GRAVE THOUGHTS.
ETHEL retreated to her room, and busied herself in learning her Italian
lesson. She was very fond of learning languages; and she had lately
been studying Italian with great zest; but somehow she found it hard to
fix her attention on such interesting questions as "Have you the good
tailor's gold?" "Will you send for some milk?" and so on.
Ethel was very sensitive to blame, especially from people that she
loved; and she was apt to brood over it till she sometimes magnified a
very slight censure into a serious grievance. Now, as she sat at her
desk, with grammar and exercise-book before her, and with her eyes on
the page, she found certain words of her brother's ringing in her ears,
and giving her a very uncomfortable feeling somewhere,—she did not know
whether it was in her heart or in her temper.
"If every one had been as much afraid of insects as you are, the gospel
would not have been preached in India to this day. Cockroaches then
would have been an effectual bar to the spread of Christianity!"
Ethel, as I have said before, had built many castles in the air on the
foundation of her brother's mission in India. Ever since she could
remember, ever since the first box of presents containing the curious
figures of baked clay, dressed in the costumes of all the different
castes, had come to her, a little girl of ten years old,—she had
dreamed of going out to India with her brother as a missionary. Mrs.
Bayard had an intimate friend and schoolmate who was attached to the
mission in Persia, and with whom she corresponded. Ethel had helped
to fill more than one box of pretty presents to be distributed among
the girls of Miss Beecher's school, for she was very skilful both with
needle and pencil. Miss Beecher was very much interested in Ethel,
and had written her a good many letters; and Ethel felt a personal
attachment to every girl in the school. It was very natural that Ethel
should be interested in missionary work, and should think of becoming a
missionary herself.
She knew of course that there would be many unpleasant things to
be encountered; but she was apt, in her dreaming hours, to put all
these things out of sight, and dwell only upon the pleasures, the
delights, of travelling and seeing new and strange sights, the wonders
of tropical vegetation and the luxuries of tropical fruits, and most
of all the delight of helping her brother to convert and teach the
heathen; for Ethel, with all her dreaminess, was honestly desirous of
doing good. She had often pictured herself as meeting with some mother
about to throw her baby to the crocodiles of the Ganges, and by her
persuasions and arguments inducing the poor woman to turn to the true
God, and save her child.
But the cockroaches! Ironton was a famous place for these humid
insects—for humid they are— especially West Ironton. They had been
imported by a lady who brought some boxes of sweetmeats from Havana,
and they had multiplied till they were a serious nuisance: but they
were seldom seen on the east side. Ethel well remembered the night she
spent with Anna Burgers. The girls had been out at a concert together,
and had some supper after they went up-stairs, and Ethel had dropped
a bit of cake under the table. She could see it quite plainly by the
moonlight as she lay in bed, and was sleepily wondering whether it
would grease the carpet, and whether she ought not to pick it up, when
the cake suddenly began to move rapidly toward the fireplace, as if it
had become sensible that it had no business where it was. Ethel started
up in bed with a little scream.
"What 'is' the matter?" asked Anna, sleepily.
"The cake!" exclaimed Ethel. "Don't you see? That piece of cake on the
floor. It is running away!"
Anna looked and laughed. "I suppose a cockroach has got it," said she.
"Yes, there he is! I see his back!"
"A cockroach!" repeated Ethel, more terrified than ever. "Do you have
cockroaches?"
"Yes, indeed, and dreadful torments they are," replied Anna. "They
come out as soon as the lights are out, and run over everything. But
they don't bite that is one comfort—and they cannot get under the
mosquito-bars—that is another: so you need not be afraid of them. We
have tried every way to get rid of them, but without success so far."
Anna was asleep again in five minutes, but Ethel could not sleep. She
well remembered now how she had lain and shivered all night; how, every
time she dropped asleep, she had wakened with a start from a dream of
the horrid creatures running over her; and how in the morning she found
that one of them had taken refuge in the toe of her boot. She had fully
decided that she would never spend another night with Anna Burgers.
But there were a great many cockroaches in India. Ethel knew that very
well; and there were other creatures even worse, such as centipedes,
and large spiders and lizards, which ran all about the houses, and
were encouraged because they caught insects. And there were snakes,
too,—horrible poisonous cobras and tic polongas. And then the wolves,
and jackals, and the tigers! Ethel remembered the story her brother had
written to her of a tiger which had walked into a friend's bungalow, in
the middle of a terrible storm, and laid itself down at the gentleman's
feet, trembling and foaming like a frightened dog. True, the tiger had
retired and done nobody any harm, but Ethel felt that the very sight
of him would have killed her. And then the storms; and she could never
sleep in a high wind, and was dreadfully afraid of lightning. Then
there was crossing the ocean; that could not be helped. To be sure,
Henry talked much of returning to India by the way of California, when
the Pacific railroad should be finished; but then there were such
dreadful railroad accidents, and the Indians on the plains did such
horrible things!
Ethel had known all these things all her life, but somehow she had
never before thought of them as hindrances in the way of her favorite
plan. Now, as she thought them all over, she began to see that her
fears were likely utterly to defeat the great wish of her life.
"I wish I was not such a coward," she thought. "I don't see what I am
to do. I am sure I should die if I should find a centipede on my dress.
I should never wait to have him bite me; and then the snakes! But I
don't see how I can help it. I am naturally timid. Sister Juliet said
she really thought I could not help it, and Miss Carrington always said
she hated strong-minded women. I am sure I 'cannot' help it if I was
made delicate and nervous. But then to give up going on a mission after
I have looked forward to it all my life. Oh dear, what shall I do!"
And Ethel laid her head down on her desk and fairly cried. It was very
hard certainly to have one's cherished life-plan overset and defeated
by cockroaches, and to see an army of spiders standing in the way of
teaching the gospel to the heathen; but there seemed no help for it,
so Ethel thought at last, for she was quite sure that she could never
overcome her fears so as to face these dreadful dangers.
There was no use in crying about it, however; and if she had red eyes
at the Italian class, that hateful Delia Wilkins would be sure to
notice them and ask her what was the matter before all the girls. It
would not do to neglect her lessons either; so Ethel dried her eyes
and applied herself with new diligence to "sending the son of the good
tailor for some milk." When her fears were not concerned, she was a
conscientious girl; and she knew it was her duty to make the most of
her school-days.
"Henry said he found all the languages he knew useful to him at one
time and another. But, oh, those horrid cockroaches!"