously. The black men could not speak the white man's words or make the white man understand their words. They pointed to Mr. Hope's head.

"They want you to take off your hat so they can see your straight hair," said the boy.

Mr. Hope took off his hat. They looked at his straight hair very solemnly. Then they pointed to Mrs. Hope's head.

"They want to see the hair that is like long ropes," said the boy. Mrs. Hope took off her hat.

They moved their hands to their heads and then far out until she understood that they wanted her to take out the hairpins and stretch her hair as far as it would reach "like long ropes."

They gazed with wonder at its length and softness. Then one of them opened his mouth and pointed first to his teeth and then to Mr. Hope's mouth. Soon every black man was doing the same thing.

"They want to see your brass teeth," the boy explained. Mr. Hope opened his mouth, while the people who had never heard of a dentist gazed with much respect at the gold fillings.

"How do the people all along the way know we are coming?" asked Mr. Hope. "There are no telegraph wires or telephones."

"By the drums," answered the boy. "Every village has its drums. They are hollowed out of logs so the ends make curious sounds that speak to those who listen. When you pass through a village the men who beat the drums call to the next village, 'Strange white man is here.' All important men have drum names. Perhaps you will do something so brave they will give you a drum name some day."

When they reached Elat, Mr. Hope began to find the work God had provided for a man who was not a preacher. The missionaries who had been in Africa said that the boys and men who went home after being in the mission schools had nothing to do. There were no stores for them to run, no factories or shops in which they could work, and no one had ever taught them how to farm.

© _Underwood and Underwood_

NATIVE AFRICAN "WIRELESS STATION"

Every village on the West Coast has its drum by which messages are sent
from village to village.]

There were not even any decent houses. They had to live in little huts made out of the bark of trees, with a dirt floor, no windows, and only one little door, so low that they had almost to crawl in. Their houses had only one room, and in that room all the family cooked and ate and slept. The chickens stayed in a little room built at the side of the house. There was no way for them to get in except through the same door that led through the house. Often they stopped to take a peck at the food the women were grinding between heavy flat stones.

The houses were very dirty. The women had no time to keep their houses clean; they had to dig and hoe the ground and harvest the crops and look after their children and cook the meals.

Meanwhile the men sat round the huts and smoked and drank and palavered. To "palaver" means to talk and talk and then talk some more. Sometimes they went hunting and sometimes they fought men of other tribes. If they had known how to work or if it had been the custom for them to work, they would not have been so good-for-nothing.

Mr. Hope decided that one of the best deeds one could do for Africa would be to teach the men and boys how to work, to build decent houses and churches and towns, to make furniture and clothes, and to use the wonderful natural gifts God has given to Africa.

The Frank James Industrial School had been started to do all of these things and half a dozen boys were there to welcome the new superintendent. The school building was a little bark shack much like a native hut. From an industrial school at Old Calabar Mr. Hope secured a tailor and a carpenter. He found an old hand sewing machine which someone had almost worn out in America and then put into a missionary box for Africa. Then the boys were ready to sew.

The first order they took was for clothes for a party of men who came many miles carrying burdens. In the interior of Africa there are no freight or express lines and everything is carried on the heads or backs of men. These bearers had come one hundred and twenty-five miles carrying sixty-five pounds each. They received one cent a mile for their loads. When they got their money, Mr. Hope said, "it burned their pockets, or would have burned them if they had had any pockets." That was just what they wanted—some pockets like the white men. They wore only pieces of bark cloth tied around their waists.

They wanted to spend their money at once and asked how much they could buy for $1.25. Mr. Hope told them that would not buy a whole suit of clothes, so they decided that each of them would get a coat, since a coat had more pockets than trousers. The boys in the tailoring school took their measure for their first order for "clothes made while you wait."

They waited for a whole week and then went home each wearing a khaki coat and as happy as if he had a full outfit. Since that day the tailoring class has never caught up with its orders. The men and boys have made clothes for themselves, for the missionaries and their wives and children, and for people in the country round about. They have even made uniforms for army officials. They can do all this work because now they have large, plank buildings and machinery which includes fifteen sewing machines.

But tailoring would not keep everyone busy, and other things besides clothes were needful, so Mr. Hope put some of the boys to work in a carpentry class. Logs of beautiful wood were brought from the wonderful forests. There were no great trucks in Elat, so a team of fifteen or twenty men was made up to haul the logs to the saw mill and from there they were taken to the carpenter shop.

At first all the lumber was sawed by hand, and it took two men all day to saw out half a dozen planks. Then Mr. Hope wrote to America for an engine. When the big engine landed at Batanga the people were very much excited.

"Let us go with you to bring it to Elat," said several of the men.

"How will we be able to pull such a big engine that weighs so much?" asked one.

"You are an ignorant man," answered another. "Do you not know the strange thing that white men say of this engine?"

"What is it that they say?"

"They say that men need not pull this engine along the road, but that if men will make fire in it and put water over the fire the engine will walk by itself along the road."

When they reached Batanga they helped to put the water in the boiler and make the fire and then they saw the engine "walk by itself."

They had traveled about thirty-five miles along the wide, new road, and Mr. Hope was thinking how wonderful it would be to have the big engine at the saw mill, when there was a crash, and the bridge over the muddy stream they were crossing went down. The engine turned over and dropped twenty feet into the creek below.

Mr. Hope and his friend, who were riding on the engine, went down with it and were thrown to one side. The black men thought they were killed, for heavy timbers had fallen all around them, but they soon crawled out alive and stood looking at their engine lying upside down in the mud of the little creek.

The black men said the engine could never be raised from the creek. Mr. Hope only smiled, and went to work. In a week the engine was standing on the road ready to walk by itself again.

Then a message came from the governor saying the engine would not be allowed to walk through his country. But even this did not discourage Mr. Hope. He sent back to Elat for one hundred men. They came and hitched themselves to the engine like horses and pulled it all the long way to Elat, where from that time it sawed the wood as fast as it was needed. It was a year from the time they started until they pulled the engine into Elat.

At first the boys made very simple furniture, but soon they advanced to dining-room extension tables, couches, davenports, and bookcases. Morris chairs were their especial delight, and they have invented ingenious folding-chairs.

Mr. Hope looked at some American wicker and willow furniture and said, "We ought to beat that in Africa, because we have such wonderful bush-rope in the jungles."

_Courtesy Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions_

AT THE FRANK JAMES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL, ELAT, AFRICA

The boys gathered rattan vines, and Fred Hope showed them how to make
attractive bush-rope furniture.]

So the boys began to gather rattan vines of different sizes and make it into bush-rope furniture which was so beautiful that when foreign officers visited Africa and saw it, they insisted on taking samples home with them.

Next the boys turned their attention to building houses. They practised on houses for themselves; then they built houses for the missionaries. They decorated Mr. Hope's house with beautiful mahogany panels made from the trees that grew right at their door.

When, after a while, the government needed large warehouses the boys from Elat were able to build them.

Their greatest triumph was the Elat church. This is not a little chapel as one might expect in a mission; it is a church that seats four thousand people. Not only did they build the church, but they made all the furniture for it, and the many thousands of mats of dried grass with which the roof was covered. Next they went around the country building other Christian churches as they were needed.

They learned to make small articles as well as large. From the tusks of the elephants, which were not in cages at the Zoo, but at home in the forests all about, they made ivory chessmen.

Of course, Mr. Hope cannot keep forever the many boys and men who come to the school. Most of them must go back to their own homes. He wanted them to know how to farm when they went back, so he laid out a little farm for them to practise on at the schools, and here they learn the best methods of planting and cultivating. They have tried to find new plants which might grow in Africa. Our own American Agricultural Bureau became interested in exchanging plants and seeds, and before long we will see African vegetables in America and American vegetables in Africa.

Some boys are taught to become blacksmiths and in their shop they do everything from putting a new blade into a pocket-knife to rebuilding an automobile.

"An automobile!" you say. "Where did they find it?" It happened in a curious fashion. Elat was in German territory and when the Great War began and the Germans were driven away, they did not wish to leave behind anything that would be of help to the French army, so they piled up all their bicycles, motor cycles, automobiles, and trucks and wrecked them with sledges and blew them up with dynamite. To be sure that nothing was left they set fire to the wreck. The French officers came along and looked at the pile of scrap iron and said, "Junk! Nothing worth taking with us," and gave it to the mission. When Fred Hope saw it, his eyes shone just as if they had taken him into a big supply store and said, "Help yourself." Some people might have shrugged their shoulders in despair, but Mr. Hope and his assistant, Mr. Cozzens, set the boys at the school to work on the junk heap, and out of it they made an automobile. This model is not to be bought in the American market, but it has a number of good points all its own. Then they made an auto-truck. What was left was made into a steam engine which runs the shaft that in turn runs a planer, a boring machine, a shingle mill, a grinder, and a large lathe.

During the war there was no oil to be had for the machinery, but Mr. Hope did not stop all the wheels and cable to America that he would have to close the school.

"See all these beans growing around us," he said to his boys. "They are almost like the castor beans we have in America, and Americans make oil out of the castor bean. Bring me a jack from the carpenter shop." The boys ran to get the jack. "Now, turn it upside down and make a press out of it."

They mashed the beans until a thick oil ran out. Then Mr. Hope bought peanuts, not ten cents worth in a paper sack from the corner store, but tons from the farms where they grew. The boys mashed them until barrelfuls of oil were stored away. It was a better grade and much cheaper than the oil they bought from Europe. Today two hydraulic presses make the manufacture of oil easy.

"What shall we do now?" asked a boy one day. "There are no more of the American brooms."

"Why not make brooms here in our own school?" said Mr. Hope.

They planted broom-corn seed and it grew so well that now broom-making is one of the trades taught at Elat.

During the war there was no soap to be had. Some people said, "How dreadful!" but Mr. Hope said, "What good luck! We shall have to find a way to make our own soap."

He sent to America for lye, and the school has added soap-making to its other work.

One day the boys asked what they should do with the shavings in the carpenter shop.

"Burn them," said Mr. Hope. "Burn all of them."

The foolish boys set fire to them on the dirt floor of the shop. They were piled up so high that the roof mats caught fire and in a few moments there was nothing left of the carpentry shop but a pile of ashes and a few blackened tools.

But almost before the ashes were cold, Mr. Hope started the remorseful boys to building another shop, and in less than a week they were back at work.

Many of the young men who came to the school were married, and Mr. Hope decided that he would build a town where each man who attended school could live in his own home. His town now has houses on each side of the street and more than one hundred families live there. In the afternoons, Mrs. Hope has classes for the girls and women. She teaches them to cook and to sew, to read and to write, and to take care of their children.

After the boys and men and their wives have finished their training in the schools, they go back to their own villages. Often they build themselves a home. The chief is sure to be interested in a man who has a house better than his own, so the mission boys become men of importance.

Hundreds of boys have been turned away from the school because they could not be accommodated. Only the strongest Christian boys are chosen. These boys come from all parts of the mission and are recommended for admission by the missionaries who know them.

His steadfastness and perseverance won for him from the Africans the
name, "Tree-Not-Shaken-by-the-Wind."]

Frequently the boys themselves become missionaries. They build churches and tell the people the wonderful story of the "Tribe of God" to which they belong. Many of them start schools. None of them sit around their huts all day and smoke and drink and beat their wives and quarrel, as their fathers and grandfathers used to do. While they learn their trades, they become better Christians, not only because they listen to the preaching on Sunday, but because they watch Mr. and Mrs. Hope and the other missionaries and see how they live.

Fred Hope said he would be a missionary if he could be one without being a preacher, yet he preaches every day. Sometimes he ventures to stand up in church or among the people who crowd the doors of the mission, and tell them the story of the Son of God who gave Himself for them, but most of his preaching is his every-day living.

He has won his "drum name." He began to win it when he paid his pledge for $1.00 by catching rats when his bean crop failed, and always since then he has found some way to do the things that he undertakes no matter how hard they are or how many difficulties he meets.

If you were in an African village which Mr. Hope was about to visit, you would not be handed a telegram stating "Fred Hope has arrived," but instead, you would hear the drums beat the call, "'Tree-Not-Shaken-by-the-Wind' is here."

V

WHEN MARY WAS AFRAID

The night was gloomy and rain threatened, yet there were many boys and girls on Queen Street in Dundee. They were doing nothing in particular; they did not seem to be on their way anywhere; they were simply hanging about.

Opening into Queen Street were courts called "pends" or "closes." These were not streets, for they were very narrow, or thoroughfares, because they led nowhere; they were merely vestibules to tall buildings where human beings lived huddled together like animals. They were paved with rough stones, and in order to reach the spiral staircase on the outside of the old tenements one had to step through masses of filth.

Even so, these boys and girls found the pend and the gateway into the street and the street itself a pleasant change from the crowded rooms in which they lived. All day they worked in factories, and in the evening they naturally tried to find entertainment.

This evening they were in a good humor, and it was very plain that they were awaiting some interesting event. They looked down the street eagerly as one might look for the approach of the band at the head of a circus parade. Presently they drew near together before the door of a little room on the ground floor of Queen Street. The window-shades were lifted and within were to be seen rows of benches and a little table. They looked in and laughed.

"We'll get her!" said a rough voice. "Just wait till she comes to her prayer-meeting!"

So it was not for a circus parade they were watching!

"She wants to go out to Africa to teach black people!" said another, and there were shrieks of laughter as though this were the strangest desire ever heard of.

"Black people!" repeated the largest boy of all. "I'll black her eye." As he spoke he swung a heavy object at the end of a string. It looked like a piece of lead and was a dangerous weapon.

At this moment a figure appeared at the corner and advanced toward the group.

"She's coming!" shouted a girl. "She's coming!"

There was delighted laughter and a sudden stooping to the earth. There were loose stones on Queen Street and there was also mud, both soft, sticky mud and hard, dried mud.

"We'll do for her!" cried another girl.

"We'll make her let us alone."

"I'm a good shot."

A foe worthy of these many fierce opponents should have been tall and strong and well-armed, but the approaching figure was that of a girl. Her name was Mary Slessor; she was fourteen years old and short for her age. She had not had a chance to grow to her full height because she got up at five o'clock in the morning, helped her mother until she went to the factory at six, worked until six in the evening, and then helped her mother until a late bedtime. When she had a spare moment she read, even propping her book up on her loom as the great missionary Livingstone had done when he was a factory boy.

The shouts of the boys and girls grew louder.

"Hi, Mary Slessor!"

"Hit her!"

"You let us alone, or we'll do for you!"

The little figure came straight on.

"We're not going to come to your meetings!" shouted a loud voice.

"We don't care for your meetings!" yelled another.

"You clear right out of here!" howled a third.

Still the little figure advanced.

"I won't give up," she shouted back, white-faced and stubborn. "You can do what you like; I won't give up!"

In answer to this defiance there was a moment's silence. Then the largest boy stepped out with his weight tied to a cord in his hand.

"All right," he said. "Then look out for your head!"

His companions moved back out of danger, and he began to swing the lead round and round.

"You can't frighten me," said Mary. "I'm going to go to the meetings and I'm going to invite you to the meetings. You can't stop me."

She stood perfectly still. The tall boy moved nearer. He lifted his arm and began to swing the piece of lead round and round in the air. It passed within six inches of Mary's face; another swing, and it was within four inches. Now it touched a flying tendril of her hair. Another swing and it might kill her.

But the boy dropped his arm and let the cruel weapon fall. For the first time in his unruly life he had been beaten—not by force, but by love.

"Let her alone," he said gruffly. "She's game."

A little color came into Mary's pale cheeks. Most persons would have been satisfied with this victory, but Mary was not. She boldly repeated the crime for which she had been so nearly punished.

"Will you come to my meeting?" she asked.

The leader put both hands into his pockets.

"Well, this beats me!" he said. His companions expected that now Mary Slessor's hour had come. Instead, he turned on them furiously.

"Go on in!" he commanded, and into the meeting filed the whole party.

It was not this time that Mary was afraid.

* * * * *

In far-off Calabar in Africa in the deep woods there was a stir. Dawn was not yet complete, though there was a grayish light over everything and a pink glow in the eastern sky. The trees were tall, the foliage dark, and here and there were gorgeous flowers. Now and then a parrot or a monkey chattered high up on the branches. Near by flowed a beautiful stream, overshadowed by thick foliage and edged by blooming water-lilies.

So far everything was beautiful. But in the deep thickets there were sounds which were not beautiful, the angry shouts of harsh, human voices. Advancing through the bushes were many black men, wearing almost no clothing, but armed to the teeth. They carried knives in their belts and spears and guns in their hands. Their black eyes glittered, their teeth gleamed, they panted for breath. They were on the war-path, and they looked as terrible as charging beasts of prey. They were a tribe of the Okoyong country, going to meet in battle another tribe, a member of which had injured their chief. Nothing one would have said could stay them.

Suddenly they heard a sound of advancing footsteps and a shrill call. They tightened their grasp on their weapons. Was the enemy at hand? Then up and at him!

But it was not an enemy; the voice was not that of a warrior; it was that of a woman. It was not even that of a woman of Okoyong; it was that of a white woman. "Stop!" it called, in the language of the Okoyong. "Stop! Listen to me!"

There came into view a little woman who looked, in spite of the passing of many years, like the girl who had defied the boys in Queen Street. She was not much taller and certainly no stouter. Her hair was bobbed like a boy's, and this made her look much as she had long ago. It was undoubtedly Mary Slessor.

She advanced rapidly, running over the ground in bare feet. One could not keep one's shoes dry in the damp grass, and it was better to go unshod.

Living in a native mud hut, eating the same sort of food, and sharing
their every-day life, Mary Slessor became the beloved "White Queen of
Okoyong."]

"Stop!" she called again. "Listen to me!"

"Ma is coming!" said a dozen angry voices.

"She needn't think she can stop us with any of her peace talk!"

"Disgrace has been put upon us," said another. "We must have vengeance."

The warriors shook their heads impatiently. They would listen, but they would not obey. The little figure came nearer and nearer and stood at last regarding them.

Calabar was not only one of the most beautiful places in the world, it was one of the most terrible. Just as into the pends and closes of Dundee had crowded all the poor and wretched beings who could not afford to live elsewhere, so into Calabar had drifted the most ignorant, the most degraded, the most persecuted of the black men on the West Coast. On one side the water prevented them from going farther; not far away from the other side was the desert. From the sea came a terrible enemy, the slave-trader, who seized thousands of victims and carried them away to die in misery in his ships or to serve hard masters in distant lands. The country was under the control of England, but no white men penetrated it to face death from starvation, fever, or the bullet or poisoned arrow or spear-tip of a warrior.

Missionaries try to speak as kindly as possible about the people among whom they work, but for these poor Africans they had only dreadful words, "bloody," "savage," "cruel," "crafty," "devilish," "cannibals," "murderers." They did their best for them along the coast, but their efforts to penetrate inland were in vain. It was no wonder they were "bloody," "savage," and "cruel," since the white man whom the Africans knew was a demon who stole men, who taught them new ways of murdering one another, and who brought them rum which made beasts of them.

Most fierce and terrible of all the tribes and most dangerous to the white man were the Okoyong whose watchword seemed to be "war." They fought among themselves in their own villages and in various tribes; but most of all they fought the surrounding nations. The life of a warrior from Calabar was not worth an instant's purchase if he appeared on their borders.

But into this country Mary Slessor had gone, and here she was at dawn, alone, facing a tribe of angry men—not only facing them, but giving them orders.

She had left Scotland and had lived for a while in the mission school at Duke Town near the coast where all was orderly, and there had learned the language. Now she lived in a mud hut and ate the food of the natives, partly so that she might have a large share of her salary to send home to her mother, and partly because she wanted to learn the hearts of the native men and women and the secret of their dreadful customs. If she knew why they believed it necessary to kill the wives of a chief when he died and put their bodies with his into the grave, if she knew why they threw poor little twin babies into the bushes to die, if she knew why they offered human sacrifices,—then she might be able to persuade them to understand their own wickedness.

She asked at last to be sent to Okoyong, and here she was alone, so far as white companionship was concerned, but with many black companions. She had even adopted a family, all of them black. One was a little girl, brought to her by a white trader.

"I found this tiny baby thing in the bush," he said. "It is a twin, and the other is dead."

Mary called the baby Janie for her sister in Scotland. Finally she had seven, who would otherwise have died and whom she nursed and taught and trained.

The Okoyong, who would not have endured the presence of a man, tolerated her. She lived at first in the king's hut, where they were able to watch her day and night. They believed that she could do them no harm, and they were willing to let her prescribe for their illnesses and try to heal their poor bodies. They called her "Ma," and when she did not oppose their customs, they obeyed her.

But Mary Slessor was not one to countenance evil, or to step aside from a path which she had set for herself. When she saw prisoners about to be tortured, not as punishment, but merely as a test of their innocence, she protested and argued and scolded until the chief reconsidered. When human sacrifices were to be offered after the death of a young chief, she grew frantic; she mocked and commanded and even slept beside the prisoners so that they should not be murdered, and she helped them escape. She arbitrated quarrels, she proved the witch-doctors to be impostors. Day in and day out she preached of a Kingdom of Love until the natives began to understand what it would be to live at peace with their fellows, to be free from fear and superstition, and to have hope in God.

The government sent no consul into the district but appointed Mary Slessor to be consul, and she sat in distant villages and heard disputes and debated with great chiefs about proper punishment for criminals, about trade, and about matters in dispute between the natives and the government. She was called "The White Queen of Okoyong."

Now she was growing old; her little body was racked by ague; she was often so tired that she did not see how she could live, but she saw her work prospering. It was necessary for her to have a rest, and she was about to leave. She was packing her few belongings and the river steamer was almost at hand.

But at the last minute there came to her a message. It was a secret; she did not know who brought it. A chief had been injured by a man from another tribe, and his own tribesmen were on their way to avenge him.

She did not hesitate for an instant, unless it was to look at a picture which hung on the wall of her little hut. It was the likeness of a young man, the boy who had once defied her in Queen Street in Dundee and had flung his leaden weight round her head. From the moment when he had entered her meeting he had led a better life, and he had sent her his picture and that of his wife and children to show her how prosperous they were. With the recollection of that courageous stand in her mind, she set out on her journey. She might miss the boat and not get home, but that made no difference. How could she rest if she knew that behind her all her work was being undone?

The chief men of the village opposed her going.

"They will kill you."

"They are mad, they will shoot wildly. If you are not assassinated, you will be shot by accident."

"They will insult you in their drunken rage."

But Mary shook her head and started, a man going before her beating a drum to show that a free protected person was coming. She marched straight to the village and there the warriors deceived her. They were going to start out in the morning, but they said they would call her and she might go with them. In the morning they called her as they had promised, but not until they were ready to start. By the time she had quickly sprung up from the earth where she was sleeping, the warriors were off.

They showed great stupidity, however, when they believed that they could get rid of Mary Slessor in this fashion. A hundred yards away she caught up to them and now she stood calling to them like the sign-post which warns of the danger of the rushing train, "Stop! Listen!" This danger was worse than that threatened by any rushing train. They began to howl and yell.

Mary looked at them scornfully. She knew how to talk to them.

"Don't carry on like small boys!" she said. "Be quiet."

To their amazement, she walked straight through their ranks and on to the village where the enemy was drawn up in battle array.

"I salute you," she said.

The enemy were too much astonished and enraged to answer.

"Where are your manners?" she said chidingly. She began to smile and joke.

At once an old man stepped out and knelt down at her feet. Here was one person at least with manners.

"Once when I was sick you came to see me and healed me. This is a foolish quarrel. We beg you to make peace for us." If Mary had been presented with a million dollars, she wouldn't have been so happy.

"You bring three men," she commanded, "and three men will come from the other side, and we will have a palaver."

For hours she listened to their story; she coaxed them and commanded them and pleaded with them and laughed at them. In the end she conquered, and they made peace. Then she said a few simple words about her Saviour and went back over the dark, lonely forest path. The boat had gone, but messengers were waiting to take her down the river in a canoe.

It was not this time that Mary Slessor was afraid, but the time was coming nearer.

* * * * *

The afternoon was pleasant and at Duke Town, along the coast of Calabar, there was a stir which betokened some unusual event. The chief missionary, Mr. MacGregor, was moving about busily, now in the missionary buildings, now in his own house. The Governor General and the Commissioner sat on their porches looking out as though they were watching for something or somebody, or waiting for something to begin. When Europeans met, they stopped and said a joking word to one another.

It was more than thirty years since Mary Slessor had landed in Duke Town, and there were many changes. The government buildings were larger and finer, the mission buildings had increased in number and size, and there were many other improvements. England had begun to busy herself with the affairs of her colony, and the Church at home was listening to the desperate call from Calabar.

Presently a long line of boys appeared from the Boys' School and filed into the hall of the mission buildings. Then there came an equally long file from the Girls' School. At once the chief missionary and the other missionaries and the Governor General and the Commissioner went thither also, followed by the Europeans and the natives.

They took their assigned places on the platform and the benches and sat waiting. They watched the door even as the naughty boys and girls had looked up the street in Dundee, and as the Okoyong chiefs had looked out from between the branches.

"She's coming!" said a whisper. The whisper passed all along the benches. "She's coming! She's coming!"

A little figure advanced to the platform, hesitated, and moved on, assisted by firm and tender hands, and urged by laughing voices.

"Now, come along, Ma! Are you afraid, Ma?"

It must be confessed that now at last Mary Slessor was afraid; afraid of all these eyes, though she was accustomed to facing thousands of eyes set in black faces; afraid of all these smiles, though she was accustomed to friendliness. Most of all, she was afraid of what was being said. Almost before she was seated, the Commissioner began to speak.

"Miss Slessor, I have in my hand a box which contains a silver badge of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in England, of which the King is the sovereign head. This badge is conferred only on persons professing the Christian faith, who are eminently distinguished for philanthropy. It is a Maltese cross, embellished in the angles by lions and unicorns. I have been directed by the King to bestow this badge upon you in recognition of your service to the government. You have opened the country of Okoyong; you, above all others, have been instrumental in preserving peace; you have let in a great light where there was darkness; and England thanks you, her only woman consul."

Mary not only was afraid, but she looked afraid. Her head bent lower and lower, her hands were lifted to hide her face. But at last she had to rise and have the medal pinned on her shoulder. She stood for a moment, trembling; then she looked down at the pleased, attentive faces. She saw herself a little girl in Scotland and then a woman in Africa, and once again she grew calm and brave and even a little ashamed of her embarrassment. The credit for what she had done was not hers, she would tell where it belonged; then she would feel comfortable.

"If I have done anything in my life," she said, "it has been easy, because the Master has gone before."

Then she sat down neither proud nor afraid, but content.

VI

THE BOY FOR WHOM NO ONE CARED

Within the livery stable in Harrisburg there was the sound of rough voices and the tramp of horses' feet. Outside the rain fell steadily. It was six o'clock on a December morning, and the sky was still black.

Christmas was only a few days off. David Day, who worked in the stable, anticipated neither a holiday nor a Christmas dinner. It was during the Civil War, and hither were brought the faithful, worn cavalry and artillery horses which were then taken into neighboring counties and exchanged for fresh farm horses.

A large consignment had come in the evening before, and David had helped to lead them to their places. He was dreaming of them as he lay on a pile of straw with a horse-blanket for his only covering.

Suddenly a rough voice called, "Dave! Dave!" and he started up from his straw bed. "It's time to start. Are you going to lie there all day?"

As he fastened his clothing, the loosening of which had been his only preparation for the night, David's lips quivered. The cold, his weariness of body, the glimpses he caught as he wandered about the town of other people's happiness—all were bad enough, but he could stand them if it were not for the dreadful loneliness of his heart.

"If there were only one person in the world who cared for me!" he thought. "One person to whom it made any difference whether I came or went. That is all I ask."

He found his fellow hostlers gathered together eating their rough breakfast by the dim light of lanterns. They were soldiers, detailed for this duty, and were dressed in faded blue uniforms. All were hard-working, harshly-spoken men older than David. They did not mean to be unkind; such treatment as they gave him was that to which they were accustomed.

This morning the rough commands, the oaths, the prospect of riding out into the rain and being in a few minutes drenched to the skin seemed to David more dreary than ever. He had a hope which usually sustained him, the hope of continuing his education and becoming a preacher and perhaps a missionary; but this morning his sky was dark. He mounted his horse and rode out the gate directing with his voice a hundred poor, dispirited, patient beasts, some of whom still bore the healed or only partially healed scars of battle-wounds.

By this time his misery was so keen that he said aloud, "If I only had someone to care for me!"

There was no answer, and he rode on.

* * * * *

Six years had passed and again the rain fell heavily. That which seemed miraculous had happened. David had gone to school; friends had been raised up for him, he had become a preacher and, still more wonderful, a missionary. He had gone, not to India as he had expected, but to Liberia on the west coast of Africa. Liberia is a republic, founded as a home for colored people who wished to return from the United States to their native land. On the seacoast there was civilization, but only a little way inland the darkness of heathendom grew dense. Here David's church had a mission, and here David and his wife had just arrived.

The rain was not a steady winter rain like that into which he had ridden with his horses; it was much heavier, and it was also more irregular. For a half-hour the downpour shut out everything in sight; then the sun shone brightly, and in a few minutes a thick mist rose from the steaming earth. A little while and the same process was repeated, and so on all day long.

David and his wife left the little steamer which ran part way to the mission and walked up the path preceded by the bearers who carried their luggage. They expected to find a comfortable house with food in the larder provided for them by their predecessor, who had had to return home on account of failing health.

They saw only the path before them; they did not see bright eyes peering from among the dark leaves, glittering, bright eyes which looked like a queer variety of fruit or blossom. The eyes watched them cross the overgrown clearing before the mission house and climb the steps. The porters set down their loads, received their pay, and turned back into the wall of mist, and the two young people stood alone. The black eyes could not see the faces of the newcomers and did not dream of the consternation expressed there. To them, the mission house, even in its present state, was a grand palace.

David and his wife walked into the hall and saw that the rain had come through the roof, through the ceiling, clear down to the first floor. The departure of the last missionary had to be made so hurriedly that there had been no time to protect anything from moisture or from destructive insects. The furniture looked unsafe, the walls were covered with mould, and there was naturally no food anywhere about.

But they had brought some food with them, and they sat down on rickety chairs before a rickety table to eat. The sun which had shone so brilliantly for a few minutes vanished; there was a noise like thunder on the roof, and darkness fell with the rain, though night was still far away. As they ate, their spirits rose.

"We are pioneers," said Mrs. Day.

"Not quite," said David. "Pioneers do not have even as much of a roof as this." Suddenly he laughed and went to the side of the room where their luggage was stacked. He opened an umbrella and held it over Mrs. Day's head upon which the rain had begun to drip. "Nor umbrellas!" said he.

Mrs. Day laughed, and her laugh made David for some strange reason sober.

"Why, your eyes are full of tears!" said she. "There isn't anything to cry about!"

David did not explain; he continued to eat with one hand while he held the umbrella with the other. His tears were not tears of sorrow, but tears of joy. Said he to himself:

"I used to say, 'If only I had someone to care for me!' and now I have."