Title: Under Many Flags
Author: Singmaster, Elsie, Cronk, Katharine Scherer
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Under Many Flags" ***


  [Illustration:

  _Courtesy of Ralph A. Felton_

  AT THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT, SYRIA

  The schools and colleges founded by missionaries believe in an
  all-round education which includes athletics.]



  UNDER MANY
  FLAGS

  BY
  KATHARINE SCHERER CRONK
  AND
  ELSIE SINGMASTER

  NEW YORK
  MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT
  OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA


  COPYRIGHT 1921 BY
  MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT OF THE
  UNITED STATES AND CANADA



CONTENTS


                                                  PAGE

  I    A BAKER BY NECESSITY                          1

         Cyrus Hamlin of Turkey: statesman
           and educator

  II   THE MAN WITH A MILLION BIBLES                16

         Hugh Tucker of Brazil: Christian
           social service leader and agent of
           the American Bible Society

  III  THE STORY OF POIT                            31

         Barbrooke Grubb of Paraguay: explorer
           and general missionary

  IV   TREE-NOT-SHAKEN-BY-THE-WIND                  48

         Fred Hope of West Africa: industrial
           expert

  V    WHEN MARY WAS AFRAID                         67

         Mary Slessor of Nigeria: teacher
           and the "White Queen of Okoyong"

  VI   THE BOY FOR WHOM NO ONE CARED                84

         David Day of Liberia: general missionary

  VII  UNDER TWO FLAGS                              99

         Jennie Crawford of China: nurse

  VIII SIXTY-SIX DAYS WITH BANDITS                 116

         Albert Shelton of the Tibetan Border:
           pioneer and physician



ILLUSTRATIONS


        PAGE

  Athletics at Beirut University        _Frontispiece_

  Robert College                                     7

  Hugh C. Tucker                                    19

  Playground in Rio de Janiero                      29

  Chaco Indian girls                                35

  Barbrooke Grubb and Indians                       43

  The village drum in Africa                        53

  Chair making in Africa                            59

  Fred Hope                                         65

  An African village                                73

  Dr. Day's mission and coffee industry             91

  Jennie Crawford at work                          109

  Travel in Tibet                                  117

  Dr. Shelton at work                              121

  Dr. Shelton and friends in Tibet                 131



FOREWORD


In olden days kings and emperors sent their armies to conquer weaker
nations. As soon as the victory was won, the flag of the vanquished was
torn down, and the flag of the victor was raised.

Two thousand years ago a new king sent his army into the world. It
was a small army with no guns and no battleships, and in it were only
twelve men. They were commanded to go first to the lands nearest to
them and then out "into all the world."

They were not to tear down any flags, but they were to raise the banner
of their Leader above all other flags. There was on it a new device, a
Cross, which signified that the king was a King of Love. His commands
were such as no other conqueror had ever given:

  TEACH ALL NATIONS
  HEAL THE SICK
  CLEANSE THE LEPER
  FEED THE HUNGRY
  CLOTHE THE NAKED
  PREACH THE GOSPEL

The enemies against whom His soldiers were to fight were not human
beings, however wicked and depraved they might be, but ignorance and
poverty and superstition and hunger, which made people wicked.

The army did not long number only twelve men; it soon grew to hundreds
and thousands. Of the soldiers some were shipwrecked, some were stoned,
some faced lions and tigers and poisonous serpents; but they all did
the King's work. They preached the gospel, not only from pulpits,
but in schools and hospitals and on the farm. They taught men how to
make better homes, and to raise more food; they healed the sick and
comforted the dying by telling them of Heaven. Under many flags they
fought, but by their lives and their teachings they lifted the flag of
their Leader above all.

It is of a few of these brave men and women that this book tells. The
authors hope that the boys and girls who read it will enlist in this
army.

                                                              K. S. C.
                                                              E. S.

  _March, 1921._



I

A BAKER BY NECESSITY


It was muster day in Maine, and little Cyrus Hamlin was about to start
from the farm on which he lived with his mother and brother to town
where he would see the regiment hold a sham battle. He had expected his
brother to go with him, but he was ill. As Cyrus started away alone,
his mother said:

"Here are seven cents to buy gingerbread with. Perhaps you will put a
cent in the missionary box as you go by Mrs. Farrar's house."

Cyrus thought he had a great deal of money. Seven cents in those days
were as much as fifty now, and they would buy a good deal for a small
boy. He could easily spare a little for the missionary box.

As he went along he tried to decide whether he should put one cent or
two into the box, and he wished his mother had said definitely either
one cent or two and had not given him a choice. Finally he decided on
two. Then a voice within him said,

"Well, Cyrus! Five cents for yourself and only two for the heathen!"

He decided that he would put in three cents. By this time he came to
Mrs. Farrar's house and there was the box. Was it right to keep three
cents for himself and give only four to the heathen? He stood staring
and thinking, thinking, thinking. At last he grew tired trying to
decide, and what do you suppose he did? Into the missionary box went
every penny!

All day long he trotted round watching the soldiers, listening to the
bands, and having a good time. But he didn't go near any refreshment
tables. Late in the afternoon he made for home and burst into the house
crying out:

"Mother! I'm as hungry as a bear! I haven't had a mouthful today."

His mother was astonished.

"Did you lose the money I gave you?"

"No," said Cyrus. "But you didn't give it to me right. It wouldn't
divide equally, so I dropped it all in."

"You poor boy!" said Mrs. Hamlin, half laughing, half crying. "Just a
minute and you shall have your supper!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Several years later Cyrus thought earnestly about another problem. He
and his brother had all they could do to keep the farm going. There
was no money to buy new farm implements, no money even to keep them
in order. Gradually they wore out, and after a while the yoke for
the oxen went to pieces. The making of an ox-yoke is a very difficult
matter for a grown man and almost impossible for two boys thirteen and
fifteen years old. But Cyrus and his brother examined the old yoke and
looked at each other and then back at the yoke.

"We can't buy one," said the brother.

"We'll make one!" said Cyrus.

They cut down a birch tree and set to work. They did not have the
proper tools, but they borrowed them—and you may be sure they returned
them in good shape,—and they put in all their spare time for days.
By and by the yoke was hewn out, and they scraped it with glass and
polished it with a dry stick. But alas, when they bored the holes for
the bows to fit into, they put them in the wrong place!

Did this discourage them? Only for a minute. They knit their brows,
they looked at each other and then at the ruined yoke, and they went
and cut down another tree. This time they succeeded in making a perfect
yoke, and when it was painted a bright red, they were the happiest boys
in Maine.

       *       *       *       *       *

Still another time Cyrus set his mind on an interesting problem. He
was now almost a man; he had determined to be a missionary, and he was
studying in the Academy six miles from home. Every other Saturday he
walked home around Bear Pond and across Hawk Mountain. He carried his
gun with him, and as he went along, he sometimes shot game to take to
his mother. Once he met a bear, but the bear got away.

The view from the top of the mountain was wonderful, and Cyrus had an
eye for beauty. One day as he turned from a look at the distant woods
and fields, his eye fell upon an object near at hand. At his feet the
precipice dropped suddenly a hundred feet and on the very edge hung a
large boulder.

He looked at this boulder with interest. One Fourth of July the young
men in the neighborhood had gathered to see whether they could push it
over, but had failed. Cyrus suddenly forgot everything but this rock.
Could anything in the world be more delightful than to shove the great
thing off and hear it go crashing down? It couldn't do any harm, and it
would be better than any Fourth of July celebration ever staged.

He not only stared at the rock, he examined it carefully, and then he
thought again. The boulder rested on gravel, and if that could be cut
out, down it would fly. He hurried home to tell his brother.

The next Saturday the two Hamlins and a friend met on the mountain and
dug away at the sandy bed on which the rock lay, but it did not move.
The next Saturday they came again. At supper time it seemed as though
they would have to give up all hope of finishing that day, and they
were dreadfully afraid that some one would come and complete the work
and get the credit.

"Let supper wait!" said they.

Again they set to work, and presently one of them shouted, "It's
moving!"

With a wild leap the boys got out of the way. The rock moved slowly at
first, then faster and faster and in the end it plunged down, striking
sheets of fire as it flew. Bang! it struck the granite cliff and burst
into three great fragments. Swish! it rushed down on its way to an open
field below.

Never were there three happier boys. They went home to supper in the
twilight, hearing the echo of the terrific crash and knowing that the
great boulder had had to yield to their strength and persistence.

       *       *       *       *       *

But the time came when Cyrus Hamlin faced problems a thousand times
more serious than making an ox-yoke or moving a boulder. He became a
missionary as he had intended and was sent to Constantinople. There he
taught Armenian boys in Bebek Seminary, and it became the dream of his
life to build a college.

"Education is the way to peace and enlightenment," he would say. "If
we could found Christian institutions where we could train young men
in all professions, then they could go out to set an example to their
fellow countrymen and be their leaders."

He never walked through the narrow streets or crossed the Golden Horn
without looking all round for a suitable location, and he had already
about twenty in mind. But his dream did not come true. In the first
place, there was no money. In the second place, he had to fill with
other work all the time he might have spent planning for a college. He
had to be textbook as well as teacher, and he had to make all his own
apparatus.

When he moved into a house, he had to repair it; when his poor Armenian
students and their families were without clothes, he had to find a way
to cover them. When they were refused work by the cruel Turks, he had
to find work for them. He taught them how to make and sell stoves and
stove-pipes and various useful articles.

One poor man became insane when he had no way of supporting himself
and his family and believed that he was turned to stone. Just as soon
as Dr. Hamlin gave him work, he was cured. Dr. Hamlin suggested to him
that it was best to make an article for which there was a demand.

  [Illustration:

  _Courtesy of Robert College_

  ROBERT COLLEGE, CONSTANTINOPLE

  This picture taken in Turkey in Asia looks across the Bosphorus, a mile
  wide at this point, to Turkey in Europe and the site chosen by Cyrus
  Hamlin for his college. The modern buildings "rub elbows" with towers
  six hundred years old.]

"If there are thirteen hundred thousand inhabitants in Constantinople,
there are thirteen hundred million rats," said he. "Make rat traps!
I'll show you how!"

Soon the man had to have assistants to sell his traps.

Still more Armenians came for help, and Dr. Hamlin had to stop dreaming
about his college and plan how he could feed them. An idea had occurred
to him vaguely; now it grew into a well-developed scheme. He would
teach them to make bread. Everybody needed bread, and in Constantinople
the bread was not good and all the work was done by horse-power. He
would bake by steam.

The fact that he had never made bread did not trouble him in the least.
He had never made an ox-yoke, or rolled a boulder down a mountain until
he tried.

His fellow-missionaries laughed at him, but they couldn't laugh him
out of his plans, and he ordered his machinery from America. The
difficulties were many, some were serious and some funny; but in
the end the engine and the boiler were set up and everything was in
order. The dough was mixed, the oven heated, the loaves were moulded;
but alas, the bread was sour and could not be eaten. Dr. Hamlin
experimented again and again until one morning he had delicious loaves
of bread to sell.

Now he smoothed out his forehead. The bakery was successful, the poor
Armenian Christians had work; again he could devote his time to his
teaching and could think of his college.

But he was mistaken. England and Russia went to war, and to Scutari
on the other side of the Bosphorus were brought the wounded English
soldiers. Dr. Hamlin looked across the water and thought of the
suffering boys and hated war. He did not think of any effect upon
himself. But he was to be seriously affected.

One day an orderly came to the door of the Seminary and asked him to
come to the hospital at the invitation of the chief physician, Dr.
Mapleton.

"And what does he want with me?" asked Dr. Hamlin. "I'm very busy."

"He wants to see you about bread."

"About bread!" repeated Dr. Hamlin, and obeyed, wondering.

In the hospital he found himself in the presence of a busy man, so
burdened by responsibilities that he hardly had time to look up.

"Are you Hamlin the baker?" he asked.

"I'm Hamlin the missionary."

Dr. Mapleton lifted his head. "That's just like everything in this
country," he said irritably. "I send for a baker and get a missionary!
Thank God, I'm not a heathen that I should want a missionary!"

Dr. Hamlin laughed. "But I'm the baker," he said.

"You, the baker!" repeated Dr. Mapleton.

Dr. Hamlin explained how he had been forced into the baking business.

"Then will you bake bread for our hospital? What we get is not fit to
eat. Our poor invalids won't touch it; they can't. We're in a tight
place."

Dr. Hamlin stood with knitted brows.

"You will, won't you?" said the physician, earnestly.

Dr. Hamlin uttered a fateful "yes." One couldn't refuse such a plea
as this! In a few minutes the contract was signed. He promised to
furnish two hundred and fifty loaves a day. But as he left the hospital
he looked around. Two hundred and fifty loaves a day! They would not
go far if all these beds were to be filled by patients. It looked as
though the whole British army were expected.

Alas, the beds were all needed. First fifty a day, then a hundred a
day, the soldiers were carried in from the hospital ships, sick, dying,
with dreadful wounds. Dr. Hamlin could neither teach his Armenians nor
dream about his college when he had six thousand, then twelve thousand
loaves of bread to make each day. He thought of nothing but baking.

The poor patients had almost no nursing, and his heart ached. He
offered to organize a corps of nurses for the night when there was no
one to take care of the helpless invalids, but he was refused by the
brutal officers.

Then one morning he went to the hospital and heard a strange piece of
news. A soldier told him, his eyes almost popping from his head in his
astonishment:

"Fancy, Mr. Hamlin! Some _women_ have come to this hospital. Did you
ever hear of such a dreadful and improper thing?"

"What women?" asked Dr. Hamlin.

"A Miss Florence Nightingale with a force of assistants."

"Good for her!" said Dr. Hamlin. "It's time that somebody should come
here and do something."

That morning he kept his eyes wider open than ever. The Hamlin family
were famous hero-worshipers; Cyrus's grandfather had named six of his
boys for heroes. They were Africanus, for Scipio Africanus, Hannibal,
Cyrus, Eleazer, Isaac, and Jacob, and the other three, one might
mention incidentally, were Americus, Asiaticus, and Europus. Here, Dr.
Hamlin saw, was a real live hero, in the bud at least.

He watched Florence Nightingale moving quietly about in the scene of
misery and horror. The poor lads spent no more lonely nights. Every
want was attended to. The death-rate went steadily down. It was one of
the great achievements of history, and he had a part in it; he baked
the only bread Florence Nightingale would let her sick boys have.

But still his dream had not come true, and in the confusion it seemed
to grow more and more dim. The war went on, bread had to be baked every
day, new ovens had to be built, thousands of pounds of flour had to be
bargained for.

Presently he had a new occupation—he set up a laundry. The clothes of
the wounded men were filthy, and he offered to have them washed. But
they were so filthy that the women feared to handle them, badly as they
needed work. The brain which had studied the making of an ox-yoke and
the pushing off of a boulder and the making of bread worked quickly.
Out of an empty cask Dr. Hamlin made a washing machine, and the
vermin-filled clothes did not have to be touched by hand until they
were clean—a new problem was solved! His friends had told him that he
had sixteen professions, and now he had another,—that of laundryman!

He did not suspect that all the time he was baking bread and washing
clothes there was coming nearer and nearer the fulfilment of his dream.
He had prayed and hoped that some day a rich man would come and see the
good that might be done by a Christian college. Now that good man was
at hand, Christopher Robert, an American merchant.

Mr. Robert was traveling in the East, and one day as he was crossing
the Bosphorus he saw a boat loaded with loaves of bread.

"What in the world does this mean?" he asked his friends. "That looks
like American bread. Who bakes it?"

"A missionary named Hamlin," was the answer.

"A missionary who bakes bread!" repeated Mr. Robert.

"He baked it first to give work to his Armenian Christians, and when
the hospital was opened he was persuaded to bake it for the patients.
It's the best and also the cheapest bread ever seen in this part of the
world."

"I should like to meet that man," said Mr. Robert.

"That will be an easy matter," said his friends.

But when Mr. Robert met Dr. Hamlin, he heard only a little about bread
and a great deal about another matter. Though no record of their
conversation has been kept, it must have been something like this:

"I'm very much interested in your bread-making, Dr. Hamlin."

"I had no idea what I was getting into," was Dr. Hamlin's probable
reply. "But it had to be done. What I'm chiefly interested in is the
founding of a Christian college here in Constantinople."

"It must have been a tremendous work to bake all this bread."

"It was, but oh, Mr. Robert, what wonderful work we could do if we
could have a college to train young men!"

"And your laundry enterprise, Dr. Hamlin, that must have been the
greatest blessing to the sick."

"It made them more comfortable. If we could have a Christian college
here, it would leaven the whole empire."

"How did you learn so many trades, Dr. Hamlin?"

"Oh, I picked them up. You see, Mr. Robert," Dr. Hamlin repeated his
favorite sentiment, "education is the way to peace and enlightenment.
If we could found a large Christian institution where we could train
young men in all professions, then they could go out to be the leaders
of their people."

It is likely that at this point Mr. Robert gave up trying to get
information about bread-making and laundering and said, with a twinkle
in his eye, "Well, tell me about your college!"

Dr. Hamlin took a long breath and began. How long he had waited! But
here, please God, was a hearer with a receptive heart and a large purse.

Mr. Robert listened earnestly and his heart was moved. What better use
could one have for one's money than to bring enlightenment to this
dark corner of the world? In a few minutes he was not only listening,
but helping Dr. Hamlin to plan, and within a few years Robert College
crowned the hill which Dr. Hamlin selected as the best site he had
considered.

Mr. Robert was a generous man and he would undoubtedly have put his
money to good use somewhere, but Robert College would not be shining
like a star in a dark sky if he had not seen Dr. Hamlin's boat-load of
bread crossing the Bosphorus on its way to Florence Nightingale's sick
boys.



II

THE MAN WITH A MILLION BIBLES


It was a hot summer day. The people of the city of Paracatu in Brazil
were standing or lounging in groups about the doors of their little
houses, which were built close together.

Children with scant clothing played about in the streets. Their bare,
brown feet were used to the hot pavements. Mothers sat squatted in the
doorways making lace. One woman was beating _mandioca_ for her family's
_almoco_, or lunch, while another woman fanned a fire of coals on a
little round, iron stove.

Suddenly the children ran back out of the street. The women looked up
and saw a procession of nine mules coming into the city. Many trains
of mules passed by their doors, but this one was different from the
others. The man who rode on the foremost mule had a very fair skin.
Riding behind him were three Brazilian men whose faces were dark like
the faces of the women who sat in the doorways and the children who
played in the streets. Five of the mules carried packs loaded with a
tent, some cooking pots and pans, and books. There were books not only
in the packs on the backs of the mules, but more books in the pockets
of the four men.

As the procession passed out of sight, the women looked curiously to
see where the men were going to stop, and wondered why they had come
and what books they carried.

Towards evening one of the women went about among her neighbors to tell
the news she had heard.

"The man who rode at the head of the mule train is Dr. Hugh Tucker. He
comes from North America. Tonight he is going to speak in the public
square. There are many people who say that it is the book which he has
that has made his country great and free."

In the evening a crowd came to the public square to hear Dr. Tucker.
They asked him many questions. Some who had money, or who could read,
bought Bibles so they could learn more for themselves of the things he
told them. He gave Bibles to those who had no money.

Dr. Tucker's business was to give the Bible to the people of Brazil.
For years that was what he had been doing. In the beautiful city of Rio
de Janeiro he had a great store to which people came by the hundreds to
buy Bibles and from which Bibles were sent by mail and by colporteurs
in all directions.

These colporteurs, or Bible men, went through the cities of Brazil
and far into the country. Sometimes they walked, sometimes they rode
on mules, and sometimes they traveled in ox-carts. Dr. Tucker himself
often rode with them, as he did on this trip when they stopped at
Paracatu. This journey through towns and open country lasted for six
weeks.

There were few houses along the rough and hilly roads. Now and then
long-legged ostriches ran across the path before the mules. Gaily
colored parrots perched on branches of the trees; monkeys chattered in
the vines beside the small streams; and here and there a fox or a tatou
ran past. Sometimes the prairie with its waving grass stretched before
them like an ocean. At night they pitched their tent beside small
streams where the grass grew fresh and green.

One Sunday morning as they rested in front of their tent, an ox-cart
stopped before them, and a man jumped out and asked for a cup of
coffee. As he drank the coffee, Dr. Tucker read to him from the Bible.

"Go on, go on," the man called to his driver. "I'll follow later. Never
in all my life have I heard such strange things as this book tells."

The next morning the colporteurs were up at three o'clock. The moon
lighted their way as they rode. They stopped at a house for breakfast,
and Dr. Tucker took out a Bible and read from it to their host.

  [Illustration: HUGH C. TUCKER

  Not only did he put the Bible into the pulpits and bookcases of Brazil,
  but its spirit of love and service found expression in the hearts of
  the people, in parks, schools, and playgrounds.]

"No, no, don't stop!" said the man, when Dr. Tucker started to help
load the mules. "Read more. Let the others load the animals while I
call my neighbors, that you may read to them, too, and tell them what
these things mean, for they are new and strange to us."

Every day they met people who asked, "Where are you going, and what is
this new book you carry with you?"

"How can these things be?" said one man. "Is it true that so long as
two thousand years ago such wonderful things happened and today I hear
of them for the first time and even yet my friends have not heard? You
are slow about giving the Bible to my people!"

Now Dr. Tucker had thought he was giving the Bible to the people of
Brazil just as fast as he could, but he redoubled his efforts. He sent
out still more colporteurs. They gathered the people in the public
squares of the cities and read and preached to them, and the people
listened gladly. Sometimes the colporteurs started out with sacks
filled with Bibles and came back with their sacks full of the images
the people had been worshiping and had cast away when they read, "I am
the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

Dr. Tucker has given more than a million Bibles to Brazil. He presented
a Bible to President Prudenti Moraes on his inauguration day. He has
found many ways of giving the spirit of the Bible in addition to
putting the book into the hands of the people. He does not wish anyone
to think that this is a magical book, and that it is enough merely to
have it.

When he took Bibles to the sick boatmen down in their poor little mud
huts by the river-side, he found they had no one to care for them
properly,—there are many thousands of sailors coming into the port of
Rio every year,—so Dr. Tucker became the "seamen's friend." He rented
a house and made it a Seamen's Home. In one year more than ten thousand
sailors came to his Home. Most of them were glad to pay for their meals
and beds, but he did not turn any away if they were ill or had no
money. There were free beds and free meals for those who needed help,
and doctors to care for those who were sick, and employment found for
those who were out of work.

While he was preaching in the slums of Rio he found many people who
were poor and sick, as there are in all great cities. He went to a
young Brazilian doctor and asked him to visit the homes of the poor
people in the slums.

The young doctor came back and said, "Why, Dr. Tucker, it is almost
enough to make anyone ill just to go into these homes and see how the
people live. There are so many dark rooms and so little sunlight, and
the houses are very dirty. In almost every home someone is sick." Dr.
Tucker remembered how the multitudes came to Jesus and were healed, and
so he thought one of the best ways to give more of the Bible to the
people was to help those who were sick.

He had stereopticon pictures made which showed how tuberculosis might
be prevented. Then he went to the United States Ambassador and to the
mayor of Rio and to the president of the Board of Health and to other
great men who could help him and told them he was going to give a
lecture and wanted them to come and sit on the platform. He sent cards
out all over the city telling how many people had tuberculosis and what
they should do to be cured and inviting people to his meeting.

Those who came were so much interested in the pictures, that the city
officials arranged for him to show them to the children in the public
schools. Then they had him talk to the people who gathered in the
public squares of the city. The government gave him money to fight
tuberculosis, and he started a hospital where sick people without money
could be treated and where they could hear and read about Jesus the
Great Physician.

Next he started a school for poor children. The children wanted to come
to school, and Dr. Tucker was very happy until he saw how strangely
they behaved.

"What can be the matter with them?" he asked. "They sit with their
hands folded. They don't want to study or even to play. Their eyes are
dull."

He asked the children questions and visited their homes to find out why
they did not want to study or to jump about and play.

"No wonder my school children sit with their hands folded," he said
when he came back. "They are half starved. Some of them have nothing
but a cup of coffee and a pickle to eat all day."

He remembered how Jesus had fed those who were hungry, so every day
he provided a lunch of whole wheat mush with milk and sugar. Soon the
hollow cheeks of the children began to get round and rosy, their eyes
began to shine, and they wanted to run and jump and play.

"I wish we could feed all the hungry children in Rio," said Dr. Tucker
one day. He knew he could never get them all in his little school, but
he thought of another plan—he started a cooking school to teach the
mothers to cook good meals at home. He told the gas company about his
plan, and they gave him the stoves he needed. The mothers came with
their children, and while the children learned reading and writing and
arithmetic, the mothers learned how to prepare food that was better for
children than coffee and pickles. Dr. Tucker had found another way to
give the Bible to Brazil.

One day he said, "The Bible tells us to clothe the naked, but how can
we ever get clothes enough for all of the poor people of Brazil!"

Presently he walked into the office of a sewing machine company and
told the manager about his plan to clothe the naked.

"That would be fine!" the manager said. "Of course the only way to
clothe all the poor people is to teach them how to make their own
clothes."

He sent sewing machines to Dr. Tucker's school, and soon the mothers
were learning to sew. Dr. Tucker had found still another way to give
the Bible to Brazil.

Now his school children were well and happy. Their cheeks were round
and rosy, for they had a lunch at school and their mothers gave them
good food at home. Their clothes were neat and clean, their eyes were
bright and shining, and they were ready to study and play. But where
should they play? There was no trouble about a place to study. They
could study at school or at home, but when they wanted to play there
was no place at all. Rio is one of the most beautiful cities in the
world, and many of the people are very wealthy and live in beautiful
homes, but Dr. Tucker's poor little children in the slums lived in
houses that were built close together right on the street.

There was a very beautiful park, with lovely green grass, but the
superintendent of parks was very proud of his green grass and had
a fence of iron rails around it with a sign, "Keep off the grass"
wherever a child could get in.

Every time Dr. Tucker saw that park, his eyes looked like the eyes
of his school children when they were hungry. But one day as he went
through the park, his eyes began to twinkle. He clapped his hands and
said to himself, "I'll do it!" At once he walked up boldly to the mayor
of Rio and the superintendent of parks.

"The children have no place to play," he said. "Why don't you open up a
part of the city park for a public playground?"

The mayor and the superintendent of parks were so shocked they could
scarcely say a word. They were so proud of their beautiful park, they
had never let people even walk on the grass; and now this bold man
actually dared to propose that they should put swings and teeter
boards and tennis courts right where the grass was most beautiful!

But they could not forget what he said about happy children being worth
more than beautiful grass, and one day they drove to Dr. Tucker's door
in a fine automobile and invited him to ride with them. They did not
ask him where he wanted to go, but drove straight to the park.

"We have decided to do what you ask and let you make your playground on
one condition," announced the mayor.

"Good!" said Dr. Tucker, "What's the condition?"

"That you get all the equipment for a first-class playground," answered
the superintendent of parks.

Dr. Tucker was thinking very fast. "Equipment for a first-class
playground" meant swings and bars and teeter boards and tennis nets
and footballs and ever so many other things boys and girls love in a
playground. With the same twinkle that was in his eyes when he looked
at the park and said, "I'll do it," he said now, "All right, I'll take
you up."

He did not have a single cent in his pocket to buy all these things and
he did not know where he was going to get so much money, but he said to
himself:

"I'll look around a bit and see what I can see."

The first thing he saw was some men tearing up an old street-car track.
He went to the manager of the street-car company. "What are you going
to do with those old rails?" he asked. "May I have them?"

"Yes, I guess so," answered the manager.

Dr. Tucker said "Thank you" very politely and then added, "I'll have to
have them shaped a little differently and a few holes bored in them.
Would you mind doing this in your shop?"

The manager said he would do that, too. When Dr. Tucker said "Thank
you" very politely again and turned to go, the manager asked: "What in
the world do you want those old rails for?"

"For swing supports and all sorts of equipment for the playground."

He told the manager about his ride with the mayor and the
superintendent of parks and all about the things he was going to make
for the playground and athletic fields out of those lovely old rails.

"Nonsense, man!" said the manager. "Those old rails aren't good enough.
Why you ought to have the best stuff money can buy for Brazil's first
public playground."

"Of course we ought," said Dr. Tucker, "but since we don't have the
money to buy them with, I propose to see what we can make."

"What would you buy if you did have the money?" asked the manager.
"Think it over and let me know."

Dr. Tucker went home and got a catalog of a New York store. A few days
later he went into the manager's office with the catalog in his hand.
The manager was so busy he scarcely had time to look up.

"Are you too busy to look at the things we need for the playground?"
asked Dr. Tucker.

"Yes, I am," replied the manager. "You just take that catalog and mark
what you need, and when I go to New York perhaps I can get it for you."

Dr. Tucker's eyes twinkled twice that time. He felt as if his fairy
godmother had shown him a wonderful palace and told him to help
himself. He sat down and marked in that catalog the things he knew the
boys and girls of Rio would have marked if they had held his pencil.

The manager took the catalog to New York with him and bought every
single article that had a mark before it. He paid for them with
dollars—seven hundred and forty of them—out of his own pocket.

  [Illustration:

  _Courtesy World's Sunday School Association_

  A PLAYGROUND IN RIO DE JANEIRO

  On the grounds of an old private park the children of the city now
  swing and slide and bat and jump.]

When the swings and bars and outfits came and were set up in the park,
the opening day was announced. The people came in crowds from all over
the city. The band played, and the flag of Brazil was raised. The mayor
made a speech, and the children cheered, and then they scampered off to
swing and slide and bat and jump; and the first public playground of
Brazil was open.

That evening Dr. Tucker walked down the street. He thought of his
million Bibles, and he thought of his school and his playground which
put the love of God into visible form.

"The Bible is coming into Brazil," he said to himself. "Not only into
the pulpits and into bookcases, but its spirit of love and service is
coming into the parks and schools and the streets and, best of all,
into the hearts of the people." And his own heart was glad.



III

THE STORY OF POIT


In the interior of South America, with the rivers Parana and Paraguay
to the east, with Argentine to the south, and Bolivia to the west,
there is a vast, low country called the Gran Chaco, about as large
as the state of Texas and inhabited by Indians. The country is flat
and there are grass-lands, swamps, and forests of palm trees. There
are many different animals with which the children of the North are
not familiar but of which they may have seen pictures, among them the
tapir, the marsh deer, the otter, the peccary, and the armadillo. There
are some savage animals such as the jaguar, the puma, and a very large
wolf with a long mane.

There are also some of the queerest animals in the world, especially
the ant-eater, a bow-legged creature seven feet long from the tip of
his snout to the tip of his hairy tail. There is a queer little opossum
about the size of a mouse, with enormous black eyes, fan-like ears,
and a long tail, which runs about in the trees like a squirrel. Most
interesting of all is the lungfish which can live either in the water
or in the air. In the wet season he stays in the swamps and eats
and eats, and when the dry season comes and the swamps disappear, he
burrows in the ground and lives without eating anything, by using up
the fat he has stored.

There are many birds both large and small, from great ostriches
down to tiny hummingbirds, and there are insects of all kinds, ants
and crickets and mosquitoes and beetles and locusts, and there are
twenty-four different kinds of frogs, each with a different croak.

For many weeks no rain falls, and the Indians have a hard time to get
along; then when the rain comes they have more than they need to eat,
water-birds, fish, and, by-and-by, their harvests. They do not mind
having to tramp round in deep water, because wet weather brings plenty.

Among the Indians in this strange country was a young man named Poit.
One morning in December Poit awoke with a frightened, anxious heart.
It was not because he was too warm, though in December in Chaco the
mornings are hot, nor because he had not slept comfortably on his bed
on the ground nor because he was hungry; it was because he plotted a
wicked deed. Today Poit planned to do the most dreadful thing anyone
can do, he was going to kill his best friend, the missionary.

Though these Indians lived so uncomfortably, they did not want to
change their ways, and they killed everybody who came to explore their
country or to search for silver or to tell them of the love of God.
Even soldiers sent to conquer them by force failed because they were so
fierce and cunning.

The chief reason for their resistance and their cruelty was not
wickedness, but ignorance and dreadful fear. They were afraid of
spirits and afraid of witches and wizards. They were so afraid that
the souls of the dead might come and annoy them that whenever anyone
died they destroyed the village and went to another place to live.
This wasn't very difficult because their houses were made of boughs
stuck into the ground. They were especially afraid of people unlike
themselves, and this was the reason they killed foreigners.

In spite of their objections, a little mission had been established
among them. It was situated on the banks of the Paraguay River and its
influence did not extend very far inland, but it was a beginning. The
first missionary died as a result of his hard work, and there arrived
one day a new missionary, a tall, slender young man, hardly more than a
boy in years, whose name was Barbrooke Grubb.

Mr. Grubb was not satisfied to stay along the river where he could see
only a few of the Indians, he determined to travel to the interior
villages. He knew perfectly well that the undertaking was dangerous.
He had heard of the explorers and the missionaries whom the Indians
had murdered; he knew that a poor white man who had strayed from his
companions and had taken refuge with them had been slain; he knew that
if sickness broke out while he was staying in a village, he would be
held responsible and be killed. He knew that if an Indian had a bad
dream about him, he might kill him.

Nevertheless, he not only visited the interior of the country, but he
lived with the Indians for months at a time, staying in their villages,
eating their strange food, hunting and fishing with them, so that he
might learn all about their ways and help them. He went unarmed and
unprotected, saying that he was a messenger of peace.

He had many thrilling experiences, and some that were very funny. Of
course he did not know the language well at first and he mistook the
word "evil" for the word "good," and assured the people that he was a
friend of the "evil spirit."

  [Illustration:

  _Courtesy of Samuel Guy Inman_

  GIRLS OF THE CHACO MISSION SCHOOL

  They are not having a picnic, but have just eaten their noonday meal,
  and the kettle of maize is nearly empty.]

He had many amusing encounters with the witch-doctors. You would not
think from the picture of a Chaco witch-doctor that they could frighten
anybody, but these natives lived in deadly fear of them. Mr. Grubb
proved how foolish it was to have faith in them. When a witch-doctor
claimed to have a charm against bullets, Mr. Grubb said:

"All right; you stand over there and I'll shoot at you, and you won't
mind a bit."

The witch-doctor wouldn't hear of this trial, and the Indians laughed
at him.

Once Mr. Grubb heard that a witch-doctor was taking needles out of his
patients' bodies, and he proved that the witch-doctor bought all the
needles from him and that the cure was a pretense.

Some of the Indians were very smart. There was one called Pinse-apawa,
who came into Mr. Grubb's tent one day just as Mr. Grubb was taking
some medicine. This medicine had an alcoholic smell though it had a
dreadfully bitter taste, so bitter that you could hardly swallow it.
Pinse-apawa smelled the odor of liquor.

"Ah!" he said. "You won't let us drink liquor, but when you are here
alone you take it yourself!"

"Have some," invited Mr. Grubb.

Poor Pinse-apawa took a big swallow and after that he knew the
difference between liquor and medicine.

       *       *       *       *       *

Now Poit, who opened his eyes on a warm December morning intending to
murder Mr. Grubb was not a witch-doctor; he was a clever, intelligent
Indian, and when he was good, he was a great help. We do not like to
call him a bad Indian, even though he was to do such a dreadful deed.
Though he had had every chance under Mr. Grubb's teaching to learn to
be good, he had not met him until he was a grown man, and then it is
very hard to change your heart.

By this time Mr. Grubb had been in the Chaco for seven years, and the
work he had done was truly wonderful. At the mission station there was
a settlement where the people lived in permanent houses instead of
wandering from place to place. Strangers could go about unarmed and in
safety. The Indians had been taught to work, not only at odd moments,
but steadily. They had been taught to take care of sheep and cattle and
to raise vegetables.

They had learned to distrust the witch-doctors and to take precautions
against contagion. They had learned to respect the law and to live at
peace with their neighbors. They had built several hundred miles of
cart tracks. They had axes, knives, hoes, scissors, and many other
possessions which Mr. Grubb had had shipped from England to help them
to live more comfortably and to earn their living more easily. Some
could even read and write.

They had learned still more important lessons. Mr. Grubb had taught
them that it was unspeakably wicked to kill the poor little babies as
they had been doing, and equally wrong to bury alive sick people whom
they thought would soon die. He had taught them also that it was wrong
to drink liquor because it made them frantic and wicked. Though they
did not always do what was right, hundreds of them knew what was right,
and had begun to try to be good.

They knew also—and this was most important of all—about God and
Jesus, and, though none had openly become Christians, the seed of
Christianity had been planted in their hearts.

Now Poit had a special chance to learn what was right because he was
constantly in the company of Mr. Grubb who had brought about this
wonderful transformation. He was very bright and Mr. Grubb depended
upon him, and he seemed very faithful and Mr. Grubb trusted him. He
could hunt and set traps, and steal quietly up to the ostriches and
capture them, and find his way through the woods, and make bows and
arrows, and do other useful things.

When Mr. Grubb had been in the Chaco for seven years he went home to
England for a vacation, the first vacation he had had. Other young men
had come to help him, and the mission was so well established that it
would not suffer in his absence.

Before he went away, he planned carefully for his return. He intended
then to visit a distant tribe called the Toothli, to which Poit
belonged, and he had already built a bullock road in that direction.
He sent Poit to a distant settlement with seventeen head of cattle
and other goods and told him that he was to settle down there and
make friends with the people. He was not to sell the cattle to people
who would use them for food, but only to those who would raise other
cattle, because Mr. Grubb was very anxious for the natives to learn to
care for stock.

Poit was to tell the Toothli that the missionaries would come and live
with them if they would do certain things. They must give up making
beer, and they must not hold feasts which lasted more than three days.
They must work when they were called upon for the good of the whole
settlement, and they must help to build the cart track and keep it
clear. They must live at peace with their neighbors, and above all they
must cease at once the killing of little children.

Poit had done so well, that this important work was entrusted to him
and off he went with his cattle and his goods. He was very proud and
at first he obeyed Mr. Grubb's directions. But alas, his pride in Mr.
Grubb's confidence and his feeling of responsibility did not continue.
He forgot what he had learned; he convinced himself that Mr. Grubb was
gone for good; and he took possession of the property which Mr. Grubb
had given him. He began to sell the cattle to people who used them for
food, and he took the money for himself.

When Mr. Grubb came back, Poit was terrified. He had not believed Mr.
Grubb's promise nor had he understood in the least how devoted Mr.
Grubb was to his work. Now the money had to be paid over, and he had to
give an account of the cattle, and he had spent a part of the money,
and the cattle had been eaten. In order to cover his crime, he stole
money from the missionaries. He was so clever that they did not at
first suspect that he was the thief. But he could not bring the cattle
back to life and soon he realized that discovery was at hand; Mr. Grubb
would learn that he had not been faithful.

Mr. Grubb prepared at once to fulfil his promise to visit the Toothli
people, and so little did he suspect Poit of wrong-doing that he made
him the leader of the six Indians whom he took with him.

It was so hot that the party traveled by night to avoid the sun. They
had a pretty comfortable track to walk on, but on both sides were
thickets of trees and vines in which the twenty-four kinds of frogs
croaked in twenty-four different notes, and everywhere were mosquitoes
which flew out hungrily when they heard human beings approaching.

Suddenly Mr. Grubb looked round and saw that, of all his company, only
Poit was in sight. He sent him back at once to find out why the others
lingered. In a little while Poit reappeared and reported that one of
the bearers had a thorn in his foot, and his companions were extracting
it. They would all be along, he said, in a few minutes.

But the few minutes passed and the Indians did not come. Poit had
wickedly told them that Mr. Grubb did not need them and that they might
return toward the mission. He had dreamed that when his disobedience
was found out, Mr. Grubb had killed him, and he had decided in terror
that he must kill Mr. Grubb as soon as possible. He meant to go on for
a few days until they had reached the Toothli country and then he would
do the deed. He believed that the people of his tribe would help him to
hide his crime.

Mr. Grubb noticed that Poit seemed downcast, but he did not dream what
he had in his heart. The two went on alone, and still the other Indians
did not overtake them. Poit suggested that perhaps they had gone home
because they did not approve of the journey. Still Mr. Grubb did not
suspect his evil intention, and they traveled on, arriving presently at
the village which was Poit's home.

Here Mr. Grubb inquired about the cattle, but everybody was in league
with Poit and helped him conceal his theft, and still Mr. Grubb was
deceived. The people said that the cattle had merely strayed away, and
he gave orders that they be collected before his return.

For two days he and Poit journeyed toward the distant settlements,
and at last Poit decided that he could postpone the murder no longer.
His heart was depressed when he woke, because in his sleep he had
understood more clearly than when he was awake what a fearful thing it
was to kill a man who had shown such love for those who would gladly
have been his enemies.

As he moved about, his courage revived; he ceased to be downcast and
became cheerful. So cold-blooded was he that he sat beside Mr. Grubb
on the ground while he sharpened the long iron arrow with which he
intended to kill him.

  [Illustration: BARBROOKE GRUBB

  Unarmed and unprotected, he was a messenger of peace to the Indians of
  Paraguay.]

They were now traveling by day, and they set out at about half-past six
for their last journey together. The sun was already high and so hot
that it had dried the heavy dew. They had gone but a short distance
when Mr. Grubb saw that he had been led into a thicket. He observed a
strange look on Poit's face, and did not realize that he had caught
Poit's eye at the moment when he was trying to get into a position from
which he could shoot him.

A moment later he bent over, trying to break a path through the
undergrowth, and in that instant Poit lifted his bow and arrow. A
stinging blow under his shoulder blade, and Mr. Grubb understood in a
flash that this was not his friend but his enemy, and that he had been
shot, perhaps fatally.

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.

  [Illustration:

  © _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."

  [Illustration:

  _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.

  [Illustration: FRED HOPE

  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.

  [Illustration: A WEST COAST AFRICAN VILLAGE

  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."

But his heart was not at rest. When the supper was finished, he walked
to the door and looked out. Again the thunder of the rain had ceased,
the sun was shining brightly, and mist was rising from the earth. He
could see with his mind's eye the thick jungle extending hundreds of
miles away and growing darker and darker. It was not the thought of the
jungle which troubled him, but of the inhabitants whose hearts were
darker than their skins, darker than the shadows of night which would
soon settle down. He had now a new question to trouble his peace.

"What can one man do?" he said to himself.

       *       *       *       *       *

Ten more years passed, and this morning the sun shone clear and
unclouded. The rains were over, and fine weather was certain for weeks
to come. David remembered as he rose that the eleventh anniversary of
his coming to Africa had passed unnoticed. He had an important matter
on his mind and he dressed quickly and came and stood at the doorway of
the mission house, waiting a little impatiently for his breakfast.

The mission house had changed in appearance; the roof was sound and the
floor safe to walk upon and there was comfortable furniture everywhere.
Even more changed was the aspect of everything without. It seemed as
though on all sides the jungle had been pushed back and the sunlight
had been let in. Before the mission house was a garden; near by stood a
chapel; here were dormitories; there were workshops. Surrounding the
mission grounds were plantations of coffee trees.

Not only were there pleasant things to look at, but there were pleasant
things to hear, the sound of children singing, the cheerful jingling of
the breakfast dishes, and, above all, the soft pleasant splash of the
waterfall in the river.

There were even funny sounds. A pet monkey sat on the porch railing and
chattered at David—whom, by the way, we should now call Mr. Day. The
poor monkey had yesterday learned a lesson which all naughty creatures
must learn, to keep his hands away from that which did not belong to
him. His aim in life was mischief; he liked to steal, to tear down
pictures from the wall, to open ink bottles and smear ink over nice
clean paper, or, better still, over paper which had been laboriously
covered with reports.

But yesterday, in hunting for ink, he had opened a bottle of strong
ammonia. For a moment he had been paralyzed by the fumes, then he
coughed and sputtered and scolded and screamed and ran to the top of
one of the tall palm trees in front of the house. He would never open
any more bottles! He seemed to be saying so as he chattered.

  [Illustration:

  _Courtesy Women's Missionary Society, United Lutheran Church_

  OLD MISSION CHAPEL BUILT BY DR. DAY, AND HIS COFFEE INDUSTRY

  Dr. Day believed that not only must men be taught about Jesus, but they
  must be given work to keep them busy and create self-respect.]

After breakfast a bell rang, and Mr. Day hurried to the chapel. It was
time for prayers, and then he would get at his important task. He had,
besides a loving heart, a good head, and he believed that it was not
enough to teach men about Jesus and to persuade them to have faith in
Him. One must also give them work to do so that their minds and hands
might be occupied and they might be self-respecting and busy. Then the
tempter would not be able to win them back to sin.

Each boy and girl and each man and woman in the mission had a task. In
the first place they went to school, and hundreds had learned to read
the Bible, some so well that they could teach others. They did the work
in the mission house and on the coffee plantations, they toted the
baggage, and they farmed for themselves.

Mr. Day not only believed that they should work, but he believed that
they should have good tools and labor-saving devices just as the white
people had, and this morning a long-looked-for steam engine was to be
set in place. There was no use to try to have any other work done, or
even to keep school. Mr. Day was excited, but he was the least excited
of all the people for miles around.

He conducted chapel soberly, and then he went down to the river,
followed by a great crowd. There were little girls in neat gingham
dresses and little boys in white cotton trousers and shirts and older
folks who were also clean and neatly dressed. Behind them came another
throng who lived near by, but who did not belong to the mission. At
their head was a chief who had fixed himself up for the occasion by
borrowing all the clothing his friends owned. He wore shoes which were
too tight, and consequently he took mincing, awkward steps. The rest of
his wardrobe consisted of three heavy coats, the lower one very long,
the upper one cut off so as to show the tails of the other two, and a
high paper collar.

Like all the rest, he was afraid of the large object which lay at the
landing. Not much of it was to be seen through the crate which covered
it, but he could tell that it was black and dangerous looking. He
muttered as he went along.

"We no made for do dis ting. 'Merican man got dat sense. Country man
too fool; no sava (know) dem ting called steam. Sava cook, sava eat,
sava rice; but dis ting pass him."

As they approached the river's edge, the men of the mission pressed
forward to the side of Mr. Day, whom they called Daddy. They were very
proud of their importance, but they were half afraid. Daddy was already
fastening the ropes to the boat in which the engine rested.

"Now, boys, pull her up!" he called.

There was giggling and laughing as a hundred hands laid hold on the
ropes. There was also a great deal of boasting, such as boys do in our
country.

"Me strong man!"

"Me pull powerful!"

"Dis ting nosing! Me pull whole house."

"Me pull whole tree down!"

"Ready, all together!" called Daddy.

In a few minutes the boat was high up on the sand beside a strong
tripod of poles and the mission wagon which had been placed there. With
still louder shouts the heavy box was swung into the wagon. There was
laughter and more boasting.

"Me pull strongest of all!"

But now came the tug-of-war. The wagon sank deep into the soft soil and
when it would not move, each black man let go the rope and began to
shout reproaches at his mate.

"You no work!"

"You weak man!"

"You little baby!"

Daddy was for a moment in despair. Then his ever-ready smile returned,
and he said to a bystander, "Get a drum."

The drummer began to beat, the crowd began to sing, the boys and
girls began to dance, and the wagon moved. The rope was so long that
the women and children could take hold. In a little while the engine
had come to the end of its long journey from York, Pennsylvania, to
Muhlenberg Mission, Africa.

But it was not yet set up, and Mr. Day was puzzled. He stood earnestly
reading the directions, and then he began to give orders. He was so
pressed upon by the crowd that he had to shout to them to stand back.

A smart mission boy read the number on the engine.

"Him say, 'No two four one seven.' That him name."

They were all so busy with their own thoughts that they did not see
that the last section of the engine was in place and that Daddy had
filled the boiler with water.

Suddenly a black boy began to yell.

"Daddy burn him engine up! Daddy burn him engine up!"

Daddy smiled again and piled under the boiler the splintered wood from
the crate. The fire grew hotter and hotter, the people forgot their
fear and pressed closer and closer.

Daddy was elated; for years he had prayed for this engine, and for
months he had known that it was coming and had wondered whether he
would be able to set it up and run it. Now here it was, put together,
and with the steam pressure mounting higher and higher. He could not
express his joy, but he had something at hand which could. He supposed
that this fine engine had a fine whistle and he opened the valve and
set it off.

Such a sound had never been heard in that part of the world. It was
shriller than the monkey's chatter; it was more penetrating than the
roll of the war-drums. Men, women, children—everybody—ran for the
woods. Even the goats and the chickens fled. Daddy laughed and laughed,
and presently they began to venture back.

"How he live for (does he) holler?" asked one.

"He shoot off wif he mouf!"

"Daddy say he have biler. Where de biler?"

"Yonder de biler!" And half a dozen fingers pointed to the smoke-stack.

Daddy let the fire go down and went back to the mission porch. It was
almost noon, and the hot sun commanded all men with white skins to
get under cover. He sat down to tell his friends in America that the
engine was in place, and, as he wrote, he remembered his arrival at the
mission, its desolation, the sinking of his heart. His pen dropped from
his fingers.

One man had, after all, done a great deal.

Mr. Day had, after awhile, a new title, given to him by a college at
home. First he had been Dave, then David, then he had been the Reverend
Mr. Day, then "Daddy," and now he was "the Reverend Doctor Day."
Probably he liked "Daddy" best of all.

He had ceased entirely as he grew older to think about other people
caring for him; what he wished for was to care for other people. He had
had many to love, the dear wife who worked with him, and two babies
whom they could only keep for a little while. Then there was Leila, a
little daughter who was brought up in America. When she was nine years
old she went to Africa, but lived only a short time.

He had also hundreds, even thousands, of black boys and girls and men
and women, those who came to the mission as children and married there
and bought themselves little farms near by, and those who came and
stayed only a little while and then went back to the jungle. Of these,
some forgot all they had learned, except one thing, that here was a man
who had come from so far away that they could not measure the distance,
simply to do them good.

For twenty-three years Dr. Day worked on, almost without rest. Mrs. Day
came home to America, worn-out, but with high courage to the end of her
life. She would not let anyone say that she would not get well and
that she could not go back and work with Dr. Day.

"In Africa everything depends on how brave you are. I expect to go
back."

Dr. Day saw many of the missionaries who came to help him fall by his
side; he saw his first native helpers grow old and die, but he was as
brave as Mrs. Day.

"This is my work," he would say. "I need no rest. This is my place."

In 1896 he came home. It was December, and more than thirty years had
passed since that December day when he had started out in the bleak
morning leading his poor horses. He traveled on a fast steamer, but it
was clearly to be seen that before he reached the dock he would have
started on another journey. The friends who came to meet him found only
his tired body.

But all over the country hearts ached and ached, from Maine to
California and from Canada to Florida, and out in Africa there was
mourning. It was hard to realize that this was the boy who, when he was
young, had wished so desperately for "just one person to care for him."
Now thousands cared for him. The explanation is very simple, so simple
that any child can understand and can imitate him. It is this—he cared
for others.



VII

UNDER TWO FLAGS


It was New Year's Eve in China, even though the calendar on Jennie
Crawford's desk in the hospital in the city of Hanyang said,
"January 31, 1911." Three years ago, she had left her home in Lynn,
Massachusetts, to go to Hanyang because there were more nurses in the
state of Massachusetts than in all the great Chinese Empire.

"If I should live in China fifty years," she said to herself as she
looked at her calendar, "I'd never get used to February first or any
other day than the first day of January being New Year's Day. It seems
so strange to have a different day every year and none of them January
first."

She walked to the window and looked out. The night was stormy. Loud
peals of thunder startled the people who hurried along the streets, and
occasional flashes of lightning illuminated the crowds gathered there.

"It's not a good sign for the New Year," said one old Chinese to
another. "When it thunders on New Year's Eve there will be a bad year!"

"We must make sure tonight that the evil spirits are all frightened
away," answered his friend. "We must take no chances on any being left
to get into the New Year."

The two men joined the crowd who were beating gongs and setting off
firecrackers. Here and there Buddhist priests went up and down, urging
the people to make just as much noise as possible.

Inside the houses mothers were trying to rouse their sleepy children
because, unless the whole family kept awake and very watchful, the
evil spirits would get into the houses and stay all the year. When
the sleepy children could no longer hold their tired eyes open, their
mothers hurriedly fed them a vegetable with a bad odor so that the
spirits might be frightened away.

New Year's Day was clear and beautiful, and all China had holiday.
The shops were closed, and the houses were decorated with strips of
red paper inscribed with Chinese characters which meant "happiness,"
"long life," and other blessings. On most of the doors were pasted new
pictures of idols. These were the "door gods" who were expected to
frighten the evil spirits away.

It was a busy morning for Jennie Crawford. As in most hospitals, there
seemed to be more work than there were people to do it. She assisted
with two operations, she made a visit to every bed, sometimes saying
only a word of encouragement, but oftener lending a hand in a delicate
dressing or superintending the bathing of a very ill patient. She
was an expert nurse, and the poor women and children looked at her
affectionately, knowing that when her tender hands were compelled to
hurt them, it was because she loved them.

As Miss Crawford looked down the street, she could tell the houses of
Christians because on them were no hideous pictures, but, instead,
beautiful verses from the Bible giving God's promise to care for those
who trust in Him.

Everyone goes calling on New Year's Day in China, and many callers came
to bring good wishes to Miss Crawford. Little Mrs. Tsao, the wife of
the Chinese Christian pastor, came early. Her hair was brushed until it
shone like folds of black satin.

"Oh, that the light of God may this year shine upon China just as the
sun shines today!" she said.

Next came Miss Crawford's Chinese teacher, who was so dressed up for
the New Year that she scarcely knew him. He did not lift his hat as
he came in, for that would have been most impolite. From the long,
full sleeve of his coat, he took a package wrapped in a yellow silk
handkerchief. He unwrapped the package and handed one of his large,
red paper calling cards to Miss Crawford.

A procession of fifteen men from the Christian Church came together.
Their hair was plaited in long queues which hung down their backs. The
queues were tied with long black silk tassels which almost touched
the floor. All wore their longest and handsomest gowns. The bright
red buttons on top of their black satin caps meant that they brought
congratulations, for red is the color of happiness in China. Each man
bowed very low and shook his own hand instead of Miss Crawford's to
wish her a happy New Year.

All day long the callers came and drank tea and ate Chinese sweets. In
the evening Miss Crawford and her friend Jennie Cody, a teacher in the
Bible School, sat down together.

"The people in Hanyang are learning to trust us and to really love
us," said Jennie Crawford, happily. "Better still, they are learning
to trust and love God. Did you notice how many of the doors had Bible
verses over them today instead of those hideous gods? I'm glad every
day that I came to China."

"Would you still be glad if we had such fighting and riots here as they
had across the river in Hankow last week?" asked Jennie Cody.

Jennie Crawford laughed. "I've never had a chance to find out what I
would do in a battle," she said. "I'll tell you about that later."

"Things look as if you might have a chance to find out very soon," said
Jennie Cody.

Presently a native Bible teacher came in and sat down with them.

"We were talking about the rumors of war," said Miss Crawford. "Do you
think there will really be a revolution?"

"There must be a revolution," she answered. "You Americans would never
have had freedom to govern your own country if you had not had your
revolution. It is even worse in China. Three hundred years ago the
Manchus came from the north and took the government away from the
Chinese, put a Manchu emperor on the throne, and made the yellow flag
with its dragon the flag of China. They compelled the men of China to
plait their hair in queues, and whenever a Chinese man dared to cut off
his queue, the soldiers of the emperor cut off his head. The Chinese
want to be free to rule their own land as you do in America."

"I wish that China was a republic like the United States, but I'm
afraid I'd make a poor soldier in a revolution," said Jennie Cody.

       *       *       *       *       *

In October came rumors of riots and warfare. One evening as Jennie
Crawford sat writing in her room in the school building, she heard a
loud knocking at the door and a voice calling. There stood Jennie Cody
holding up a letter. She had sped across the drill ground of the school
and along the dark city wall to the hospital.

"A letter has come from the father of a pupil," she gasped. "He is a
Chinese official and he says that there are rumors that a rebellion
will start tomorrow."

"We have heard many rumors of war," said Jennie Crawford. "This is only
another."

The next day passed and the next and the next and still all was quiet.
That night she slept without fear.

Early the following morning a Bible woman came to her. "I've been
up all night," she said. "The people are fleeing to the country by
hundreds, carrying on their backs bundles of bedding and clothing.
All night there has been a procession leaving the city. They say that
the revolution is beginning and that the hardest fighting will be
in Hanyang because the guns and powder are stored here in the great
arsenal, and both armies will try to capture that."

Before noon another letter came. Jennie Crawford read it quickly.

"The American consul says, 'All American women and children must leave
Hanyang for a place of safety at once. Fighting has begun near by!'"

Dr. Huntley, the physician in charge of the hospital, called a meeting
of all missionaries.

"We don't want to go," said Jennie Crawford. "The school is full of
girls, and the hospital is full of patients. We don't want to leave
them."

It was agreed that the women and children in the hospital and the girls
in the school would be safer at their homes. Jennie Crawford and the
teachers found escorts for pupils and patients, while Dr. Huntley went
across the river to Hankow to consult the British consul.

"The missionaries in Wuchang thought they would not have to leave,"
said the consul. "Now the gates of the city have been closed. The
American consul has been trying to get them out, but he cannot reach
them. Fighting is going on all round the mission. You must get the
American women and children out of Hanyang before the soldiers enter."

Dr. Huntley hurried home. The frightened boatman did not want to wait a
minute. As he stepped out of the boat, Dr. Huntley took out his watch.

"It is twenty minutes after four," he said. "Promise me that you will
wait here with your boat until five."

The boatman promised, and the doctor hurried to the hospital. At the
tea-table in the dining-room sat Mrs. Huntley with Jennie Crawford and
Jennie Cody.

"We have no choice, we must leave in thirty minutes," announced Dr.
Huntley. "Get together a few things and take no more than you can
carry."

The half-emptied teacups left on the table as the women hurried from
the dining-room were to remain there many days. Gathering up a few
things, they started for the boat as the sun was setting. On a hill
back of the hospital were six hundred soldiers of the Manchu Emperor.

"They are likely to fire!" said one of the servants.

But no gun was fired as the party went out. The boatman was waiting,
although he trembled with fear. The river was rough, and the waves
threatened to swallow the little boat, but it reached Hankow in safety.

The city was crowded, and the only rooms to be found were in a poor
little hotel. None of the party slept that night.

"If you hear a signal in the night," they were warned, "it will mean,
'Danger! Rise and dress!' If there is a second signal, it will mean,
'All gather near the gunboats!' A third signal will mean, 'Great
danger! American women and children get into the boats!'"

All night they listened, but they heard only the steady tramp, tramp of
the guards who marched up and down the streets.

In the morning a messenger called out, "The soldiers entered Hanyang in
the night!"

If the boatman had not waited, they would have been shut up in the city.

"Rich Chinese men and women are paying much money to be let down over
the walls in baskets, for the gates are closed, and no one can get out
any other way," said the messenger.

In the evening Jennie Crawford saw thirty girls coming down the street.

"Here come the schoolgirls from Wuchang!" she cried joyfully.

Each girl carried the few clothes she had been able to save tied up in
a square of cotton cloth.

"For two days and nights we were shut in the school building," said
one. "The bullets flew all round, and we could see burning buildings
every way we looked. Then the rescue party reached us. We had our
bundles all ready to leave at a moment's notice."

They were very tired, yet they stood bravely round the walls of the
room, for there were no chairs. Not one knew whether she had a home or
any friends left, but not even the youngest cried or complained.

"Extra! Extra!" shouted a newspaper messenger as he carried his papers
from house to house. "Twenty thousand troops on the way from Peking!"

Jennie Crawford bought a paper and everyone gathered round her.

"Twenty thousand of the Emperor's soldiers are on their way from
Peking!" she announced. "The British and American consuls advise all
foreign women and children to go on to Shanghai!"

On to Shanghai they went that evening. The city was crowded with many
refugees. At last they were safe with friends who were waiting for them
there, and who gave them a glad welcome.

But they did not stay in Shanghai. After a few days Dr. Huntley came
into the sitting-room one morning with a paper in his hand.

"The call has come for Red Cross doctors and nurses to go to Hankow,"
he said. "The wounded soldiers of both armies are being taken there,
and there is no one to care for them. I'm going to volunteer to return
as a Red Cross surgeon."

"I'll go with you as a Red Cross nurse," said Jennie Crawford.

  [Illustration:

  _Courtesy Woman's American Baptist Foreign Mission Society_

  JENNIE CRAWFORD ADMINISTERING AN ANESTHETIC

  Assisting with operations, lending a hand in delicate dressings, and
  giving a word of encouragement and comfort wherever needed, Miss
  Crawford became a beloved nurse.]

"Take me, too!" begged Jennie Cody.

"No Americans except doctors and nurses are allowed to enter the city,"
answered Dr. Huntley.

Jennie Cody looked up at him. "The one thing I have said I never, never
could be is a nurse, but I won't be a coward when Jennie Crawford needs
help, and wounded soldiers have no one to nurse them. Pin the red cross
on my arm and maybe that will give me courage."

When they bought tickets, the agent said, "You go at your own risk. I
can make no promise that you will ever reach Hankow. Many boats are
being fired on."

But as the boat with the red cross on its white flag went up the river,
the soldiers of both armies lowered their guns.

Such a different Hankow they found! The crowded streets were deserted;
even the beggars were gone. The smoke still hung over the ruins of many
buildings which had been burned. The fire had not touched an unfinished
hospital, and in it they found many wounded soldiers. Most of the
fighting was in Hanyang, and the Red Cross launches brought the wounded
men of both armies across the river.

Two nurses were already there for day duty, so Jennie Crawford and
Jennie Cody slept in the day and went on duty at night going up and
down between the rows of soldiers like angels of mercy. There were few
beds, and most of the men had to lie on straw on the floor with no
sheets or pillows.

"Which way will it go?" said Jennie Cody one day.

"No one can tell," answered Jennie Crawford. "Just now the
revolutionists are ahead. They have captured the arsenal in Hanyang.
Three hundred of their soldiers went up to the gate with their clothes
torn and looking as if they had been in a battle. They pretended to be
the soldiers of the Emperor who had been defeated. The gate-keepers let
them in, and they took charge of the arsenal without firing a single
shot. Now the people are so sure the revolutionists will win that many
men have already cut off their queues. The soldiers with swords in
their hands demand that men prove they are loyal to the new republic by
having their queues cut off."

"If we could only get back to Hanyang again to get some warm clothes!"
sighed Jennie Cody. "I'm almost frozen without my winter coat."

"Let's try to go over with Dr. Huntley in the Red Cross launch,"
proposed Jennie Crawford. "None of the soldiers of either army will
fire at that."

When they reached Hanyang, they saw empty rickshaws along the river
bank and many other signs of a hasty retreat. Before they reached their
home, a man ran toward them.

"You must be ready to leave at a moment's notice," he cried. "The
soldiers of the Emperor have taken the city again."

In the dining-room the teacups still stood on the table, but they did
not stop to put them away. Hastily gathering a few garments, they
hurried back to the boat.

Before the boat could pull out, the bullets were falling close beside
them. Within half an hour a terrible battle was fought between the
troops of the Emperor on the Hankow side of the river and those of the
revolutionists on the other side. Nearer and nearer to the hospital
came the bullets. One day the two nurses were awakened by the sound
of shells directly over their heads. A bullet struck the wall of the
room. Jennie Cody picked it up and with a smile that showed she was
not afraid, put it away for a souvenir. The little Red Cross launches
brought in more and yet more wounded soldiers until the nurses could
scarcely step between the beds of straw. Again and again bullets fell
near by, but none struck the Americans.

"That is because the bullets were made by foreigners," explained the
Chinese. "They have eyes so they can see, and never hit the people who
made them."

After the troops of the Emperor had captured Hanyang, they took Hankow
and Wuchang. It seemed that the revolution had failed and that the
yellow flag with its Manchu dragon would still float above China.

"Look at that man!" said Jennie Crawford one day. "He cut off his queue
when he thought the revolutionists had won. Then when the soldiers of
the Emperor recaptured the city, he was afraid they would cut off his
head if they saw him without a queue, and he pinned one to his cap."

"Many men have done that," answered Jennie Cody. "When they think
the soldiers of the Emperor are going to win, they let their queues
hang down their backs; then if they think victory is going to the
revolutionists, they tuck them up under their caps."

"The days may seem dark for the new republic, but even though the
arsenal has been captured by the soldiers of the Emperor, good news
comes from Shanghai and Nanking," said Jennie Crawford. "Everywhere the
people are demanding that China shall be free. Shanghai has been taken
by the revolutionists without any fighting and Nanking has already been
made the capital of the new government."

Jennie Crawford's prophecy came true. When in 1912 New Year's Day came
to China,—this time on January first by law,—Mr. Sun Yat-Sen was
inaugurated as the first president of the great Chinghwa (Chinese)
Republic, and the dragon flag came down. Instead, there floated a
rainbow flag with stripes of five colors to represent the five peoples
of China. There was a red stripe for the Chinese, a blue stripe for the
Mongols, a white stripe for the Mohammedans, and a black stripe for
the Tibetans. Instead of killing all the Manchu soldiers and the boy
emperor, the new republic put a fifth stripe of yellow in its flag for
the Manchu people who were to be a part of the new republic.

When the news reached the two nurses, Miss Crawford said to Miss Cody,
"Now I can get back to my own hospital in Hanyang, to all the women and
children who are waiting for me." But for many weeks they stayed to
nurse the men who could not be moved.

One day they received a command from General Li Yuan Hung,
vice-president of the new republic, to come to Wuchang, which was
thronged with people from many nations, England, France, America,
Germany, Russia, Italy, Japan, and Sweden. There the Vice-President
presented to them bronze medals "in recognition of their bravery and
self-sacrifice, in caring for the wounded during the revolution."

"I have almost forgotten the noise of battle and those days in the
hospital," said Jennie Crawford as they went back to Hanyang. "But I
can never forget that Chinese soldier who looked up at us one night as
we tried to ease his pain, and said, 'You are like God to us.'

"'Oh, no,' I answered at once.

"'Well,' said he, as I smoothed his pillow of straw, 'you are the ones
who make us know about God.'

"Now I can answer you that I'm still glad I came to China."



VIII

SIXTY-SIX DAYS WITH BANDITS


On a cold November morning a group of girls stood beside two mules in
front of a house in Batang on the border of Tibet. Two were Americans,
and the others, Tibetans.

"How long must you stay in America, Doris?" asked one of the Tibetan
girls very sadly.

"If I study hard every day," answered Doris, "I can come back in ten
years."

"That's not so bad," said another of the girls, "because, you see, if
you will study night and day, you can get through and come back in five
years."

"We must go," said Dorothy. "Father and Mother have gone on a half-hour
ago."

There were tears in all eyes as Doris and Dorothy sprang into their
saddles.

"Good-by! Good-by!" they called as the mules started forward.

Since they were babies, Doris and Dorothy Shelton had lived in Tibet,
the land that is called "the roof of the world," because it is higher
than any other country in the world. They had taken many trips,
clinging to the backs of their mules as they went almost straight
up on the rough mountain roads, but the journey on which they were
starting now, as the sun rose from behind the snow-capped mountains,
was to be the most thrilling of all.

  [Illustration: THE SHELTON FAMILY CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS OF TIBET

  Mrs. Shelton and the girls are in the chairs carried by barefoot
  coolies.]

They soon overtook their mother and father and the servants. In front
of the party rode guards, for the country was full of robber bands.
Then came six mule drivers driving the twenty-five mules that were
loaded with tents, baggage, and food. Following the mule drivers Mrs.
Shelton rode in a sedan chair fastened to two poles which rested on
the shoulders of four carriers who wore fine, bright-red turbans and
long robes of grey _pulu_ or wool, which were tied about the waist. In
the party were Andru, Drashi, and Shen-si, the three servants who had
helped to care for Doris and Dorothy since they were babies.

Last of all, on a mule strong enough to carry his two hundred and
thirty pounds, rode Dr. Albert Shelton. Everyone in Batang knew "Big
Doctor Shelton," and everyone loved him.

Seventeen years before this time, when he left the medical school in
Kansas, he looked over a map of the world to find the place that needed
a doctor most. There was not a town in Kansas that did not have a
doctor in it or near to it, and in some of the towns there were many
doctors.

"I should like to go to a place where there are no other doctors," he
said.

"Well, then," said a friend, "go to Tibet. That is the place for
you, because in all Tibet there is no doctor. But you may not get
there alive. The Dalai Lama, who is the head of everything in Tibet,
government and Buddhist Church, lives in Lhasa, the capital, and he
will not let any Christian missionary or doctor come within the walls
of his city. Some have tried to go, but most of them were killed."

The more Albert Shelton thought about the land without a doctor, the
more he wished to go there. He talked to his young wife, and she wanted
to go, too, so one day they took a steamer from San Francisco and
crossed the Pacific Ocean to China where a boat carried them a thousand
miles up the Yangtze River. Then they went still farther on a little
Chinese house-boat pulled by thirty men who walked along the bank.
After the house-boat had gone up the river for nearly two months, they
stepped off on shore and rode on the backs of mules for seven hundred
miles.

More than a year after they left Kansas, they reached the town of
Tatsienlu on the border of Tibet. If they could have stuck a pin eight
thousand miles long right through the earth, it would have come out not
far from where they started. The nearest doctor was seven hundred miles
away, so Dr. Shelton decided to live in Tatsienlu until he could find a
way to get farther into the closed land of Tibet.

Doris and Dorothy were born at Tatsienlu, among mountains that rose
more than twenty thousand feet above the level of the ocean, so high
that they were covered with snow in July and August. They were used
to the strange little "yaks,"—houses covered with goat's hair. They
watched their father make brick and saw lumber and teach the men how to
build houses like the one he had built for himself.

After five years Dr. Shelton was permitted to go farther inland to
Batang to start a hospital. When the people heard of the "good doctor"
who had come so far across the ocean, and who could do such wonderful
things to make sick people well, they came from all over the country
to see him. At first he had to use for his operating table a door laid
across two tables. Then he and his friends sawed lumber and baked
brick and built a hospital. For ten years he lived at Batang, and many
thousands of people came there to be helped.

  [Illustration: DR. SHELTON TREATING A TIBETAN BOY

  He ministered to all who needed him despite the lack of a hospital.
  This treatment is being given on a house top.]

Then a wonderful thing happened—Dr. Shelton was to go into Lhasa, the
capital of the land-without-a-doctor. The Dalai Lama had kept out all
missionaries because he was afraid the people would discover that their
idols were not true gods and would not give the priests any more money.
But now the Dalai Lama himself gave Dr. Shelton permission to come.

Before going to Lhasa Dr. Shelton planned to take Mrs. Shelton and
Doris and Dorothy to the port of Hongkong, from which they were to
sail to America, where the girls were to go to school. It was on this
journey that they were starting on this November morning.

Mrs. Shelton did not want to say good-by to the people of Batang,
whom she loved, so she tried to slip away before daybreak. But as she
and the doctor rode along, they found people lined up on either side
of the road to bid them good-by. Many had left their homes the night
before and had marched ahead so they could stand by the road and see
their "big doctor" and his wife and children once more. An escort of
twenty-five boys had been sent ahead. All the way from Batang to the
Yangtze River, a journey of a day and a half, the people were gathered
along the roadside.

For thirty-six days Doris and Dorothy rode on their mules. Then they
were so tired, their father got chairs for them and they were carried
by the servants.

One day as they were riding along, Dorothy said:

"Are you afraid of robbers, Doris? I heard Andru and Shen-si say that
Yang Tien-fu, the leader of a dreadful band must be near by. He is very
angry at the government. He used to be a colonel in the Chinese army,
but they didn't pay his salary, so he got a band of men to join him,
and they live out in the mountains. Andru said they stop all travelers
and take pay from them."

"I'm not afraid," said Doris. "We have soldiers to guard us."

"I'm glad we are almost at Yunnanfu. Forty-seven days is a long time to
ride. Father says we will be at Yunnanfu in just two and a half days."

Suddenly, as the mules came out from behind a bend in the road, they
threw back their ears and stopped. The report of a pistol rang out.

"Robbers! Robbers!" shouted the soldiers.

Another pistol shot followed, and the robbers sprang down through the
brush of the mountainside. There was a crashing of glass, as a bullet
struck the thermos bottle by Mrs. Shelton's side.

"Robbers! Robbers!" shouted the four soldiers again. One shot off his
gun; then all four ran back to the village.

Mrs. Shelton and the girls crept out of their chairs and slipped over
the bank into the ditch below.

Bullets flew. The bandits surrounded Dr. Shelton; one drew a large
pistol and another a great sword. Dr. Shelton saw there was no chance
to escape, so he let them take from him his field-glasses, his camera,
and everything else they wanted. Andru was seized and his knife and
chop-sticks taken from his belt. Holding up Dr. Shelton by both arms,
two of the bandits led him up the mountain to their chief. The others
tried to get Mrs. Shelton to climb the bluff which rose straight before
them, but she was not able. Then they tried to carry her, but they
could not get up the steep, narrow path with a load.

Doris wore gloves, but little Dorothy's hands were bare. The robbers
saw her rings and took them off her fingers. Dorothy loved those rings
which had been given to her by her friends, and she began to cry. Doris
had been very much frightened by the robbers, but when she saw one of
them with Dorothy's rings, she forgot about herself and going up to the
robber said:

"You give those rings back to Dorothy!"

The robber smiled at the girl who was so brave for her little sister
and actually handed the rings back.

By this time the soldiers returned with other soldiers and rushed out
to attack the robbers, who left Mrs. Shelton and Doris and Dorothy and
began fighting to defend themselves. At once the two girls with their
mother and the servants slipped back to the village.

Meanwhile Dr. Shelton was being hurried along up the mountainside to
the robber chief. Taller and stronger than any of the men who stood
about him was Yang Tien-fu. He looked with interest at the things his
men had taken from the travelers and examined Dr. Shelton's camera and
field-glasses.

"How can this picture-box make pictures?" he asked. "Now stop and make
my picture."

Dr. Shelton snapped the kodak.

"Now take my picture out of the box and let me see it."

"There is no picture there yet," said Dr. Shelton.

Yang Tien-fu would not believe him and made him open the camera and
spoil the first picture of a robber chief he had ever had a chance to
take.

Dr. Shelton could look down to the valley and watch the battle between
the bandits and the soldiers. He saw Mrs. Shelton's empty chair.

"Why do you want to take me as a prisoner?" he asked.

"Because I must have money," answered the bandit.

"I have no money," said Dr. Shelton.

"But your people will offer me a ransom. I have plenty of soldiers
in my land, but they have little to fight with. I will tell your
people that if they will send me fifty thousand dollars' worth of guns
and powder and bullets I will release you. And that is not all. The
government has taken my family and is keeping them as prisoners. I will
tell them that if they will send my family back to me, I will send you
back to them. Get on your mule, for we must travel far from here."

Over the rough, steep road of the mountain they rode for many hours.
Not until the sun went down did they stop to rest and to wait for their
companions. They built a fire and cooked rice. After they had eaten,
they took out their long pipes and smoked opium. Dr. Shelton counted
seventy-one men.

When those who had stayed to fight the soldiers overtook the band,
Dr. Shelton saw that one man was shot through the ankle. He opened
his saddle-bags and dressed the wound while Yang Tien-fu watched with
interest. After resting a few hours they started to travel again.

For three days and nights Dr. Shelton did not take off his clothes or
sleep. Sometimes he lay down on an old horse blanket, the only bed he
had. Four robbers guarded him. They never took off the belts in which
they carried their guns and cartridges. Dr. Shelton counted nineteen
different kinds of guns and eight kinds of pistols, all of which had
been taken from travelers.

Day after day the bandits traveled over the mountains. When they
stopped, forty guards were sent in every direction, for Yang Tien-fu
knew that the government had offered a reward of five thousand dollars
to anyone who would capture him dead or alive.

Sometimes he divided his men, sending a party to march straight down
over the steep mountainside to make a false trail, and often he stood
on some high bluff and laughed as he watched the soldiers being led
astray. Almost every day, and sometimes many times a day, the bandits
would stop a company of travelers and take their money or go into a
little village and rob the frightened people.

If the villagers gave them what they asked for, there was no fighting.
Yang Tien-fu would go into the temple, which was the meeting place of
the people, and send his men out to find one of the head men of the
village. When he came in, the chief would say:

"We are not robbers. We are traveling to escort this great foreign
official. He must have two hogs and ten bushels of rice."

Then the head men would look at Dr. Shelton with great respect and
interest and start off to get all the things the great foreign official
must have. Meanwhile Dr. Shelton tried to get them to understand that
he was a prisoner. Often he had to smile at the cunning of the robber
chief.

As they went along, Dr. Shelton saw many people who were sick and many
whose eyes were sore or blind. He said to Yang Tien-fu, "I left America
to help the sick people in Tibet. Since you are keeping me away from my
hospital in Batang, you must let me have a hospital along the road."

So the chief waited while the doctor healed the sick. Many soldiers
joined the band, and the doctor ministered to all who needed him.

One day the chief said, "You are an honest man. I want you to be one of
my men and stay with us. These other fellows can't be trusted. Even our
treasurer steals. Stay with us and be the pastor and the doctor for me
and my men. I will pay you twelve thousand dollars a year and give you
half of it right now."

Dr. Shelton chuckled. He wondered whether anyone else had ever been
invited to be the pastor of a robber band.

Back in Yunnanfu Mrs. Shelton, Doris, and Dorothy waited. Every day the
girls went to the gate of the city, hoping to see a runner coming with
a message from their father.

"But, Doris," said Dorothy, "there is no chance for Father to escape.
He is guarded all the time."

"The Bible says that Paul and Silas were sleeping right between guards,
and God opened the doors of the prison," said Doris. "If we pray, God
may open some door so Father can escape."

Thus while the robber band was climbing the steep mountain and leading
their tired prisoner farther and farther away, two little girls knelt
down to pray.

For nearly three weeks no message came.

"If we could only know if Father is still living and if he is well!"
said Mrs. Shelton.

"Yes," said Doris. "Or if we could get a message to him so he could
know we are praying for him!"

One day Shen-si, the Chinese cook who had lived with them many years,
said:

"I will carry your message to my master and bring his message to you."

"How can you find him, Shen-si?" asked Dorothy. "How will you get past
the chief of the bandits?"

"I will face Yang Tien-fu and carry your message to my master and bring
his message to you," said Shen-si quietly.

Mrs. Shelton and the girls wrote letters and Shen-si started out to
find his master. All along the way he followed the robbers, asking
questions until he reached the place where he was told his master was.
He went boldly up to the guards.

"I come on important business," he announced. "I must speak to your
chief."

The guards led him to Yang Tien-fu. Behind the chief he saw his master,
so changed that he scarcely knew him. A long beard had grown over his
smooth face, and he was so weak he could scarcely walk. Tears came into
Shen-si's eyes.

Dr. Shelton was allowed to send a message back, and he handed Shen-si
a copy of _Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush_ to take to Mrs. Shelton. This
he had had in his saddle-bags when the robbers captured him. On the
margins he had written daily messages to his wife. One of the last was:

"I am tired to death; all I can say in my desolation is, 'Make Thy
grace sufficient for me, O God.'"

With the precious book Shen-si started back.

  [Illustration: A ROADSIDE LUNCHEON IN TIBET

  Dr. Shelton and his daughters at luncheon with a group of Tibetan
  friends.]

Shen-si was not the only one who had determined to reach Dr. Shelton.
One day Yang Tien-fu said to his prisoner:

"The government has sent a messenger to me to say that my family is at
the priest's house and that if I will send you there in exchange, my
family will be given to me. I am almost afraid to trust them, for they
do not keep their word as you do, but I am going to send you to the
priest's house with a strong guard."

Twenty of the robbers took Dr. Shelton to the priest's house. There
Yang Tien-fu found only his wife and mother.

"What do two women amount to?" he said angrily. "I can buy another wife
as good as that one for a hundred dollars any time. Have them bring me
my son."

A contract was prepared promising Yang Tien-fu that if he would release
Dr. Shelton, the Chinese government would give him pardon for himself
and his men, make him an officer in the army, return all his family to
him and give him the arms and ammunition for which he had asked. On
the next day the contract was to be signed by him and by the Chinese
governor.

Late at night some of the men, who had been out watching, hurried to
the chief.

"The government has you in a trap," they said, "many troops of
soldiers are stealing in quietly to surround you and capture you."

Quickly Yang Tien-fu took both his family and Dr. Shelton, and at
midnight they slipped out between the circles of soldiers, back to the
mountains. Again began the long, hard journeys. Soon Yang Tien-fu saw
that his prisoner was too weak to walk or even to sit on his mule, so
he had a rough chair made for him. For thirty-seven hours they carried
him, running as fast as they could, for the soldiers were following.
One day the chief said:

"The doctor is so sick and weak he can go no farther. Take him to the
loft of that barn and hide him in the straw. Place four guards with
him. If he dies, hide his body where no one will find it; if he gets
well, send a messenger to me, and I will come for him."

The men made a tunnel through the rice-straw to the back of the loft,
digging out a space large enough for a bed for the doctor at the end.
They took a brick out of the wall to make a small hole for a window. As
they dragged their sick prisoner into his straw house, one of them said:

"The 'big doctor' is the same as a dead man."

The newspapers all over the world had printed the story of Dr.
Shelton's capture by the robbers, and day by day people in many lands
waited to hear that the governor and his soldiers had caught Yang
Tien-fu and released Dr. Shelton. One day the American Minister at
Peking started a rescue party of several English and Americans with
troops. They sent a message to Yang Tien-fu demanding the release of
Dr. Shelton; then they started into the mountains to find him. When
they left, Doris and Dorothy went with them to the gate of the city.

Meanwhile the "big doctor," almost too weak to move, was lying on his
bed of straw, with his head by the little window.

"Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,"—he counted the days as
they went by.

An old Chinese man brought him rice, and the rest and food made him
feel so much better that the men who were guarding him slipped off
to tell the chief he was not dead, leaving the Chinese to guard him.
Late one afternoon the old man cried out in terror, "The soldiers are
coming!" and ran as fast as he could.

Dr. Shelton crawled to the street and called to the Chinese runner who
had so frightened his guard. The villagers had heard the cries, "The
soldiers are coming!" and had run to the hills. When the messenger
found out that the man who stood before him was the "big doctor," he
was almost as frightened as the villagers.

As soon as he could get his breath, he helped the doctor to escape.
Leaning on his deliverer's arm, Dr. Shelton crept along for a quarter
of a mile to the next village. There was no horse on which he could
ride and no chair on which he could be carried, but eight men of the
village were persuaded to help. They twisted ropes of wild grass and
tied them about the doctor's waist. Some men lifted, some pushed, and
some pulled on the ropes until they reached the next village, which was
fortunately a Christian village. The people met them with joy. They
were afraid to stop long for fear the robbers would overtake them, so
they slept for only an hour and then started on.

They found two small ponies, and at half-past four in the morning they
offered a prayer that God would take care of the "big doctor," and
lifted him to a pony's back. He was so weak that two men had to hold
him on. When one pony was tired, they lifted him to the other.

Presently Dr. Shelton looked up and saw two hundred soldiers
approaching, and soon recognized his friends. He heard English spoken
for the first time in sixty-six days, and he could not speak for joy.
One of the rescue party had a box of crackers. He ate them at once,
because since he was captured, he had had nothing but rice. His friends
had to lend him clothes, for his were worn out.

At the gate of Yunnanfu five hundred people came to welcome Dr. Shelton
home. First and foremost were two little girls who ran to put their
arms round his neck and whisper, "We prayed for you! We prayed for you!
The Lord does answer prayers, doesn't he?"

Dr. Shelton patted the two heads.

"Of course he does," he said. "That is why I am here."



TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

  Text in italics is surrounded with underscores: _italics_.

  Inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, and hyphenation have been
  standardized.





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