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T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
April, 1938
Junior King's Business By M A R TH A S. HOO KER Illustrations by Ransom D. Marvin
MAGWE’ S SEARCH FOR GOD By E thel E. W allis grow, but who was He? Where did He live? Magwe sometimes wondered, too, about what would happen if he should get sick and die, as his big sister Weya had done a few months before. How his mother and father had wailed and screamed, and how the priest at the temple had beat on the sad- sounding gong for hours and hours! But Weya was gone. Where was she now? Was she happy, or was she suffering for all the wrong things she had done when she lived with her brothers and sisters in the little grass hut? But now Magwe was not thinking of Weya so much as he was thinking about God. The possibility of His being alive was something new, and it bothered him. “ I have an idea!” exclaimed Magwe to Kanai. “Let’s get in our boat and travel down the river to find the man who know« about God. I want to hear for myself.” “ Oh, M agw e!” said Kanai. “ How silly that is ! It is a long, long journey. It would take many moons for you to go there and back. And what would you eat on the way? You could never carry enough rice to last you.” “Kanai,” said Magwe, “ I am strong and brave. I can always eat coconuts. I want to find out about God, and I wish you would go with me.” . “ Oh, Magwe,” objected Kanai with a scowl, “ that is a foolish notion. What would we look for, and who would show us the
S QUISH, squash, squish, squash,” went the big, clumsy water buffalo as he slushed through the thick mud on the bank of the river. Magwe looked very small beside him as he prodded him with a sharp stick to keep him from wading out into the water. The hot Burma sun beat down on Magwe’s dark, bare back, making it shiny like a new brown leather shoe. Suddenly he gave the huge animal a sharp poke on his right front leg, turning him around a clump of coconut trees, and guiding him toward a little thatched hut. Like other Burmese boys, Magwe had been driving herds of water buffaloes since he was very young, and it was an easy matter to manage this one. As Magwe gave his buffalo a final thrust and came nearer the hut, he saw a group of boys gathered at the door. They were talking in excited tones. Kanai, his older brother, was pointing' down the river and saying to the others, “ Yes, he lives away down there.” “Who lives down there?” asked Magwe as he hurried toward the group. “Why, God does—Pomet said so,” assured Kanai. Magwe’s black eyes sparkled as he pro tested, “ Kanai, you know that that can’t b e ! God is not alive.” “ All right,” challenged Kanai. “ You ask Pomet. He just came back from a trip down the river. He heard that a man from across the sea to the south has come to tell our people that God is alive.” “ Yes,” agreed Pomet, “ that is what every one down the river is saying. I wanted to stay longer and hear more.” Magwe looked thoughtful. “W ell,” he said slowly, “ if God is really still alive, He will surely punish us for all our wicked deeds. He might even come to visit our village, and I would be frightened. Do you suppose He knows where we live— if He is alive?” Magwe wasj puzzled. All his life he had lived in a small tribal village away up in the north of Burma on the Chindwin River. The waters of the great river were as smooth and glistening as a mirror, and the rafts and canoes of the tribespeople glided easily along it, propelled only by gentle breezes or crude paddles which the boys whittled out of wood. Tall, fluffy coco palm trees swayed gracefully over the' shores of the glassy river. Magwe had often thought as he was herding the buffaloes through the swamps, which were like beautiful flower gardens, that there must be some Great Per son who had made all of these lovely plants * Founded on fact.
way down the big winding river?” “ Pomet,” said Magwe, “you have been farther down the river than any one in our village. You could guide us.” Pomet frowned. He wasn’t at all sure that he wanted to take such a trip. That night the three boys sat around the fire in front of the little hut, arguing long after the rest of the village had gone to sleep. At last Kanai said, with not much eager ness, “Well, I guess I’ll go with you.” Pomet said that he would go along, too. The next morning Magwe was up much earlier than usual, long before the sun came peeping between the brown, hairy trunks of the coconut trees. Soon the whole village was up. Children ran squealing and jump ing up and down the bank of the river where a little boat was tied to the limb of a gnarled palm tree. In the bottom of the boat were several wooden utensils filled with rice. A t one end there was, a roll of straw mats, which they would spread on the banks of the river for beds at night. As the sun shone down in blinding bright ness on the water, the three boys, their faces aglow with excitement and adventure, sailed away. The children of the village ran down the bank after the boat until it disappeared around the bend. “ Do you think they’ll find God is alive?” they asked each other, won- deringly. The boys took turns paddling the boat. The water was calm and- smooth, but their minds were stormy with questions and fears. All day long they sailed, passing little thatched villages along the banks which were grown over with thick jungle trees. All day long they asked themselves, “ Shall we ever find H im ?” They saw men riding elephants along the water front, and little boys driving herds of buffaloes. But they saw nobody that looked like the Great One they came to see. Day after day they traveled, and night after night they slept on the shore, each night a little more weary and anxious than the night before. At last Kanai said, “ This is all foolishness. I’m going back!” “ It can’t be much farther,” said Magwe. As they rounded a bend he exclaimed, “Look! I think this is the place. The one who knows God must live here.” They had come to where the Chindwin River meets the mighty Irrawaddy River, which is the largest in Burma. The houses and the people along the banks of this river were very different from those of their tribe. The boys were bewildered by all the strange sights. Which way should they point their little boat now? Where did the man live who knew about God? “W e must ask some one to tell us where to go,” said Magwe, and he was out of
The wafer buffalo slushed through the thick mud on the bank of the river.
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