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TH E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
December, 1939
Junior King s Business By MARTHA S. HOOKER Member of Faculty. Bible Institute e f Los Angele$.
WHAT THE ROUND RED SUN SAW AT CHRISTMAS TIME
B y E v e l y n W . W o od sw o rth *
K it t l e ja n e t smiled up at the Hound Red Sim as she hurried J home from school on a crisp November afternoon; and the Hound Red Sun smiled back his far-away smile. He knew why Janet had no time today to loiter with her chums. She bounced into the house, flung her primer on the couch, and called excited ly, “Where are you, Mother? Am I too late to watch you pack Aunt Emmy’s Christmas box?” “No, dear, you’re just in time,” Mother answered, coming into the room with an armful of presents. Of course, no one else was thinking about Christ mas just yet, but, you see, Aunt Emmy was away over in Africa telling the black boys and girls about the Lord Jesus, and if you wanted her to get her box in time, you must mail it very early. Mother knew just how to tuck the pretty gifts in snugly so they would not be spoiled in their long journey. Soon she had filled the box—that is, all but a wee corner. “I haven’t a thing that is small enough to fit that corner,” she sighed. “Janet, have you a toy you would like to send to the black children?” Janet went off to the playrodm. “Find something which won’t break,” called Mother. Well, then the little china dog would not do. But what else would fit that corner ? Just then a dancing beam from Round Red Mr. Sun shone into a comer and made the little gilt basket shine. The basket had been there since Easter, and inside were six dear wee cotton chicks. Janet thought they were just too sweet to give away to the black children. Then she remembered last Sunday’s verse, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least . . . ye have done it unto me.” Reluctantly she took the baby chicks from their nest. “If it’s for Jesus, I guess I can do without them,” she explained as Mother tried them in the comer. They just fitted! So the very last thing that the Round Red Sun saw that day was a little girl kneeling with her mother beside that box and praying, “Dear Jesus, please take care of Aunt Emmy’s box and bless the baby chicks I gave You, and *Missionary of the Africa Inland Mission.
she felt terribly ashamed of herself. 'TU just ask the Lord to help me make this a different kind of Christmas for my black boys and girls—I’ve al ways left them alone before,” ,she said. "It will take all the time we have left to learn our songs.” And her face was all smiles when she stepped into the large mud-brick schoolroom after breakfast. That was the reason that, the closer it got to Christmas, the more Round Red Mr. Sun seemed to cut short the days in Janet’s land and hurried to spend his time with the black boys and girls. Such busy days as those were in Aunt Emmy’s school! First the tall black, under-teachers must write an in vitation to every black -mother and daddy to come to the Mission on Christ mas day. Of course, most of them didn't know how to read, but it would make •them all feel proud and happy when their children read it for them. Then the school and playground must be made all spipk and span by the boys, while the girls chattered their queer language over the great sacks of pea nuts they were shelling on the porch. But the day before Christmas was the busiest of alL When Round Red Mr. Sun arrived, little black Gwabo and his big brother, Danga, were already stir ring the second dishpanful of roasted peanuts for Aunt Emmy as she poured on the taffy made from black African sugar. Pretty soon hatchets were heard on the hill and hammers in the church as great green branches, tipped with red, were cut from the tamarind trees to trim the rafters. Every boy who was big enough to work was doing his best to help put up the first Christmas dec orations he had ever seen. Round Red Mr. Sun was casting back a lingering look from the west when, the last branch and flower in place, Aunt Emmy came home to find Benjamin! sitting on her doorstep with two heavy bags of mail that he had carried all the long , sixty miles from the railroad station. *There was one package which just could not wait to be opened. She tore the wrappings off as fast as she could, and the very first thing she found was —six fluffy cotton Easter chicks! “The very thing for prizes tomor row!” she cried, snatching them out of their comer. “I didn’t have a thing for the littlest children. Won’t they love them!” The Round Red Sun lost no time in
help the black children to love You, too, and—” But the Round Red Sun didn’t wait to hear any more. He just hurried across the western sea, past the land of the yellow children, over the land of the little brown Hindus, till he came to the land of the black boys and girls. He began to light up the funny round huts with their pointed grass roofs, where the black boys were just coming out to take their sheep and goats to the pasture. He saw the black girls already coming back from the lake, walking straight and steady behind their mothers, each with a pot of water on her head. Then he came to a big square mud house. “That must be Aunt Emmy’s house,” he thought; so he sent a merry beam down through the big iron window bars that keep the leopards out at night, and there, sure enough, was Aunt Emmy herself! She was sitting on the floor with her Bible in her lap, and she had the most teary-looking eyes! What could have happened to make a missionary cry when she should have been on her knees asking the Lord to help her win some black boys and girls to Him that day? Round Red Mr. Sun had not been there the night before when the Senior Mis sionary had said they would have to stay at home alone this Christmas. Not to visit the big head station where so many missionaries spent the holiday and where they always had such a good time—it was just too much! Aunt Emmy almost shed tears again; then
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