American Missionary | Page 8

every pupil of the other higher classes, have learned the joy of Christian experience, and there are yet others to follow.
The night meetings at the church are very interesting and in them conversions are occurring in considerable numbers. The class work of the school has not been interrupted, as half-hour meetings only have been held, morning and noon. We rejoice greatly in this work that crowns and confirms all the other work of the school.
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EVERY-DAY LIFE.
MRS. A.W. CURTIS.
Put on your best glasses, dear friends, and take a peep at the regular, every-day life of some of the workers among the colored people South.
Rap, rap, rap.
"Come in!"
It is a toil-worn, sad-faced woman, with hard, bony hands, and that look of patient endurance that is so pathetic. She is poorly clad, with only a thin bit of an old shawl around her shoulders, and a hat so disreputable that she instantly removes it, and drops it behind her on the floor. After a few kindly words of greeting, she tells her story. A sickly husband, deranged for the last nine years of his life, whom she had to support and care for; a daughter who married a wretch who treated her so cruelly that she, too, lost her mind, when he left her entirely, with their child. She kept the daughter confined to bed or chair, while she worked out as cook, to support them all. She had several other children. Finally the crazy daughter got away, and she does not know whether she is dead or alive.
What had she come to us for? Money, old clothes, help of some kind?
No, indeed. She came to see if we would take her grand-daughter and her own daughter, both about twelve years old, into our school. She had never been able to make them fit to go to any school, so they could not even read, but she would do her very best, if we would take them now. I wish Mr. Hand could have seen her shining face and tearful eyes, when we told her of the kind friend who had provided so grandly for just such cases as these.
A patter of small feet, a hasty rap at the door.
"Please ma'am, send little sister some medicine."
"What ails sister?"
The little fellow looked puzzled for a moment, then confidently answered, "Her stomach has settled on her bowels!"
It is a perplexing diagnosis, but a few skillful questions draw out the fact that she has a bad cold, and some chamomilla is sent at a venture. Word comes back the next day that "Sister is well: that medicine did her all the good."
Next comes, one after another, a perfect rush of small boys and big girls, with now and then a man or woman for variety, on various errands. "Please ma'am, give me a settin' of eggs. Our old hen wants to set, and we haint got no eggs." The great brown eyes grow round with astonishment when we tell them that the hens are A.M.A. hens now, and not ours, and these hungry teachers eat every egg they lay. Two or three others, who have been accustomed to rely on our good nature for their winter supply of greens and salad, receive the same reply, and it is evident that the new order of things is very unsatisfactory and perplexing to them.
"Please ma'am, give me some castor oil for the baby; she's awful sick; Doctor says it's indigestion of the lungs."
She gets the castor oil, but soon comes back to say in most cheerful tones--"Baby is dead. She died at ten o'clock, but she's better off, and please, ma'am, give mother a black basque to wear to the funeral."
Heartless? Oh no. There was great wailing and moaning at the funeral, and when the one carriage, with as many of the family as could crowd in beside the poor little coffin, started for the cemetery, this same child stood in the doorway, waving her handkerchief, and shouting tragically, "Fare thee well, baby! Fare thee well!"
A half-grown girl came up the steps with two tiny chickens about as large as pigeons, their legs tied together, their voices lifted up in shrill squawks.
"Father sent you these two chickens for a Christmas present, and says please send him a coat and pair of breeches, and a vest, too, if you can. And mother sent you these eggs for a present, and please send her a warm underskirt and a pair of shoes!" A modest request, surely.
Next, a great girl, barefooted, though it was a raw, cold day that made us huddle gladly over a big fire, and with her a small boy, literally naked so far as his bony little legs were concerned. A few fluttering rags that had once been pants depended from the remnant