Even compared with other ostriches she took the prize for wickedness and presumption - never backward about coming forward! But came the day when she overreached herself. The sink consisted of an opening in the kitchen wall with wide boards nailed in table like fashion on the outside. On this board stood tins of water. There Millie washed dishes, and the water ran down through the cracks onto the ground. Not the most modern thing in plumbing, but it served the purpose. The flour had just undergone another sifting; the rancid lard had been blended in, and Millie had produced a rare culinary triumph as a farewell to the men, who were on the eve of departure. Two luscious cream pies sat on the open sink to cool. Millie remembered it was time to blow up the embers of the wood fire, where water was boiling. She came into the kitchen just as Ema’s great hooked beak knocked the second pie onto the ground, where she had already splattered the first one into the mud. It was too much. Millie seized the handle of the pan on the fire and threw the boiling water at the unscrupulous fowl. Ema yelped. This was too much for her, too. She took to her great clumsy heels and was never seen again. Any aristocratic ostrich senses when her presence is unappreciated. So not all of a missionary’s days are spectacular or seemingly heroic.
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