You wonder what I got a prize for? So do I! I can"t make it out at all.
But you see our King is so good and kind, he is always doing nice things, and this is one of them."
Ashamed of all that people were saying and writing about her, she hastened up to Use, where she pinned the cross on her breast to show the girls how it looked.
By this time Mary and Annie were married and had homes of their own, and Alice and Maggie were at Duke Town learning to wash and iron and cut out and make clothes, and Dan was also at school. Once Dan had a splendid holiday, and Ma tells Ratcliffe about it:
Dan has gone up the Cross River with his master to a new country where coal has been found and where tin has been found, and where our wonderful fellow-countrymen are to build a railway which will enter and open up new lands and peoples and treasures, and add to the wealth and greatness of our Empire.
The coal will make the biggest changes you can think of. It is like a fairy tale. Just think, if we have coal, we can start to manufacture everything out here, for we have material for almost everything, and all the timber in these endless forests can then be sent over the world. And what crowds of people from Britain and here will be getting employment at the railways and the mines! It is a wonderful old world this, isn"t it? We are always hearing that it is played out.
Among the men who were opening up the wild country, officials, engineers, and traders, Ma had many dear friends, and she was always praising them up for the work they were doing.
"We come of a wonderful race, Ratcliffe," she said. "How proud I am of our countrymen many a time. How brave they are! What knowledge and grit they possess! How doggedly they hold on! How they persevere and win! No wonder a handful of them rule the horde of natives and leave their mark.
The native, clever in his own way, just stares and obeys."
[Ill.u.s.tration: MEMORIAL TO A DEAD CHIEF.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: MA"S HUMBLE HOUSE ON THE HILL: THE LAST SHE BUILT.]
CHAPTER X
This chapter tells how Ma became a gipsy again and lived on a hill-top, and how after a hard fight she won a new region for Jesus; gives some notes from her diary and letters to little friends at home, and pictures her amongst her treasures.
Some distance from Ikpe there is a high hill called Odoro Ikpe, on which the Government has a rest-house.
Ma climbed up there one Sat.u.r.day night.
"What a grand view!" she cried, as she looked over the wide plain and breathed in the cool fresh wind with a great content, "I"ve never been so high before."
And then her eyes grew sad. For all that green country was the home of heathenism. The chiefs had shut and bolted the door of their hearts against Jesus, and would not let any teachers or missionaries come in and disturb their ways.
Ma had often gone to them in her wheeled chair, fording rivers, crossing swamps, pushing through wet forests, and stood and knocked at their hearts in His name, but in vain. They were afraid that if she came all their old fashions would tumble down about their ears.
She was not the one to lose courage. As she sat there on the hill-top, she dreamed that she saw the whole region being won for Jesus, and the people coming to His house clothed and in their right mind.
"O G.o.d!" she prayed, "old and feeble and unworthy as I am, help me to win them."
And there and then she put on her armour and braced herself for battle.
"Janie," she said, "we"ll stay here until we overcome these chiefs."
Janie looked round and grunted. The rest-house had only holes for windows; there was a doorway, but no door; the floor was of dried mud, and there was not even a table or a chair. But Ma could be happy with nothing, she would have been content with bare ground for a bed, and the starry sky for a covering. She did, indeed, find that it was better to sleep in the open air than in the stuffy rest-house, and she lay down every night in the verandah with the cool wind fanning her cheeks.
Day after day she called the chiefs and talked with them; she coaxed the little boys and girls, who were timid and sullen, to come and learn A B C; she stood at night in the villages when the women were cooking at their fires and the young people were dancing to the sound of the drum, and spoke to all who would listen of the love of Jesus and His power to free them from sin.
And at last, after a weary struggle, her patience and goodness and humour melted the hard hearts, and one by one the chiefs came and said they would allow her to do anything she liked, and they would try to worship her G.o.d and learn the new ways.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Her heart was full. She went out in the cool of the night and stood gazing over the dim plain. All was silent and still, and the stars were shining more gloriously than she had ever seen them before. Her eyes swept over them, as they often did, and rested on the Southern Cross, the group she loved most of all, because it was the symbol of her dear Lord watching over the dark and sinful world, and her thin worn face was beautiful, for her dream had come true.
She went in and sat on the floor, and leant her weary back against the wall of the room, and wrote by the light of a candle stuck in its own grease, telling her friends how happy she was--the happiest woman in all the world.
"I can"t think," she said, "why G.o.d has so highly honoured and trusted me."
She was a wreck, her body was a ma.s.s of pain, she was growing deaf and blind, she was tired and weak, and oh, so lonely! Yet her heart was bursting with love and grat.i.tude and joy. O wonderful Ma!
All this time she was working three stations--Use, Ikpe, and Odoro Ikpe, and going constantly between them. She kept a diary, and every night--often in the middle of the night--she wrote in it the story of the day. And what a story of toil and heroism it is! Here are several sentences from it:
Left the beach for Ikpe in the evening, sail in moonlight; reached Ikpe 4 P. M. next day; ran on to a tree; boys thrown into the water.
Egbo out all night, screaming and drumming like mad-men till daylight. All drunk.
First night in new house. Sorry to leave the wee hut I have enjoyed so much comfort and blessing in.
Patients from early morning; man bitten by rat; another by snake. School begun, nearly a hundred scholars.
First Christian funeral at Ikpe.
Chiefs here by daybreak for palavers.
Splendid congregation. People changing for the better.
Terrific thunderstorm. School-boys drenched. Got a big fire on in hall, and all sat round the blaze and I gave them a reading lesson.
A great reception at Use--thank G.o.d for the girls and home.
Thank G.o.d for sleep!
On roof all day, head and neck aching, hands broken and bleeding.
Carrying sand, cleaning corn patch, mudding and rubbing walls.
Cut my first two roses from the rose bush--lovely, a tender gift from G.o.d.
After sleepless night found white ants in millions in the drawers.
Washed a big washing.
Terrific rain storm, no school.
Very feeble, scarcely able to stand upright in church.
Horrid night with cross child.
Lovely letters from dear ones. G.o.d is very good to me.