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.