"NOT IN THE GOOD TIMES."
One Saturday afternoon as Edith and Marty entered the room where the
meetings of the band were held, half a dozen girls rushed to them,
exclaiming,
"Oh, what do you think! Mary Cresswell has a letter from Mrs. C----!"
How eager they all were to hear that letter! As soon as the opening
exercises were over, Miss Walsh told Mary she might read it. The young
secretary looked quite proud and important as she unfolded the letter,
very tenderly, indeed, for it was written on thin paper, as foreign
letters are, and she was afraid of tearing it.
After speaking very nicely of the letter she had received from them,
Mrs. C---- went on to tell them something about Lahore and about the
school they were interested in. She said:
"You must not imagine a well-arranged schoolroom with desks, maps,
black-boards, and so on. We cannot afford anything like that, and in any
case it would be useless to the kind of pupils we have. We pay a woman a
little for the use of part of the room in which she lives, and while
the school is in session she goes on with her work in one corner. This
room is quite dark, as, having no windows, all the light it receives is
from the door. It has no furniture to speak of. The teacher and pupils
sit on the earth floor."
She then described the dress of the little girls, which certainly did
not appear to be very comfortable for the cool weather they sometimes
have in North India, and said, "No matter how poor and scanty the
clothing, they must have some kind of jewelry, even if it is only glass
or brass bangles. They are anything but cleanly, as they are not taught
in their own homes to be so; besides, some of their customs are
considerably against cleanliness. For instance, they must not wash
themselves at all for a certain length of time after the death of
relatives. So it sometimes happens the children come to school in a very
dirty condition."
These children, Mrs. C---- said, were bright and learned quite readily.
She mentioned some of the hymns and Scripture verses they knew, and some
of the answers they had given to questions she put to them.
"But the great difficulty is," she wrote, "they are taken away from
school so young to be married and thus lost to us. Still it is good to
think that they receive some religious instruction, and matters in
regard to girls and women in India are gradually improving. Not quite so
much stress is laid on child-marriage; indeed, some native societies are
being formed for the purpose of opposing this custom, and many more
girls are allowed to attend school than used to be the case.
"But there is room yet for great improvement. You, my young friends, in
your happy childhood and girlhood, cannot conceive the miseries of these
poor little creatures. Thank God your lot is cast in a Christian land,
and oh! do all you can to send the gospel light into these dark places
of the earth."
The girls had a great deal to say about this letter, and as it was
sewing afternoon, Miss Walsh allowed them to talk over their work
instead of having any reading.
"Somebody told me," said little Daisy Roberts, "that in India they don't
care as much about girls as boys, and sometimes they kill the girl
babies. Is that so?"
"Yes," replied Miss Walsh. "It used to be a very common custom, and is
still so to some extent, though the British Government has done much to
stop it."
"They must be very cruel to want to kill their own dear little babies.
Why, if anybody should hurt our little Nellie, we'd all fly at him and
nearly tear him to pieces," and Daisy's face got very red and she
doubled up her little fist at the very thought of such a thing.
"It isn't always, nor perhaps often, done in a spirit of cruelty.
Sometimes it is because the parents are poor and cannot afford to marry
their daughters, for weddings cost a great deal, and according to the
notions of the country everybody must be married. Often it ruins a man
to get his daughters married, and he lives in poverty all the rest of
his life. Then very ignorant and superstitious parents sometimes
sacrifice their children to please their gods, and as girls are not as
much thought of as boys, it is frequently the girls who are killed. But,
as I told you, the Government does not allow such doings, and when
people are found breaking the law they are punished. Besides, as
Christianity spreads these wicked things cease."
"I think that way they have of making little girls get married is
awful," said Edith. "Just think of being dragged off to be married when
you're only a little mite of a thing, and having to leave your own mamma
and live with a cross old mother-in-law who abuses you!"
"Don't their fathers and mothers love them at all, Miss Agnes, that they
send them off that way and allow them to be miserable?" asked Marty,
who was ready to cry over the miseries of the poor little India girl.
"Of course there are many cruel parents--heathenism, you know, does not
teach people to be kind and loving--but many love their children as much
as your parents love you. In fact they are over-indulgent to them, and
let them do just what they please when they are small. And you may
imagine that the mother especially has a very sore heart when her little
daughter is taken from her and when she hears of her being ill-treated
in her new home. But it is considered a disgrace if girls are not
married when mere children; and a loving mother wishes to keep her
daughters from disgrace."
"And how if the little girl's husband dies?" Rosa Stevenson inquired.
"Oh, then the poor little widow leads a miserable life."
"Why, how?" Marty asked. "Can't she go back home then?"
"No," Miss Walsh answered. "She has to live on in the father-in-law's
house, where she is treated shamefully, made to do hard work, is half
starved, and not allowed clothes enough to keep her comfortable. She is
not taken care of when sick, and is treated worse in every way than you
have any idea of or ever can have."
"It's perfectly dreadful!" declared one of the girls.
"Didn't they use to burn the widows on their husbands' funeral pile?"
asked another.
"Yes, but the British Government put a stop to that."
"I believe I'd rather be burnt up and done with it than have to lead
such a miserable life," said Mary Cresswell.
"Oh, no, it would be dreadful to be burnt," said Rosa.
"Seems to me it's dreadful all around," said Marty, sighing.
"You may be thankful you don't have to make the choice," said Miss
Walsh.
"Then the poor children are not even made comfortable when they go to
school," Rosa went on, "so dirty and forlorn!"
"How queerly they're dressed," said Hannah Morton.
"They seem to be dressed principally in earrings and bracelets,"
remarked Marty.
"Miss Agnes," inquired Mary, "aren't there other kinds of schools
besides these little day-schools?"
"Oh, yes. One of the first things that the missionaries try to do is to
establish boarding-schools, so as to get the boys and girls altogether
away from the influence of their heathen homes. This is the way many
converts are made. There are now many such schools and much good has
been done by them. You remember we sent the extra ten dollars we had
last year to help build an addition to a boarding-school in China."
"Are Chinese little girls treated as badly as the ones in India?" Marty
asked.
"Why, yes," said Hannah, before Miss Walsh could reply. "Don't you
remember the 'Chinese Slave Girl,' that Miss Agnes read to us?--at least
read some of it. And don't you know how they are tortured by binding
their feet?"
"That isn't done on _purpose_ to torture them," said Mary. "That's a
custom of the country."
"Most of their customs appear to be tortures," said Marty.
"Yes," said Miss Walsh, "the customs of barbarous and half-civilized
nations are very hard on the women and girls."
"Well, it all makes me feel very sorrowful," Marty declared. "I never
thought before, when I've had such good times all my life, that there
are so many little girls who are not--a--"
"Not in the good times?" said Miss Walsh, helping her out.
"Yes, ma'am; and I do wish I could do something for some of them."
"So do I," said several of the others.
"I suppose," suggested Edith, "the faster we send the gospel to those
countries the better it will be for the girls and everybody."
"Couldn't we raise more money this year, enough to support another
school, or to pay for a girl or boy in a boarding-school somewhere?"
Rosa proposed.
"In that case we should have to double, or more than double, our usual
amount," said Miss Walsh. "The question is, can we do that?"
"Oh, do let us try!" exclaimed several of the girls.
Then they began forthwith to make plans for raising more money.
"Of course the more members we have, the more money we'll raise," said
Mary Cresswell, "so I think we'd better try again to get others to join
our band. I have asked the Patterson girls two or three times, but I'm
going to ask them again."
"Better not ask them _plump_ to join," suggested Bertie Lee. "Just get
them somehow to come to one meeting, and then they'll be sure to want to
belong."
"There's some wisdom in that," said Miss Walsh, laughing.
"Yes'm," said Bertie, "and I believe I'll try that way with Annie
Kelley."
"I'm going to ask that new girl in our Sunday-school class," said
Hannah.
"I'm going to try to get _somebody_ to come," said Marty.
"So am I," "And I," cried the others.
"That's right," said Miss Walsh. "We want to get as many people as
possible interested in missionary work, and, as Mary says, the more that
are interested and belong to societies, the more money will be raised,
and, of course, the more good will be done. So, don't you see, you are
aiding the cause very much when you try to make our meetings attractive,
and so induce others to join the band."
"I've thought of a way to make some missionary money, if it would be
right to do it," said Edith.
"What is it?" asked Miss Walsh.
"Well--you know those prizes Dr. Edgar and Mr. Stevenson give at the
Sunday-school anniversary for learning the Psalms and chapters--would it
do to ask them to give us money instead of books or anything else, so
that we might have it for missions?"
"We certainly might ask our pastor and superintendent what they think of
the plan. I have no doubt they would be willing to adopt it when they
know what the money is to be used for. I think myself, your idea is a
very good one."
"Yes," said Rosa, "we should not only be studying the Bible for our own
sakes, but be helping missions at the same time."
"We'd be working for our missionary money then, shouldn't we?" remarked
one of the girls.
"Yes, _indeed_!" replied another, with a laugh and shrug. She was not
fond of committing to memory.
"It's a good way, though," said Marty, standing up for Edith's
suggestion, "and I'm going to start right in and learn something. Miss
Agnes, I wonder how much they'd give for the 119th Psalm?"
Marty asked this in real earnest, and although Miss Walsh felt like
smiling, she answered gravely,
"I don't think it is quite the right spirit in which to study the Bible,
Marty--doing it only for the sake of the money, even if the money is for
missions."
"Oh! I shouldn't do it _just_ for the money, but I thought if I could
get more for a long Psalm than for a short one, I'd rather learn the
long one, and have more missionary money. But I shouldn't want to do it
if it was wrong, you know," Marty added, looking distressed.
"I know you would not," said Miss Walsh kindly. "I have no doubt your
motives are all right, though you can hardly explain them. I can
understand that you would be willing to do considerable hard work for
missions, and I am glad of your willingness and enthusiasm. They help
me."
Then Marty looked radiant.
There were other plans proposed, and every one had so much to say that
Miss Walsh had some trouble in getting the meeting to break up.