Generation
"to feathered friends at home. The red sandy-clay soil and gray granite rocks are in pleasant contrast with the green grass and trees all studded with bright blossoms. The table-land is rolling and broken by lovely valleys and water courses.
My eyes opened in the guest room of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Lart's house. It is so homey and pleasant. The white plastered walls run up to the eaves, and the ceiling is burlap stretched across the tiled gable. The floor is square burned tile with native mats, so pretty and unusual with their dark bark strips about two inches wide, woven with the bright filling of finger wide jointed reeds. The windows look north, west and east, with inward opening casements and simple white sash curtains. The bed is a double iron bed with a 'friendship' quilt reminding of a far away home. The rest of the furniture is made at the industrial mission plant, of the hard crooked timber which patient skill wrought into attractive and comfortable articles: wash stand, chair with leather seat, and little light stand.
The Dart family" (Lart or Dart? one of these is a typing error) "is early astir. I hear the children singing happy hymns as they prepare for the day. We gather in the dining room for the simple, sweet, family worship before beginning breakfast. The Bible reading was the story of our Lord's teaching of the first Christian missionaries. The tender prayer that followed remembered the dear ones far away, the need of the Sabbath's rest for the next week's labors, the services of the station, the evangelistic efforts of the native preachers and students in the villages about, the other missionaries and the places and people not yet reached by the Good News. The boys who wait on the table are Currie Institute boys with such good faces.
Before breakfast was quite finished dear Miss Rawlins came in to ask if I could see the sick boys right away as she had to give out food before church time. I went to her little house made out of a brick storehouse and a center of all sorts of helpful ministrations. One big black boy's face was drown with pain from a bad stomach trouble. He ought to have different food and care, but what can we do? There was no appetite for the pounded corn, mush so he has had no food today. Miss Rawlins brings a cup of milk and a bit of bread from her larder to feed him and he will take the medicine as directed. The other is Narelio, poor lad! Father and mother taken to the coast as slaves and dead there. He is all alone in the world and trying to get an education. For six weeks he has been suffering with shoulders, neck and arms, rheumatic and neuralgic troubles made worse by the rainy seasons cold damp alternating with heat. The rubbing last night with coal oil--the only material on hand for such needs--did give him some sleep, so the look of misery and depression is a little relieved today. How cold the poor boy's flesh feels to my hand. 'If I were at home,' I remarked with a sigh, 'I should put a padded jacket on the keep the temperature even.' 'I've used all the cotton I have' Miss Rawlins said. Then the little woman disappeared into her tiny bedroom, and I hear a trunk open and in a minute she comes out with a shirt of her own. 'I got it to wear on the steamer coming' she said apologetically, 'and I didn't need it and don't use it a bit.' On goes the warm shirt over the black wooly head. It fits nicely and with some medicine and the promise of another evening rub (and a glass of milk) Napelie is sent away. Now the dear woman whom four hundred boys call 'Mother' goes to distribute the food to the dorm- itories, and I go back to prepare for church.
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