514
THE KING’S BUSINESS
path to a forbidden marriage, and she would spoil’ his money and all his plans by running off with some school boy. She would receive an innocent enough looking bundle of food, but as she opened it, there would be a letter, and the unfathomable mischief in that letter. And the heart of his daughter was so bad that I would never ‘see anything but trouble’ if I took her. No, no, his girl could never, never corpe to school; it would be her ruin.” I told him I had other girls quite as bad as his and I was not at all timid about managing them, and if her heart was so bad, we would do our best to change it. But no, there was no thought of letting his girl come. There was evidently no use talking so I got up to go. The mother had given her consent, but the father now sat in stubborn silence. I turned to him, “I’m going now, you say your daujgh- ter cannot come to school, but we’ll pray God that He will change your heart, and Sunday I want to see this little girl in Sunday School and from then on she will be my child.” He shook his head. But I waited till Sunday and what satisfaction and joy it was to me, when shortly after the opening, down the aisle came my girls, no less happy than I was. And since then this has been their home. They have been perfectly obedient, easily allowing themselves to be tied by all the rules of the life they have now commenced to live. One night, at the beginning of school, as I came to the dormitory, I found a girl of about fourteen years lying on a bed panting and moaning. Very soon I learned that she had come that day some twenty-five miles. About three miles from the Station she- had seen a herd of cattle by the roadside. True African cattle are ferocious looking creatures with their long horns. With genuine African imagination,
of their elders, now followed, begging to go with me that very minute. My part of the agreement was that I would come to get them if they didn’t come by the following Sunday. Before Sunday arrived, I went again to see about the one girl who was not yet promised to me. Everybody along the road now knew I was after school girls, and all little girls that were not to go to school Were carefully kept out of my sight. I found the father at home, and his whole court, consisting of every available relative, assembled in his hut. I took the little box offered me for a seat, and placed in the middle of the house. I suppose 'at least fifteen people were squatted here and there and everywhere around me. The father sat in front of me, eating in the true insatiable African fashion, the little daughter sat beside him. They knew why I had come, so I didn’t open the conversation, but waited for them and they soon commenced. Such talking and discussing for the next fifteen minutes, as if it were a question of life and death. I didn’t try to get a. word in until they were through, then I explained that it was no unreasonable demand I was making. I described the school life, the girls in their dormitory, how they would learn to read, write and'sew. A smile and much eagerness came info the face of the little girl. “Do you want to come ?” She didn’t venture to answer, but her eyes told me how eager she was to come. The mother quietly nodded. The father ate on, seemingly indifferent to all I had said. With sudden abruptness he looked at me, “Are you through ?” I told him I had nothing more to say, and I wanted him to let me take his daughter. Then he burst out in a most dramatic monologue. “Teach his girl to read, and write, that would be the worst that could happen. She could learn to sew, but knowledge of letters was only the
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