The White Queen of Okoyong. W. P. Livingstone
dream, a very sweet one, which always set her heart a-longing and a-thrilling, and it now came true and changed her life. It was the biggest thing and the happiest that ever happened to her. She gave her heart to Jesus. Very shyly one night she crept up to her mother, nestled close to her, and laid her head on her knee, and then whispered the wonderful news. "I'll try, mother," she said, "to be a good girl and a comfort to you." Her mother was filled with joy, and both went about for long afterwards singing in their hearts. If only the shadow would lift!
But it settled down more darkly than ever. We can change the place where we stay and wander far, but it is not so easy to change our habits. Mr. Slessor was now bringing in so little money that his wife was forced to go and work in one of the mills in order to buy food and clothes for the children. Mary became the little house-mother, and how busy her hands and feet were, how early she was up, and how late she tumbled into bed, and how bravely she met all her troubles! Tears might steal into her eyes when she felt faint and hungry, but it was always a bright and smiling face that welcomed the tired mother home at night.
Gloomier grew the shadow. More money was needed to keep the home, and Mary, a slim girl of eleven, was the next to go out and become a bread-winner. One morning she went into a big factory and stood in the midst of machines and wheels and whirling belts, and at first was bewildered and a little afraid. But she was only allowed to stay for half a day: the other half she had to go to a school in the works where the girls were taught to read and write and count. She was fond of the reading, but did not like doing the sums: the figures on the board danced before her eyes, and she could not follow the working out of the problems, and sometimes the teacher punished her by making her stand until the lesson was finished.
But she was clever with her fingers, and soon knew all about weaving. How proud she was when she ran home with her first week's earnings! She laid them in the lap of her mother, who cried over them and wrapped them up and put them away: she could not, just then, find it in her heart to spend such precious money.
By the time she was fourteen Mary was working a large machine and being paid a good wage. But she had to toil very hard for it. She rose at five o'clock in the morning, when the factory whistle blew, and was in the works by six, and, except for two hours off for meals, she was busy at her task until six in the evening. In the warm summer days she did not go home, but carried her dinner with her and ate it sitting beside the loom; and sometimes she went away by herself and walked in the park. Saturday afternoons and Sundays were her own, but they were usually spent in helping her mother. Her dress was coarse and plain, and she wore no pretty ornaments, though she liked them as much as her companions did, for she was learning to put aside all the things she did not really need, and by and by she came not to miss them, and found pleasure instead in making others happy. She would have been quite content if only her father had been different.
But there was no hope now of a better time. The shadow became so black that it was like night when there are no stars in the sky. Mrs. Slessor and Mary had a big burden to bear and a grim battle to fight. In their distress they clung to one another, and prayed to Jesus for help and strength, for they, of themselves, could do little. On Saturday nights Mr. Slessor came home late, and treated them unkindly, so that Mary was often forced to go out into the cold streets and wait until he had gone to sleep. As she wandered about she felt very lonely and very miserable, and sometimes sobbed as if her heart would break. When she passed the bright windows of the places where drink was sold, she wondered why people were allowed to ruin men and women in such a way, and she clenched her hands and resolved that when she grew up she would war against this terrible thing which destroyed the peace and happiness of homes.
But at last the trouble came to an end. One tragic day Mary stood and looked down with a great awe upon the face of her father lying white and still in death.
What she went through in these days made her often sad and downcast, for she had a loving heart, and suffered sorely when any one was rough to her or ill-treated her. But good came out of it too. She was like a white starry flower which grows on the walls and verandahs of houses in the tropics. The hot sunshine is not able to draw perfume from it, but as soon as darkness falls its fragrance scents the air and comes stealing through the open windows and doors. So it was with Mary. She grew sweeter in the darkness of trouble; it was in the shadows of life that she learned to be patient and brave and unselfish.
We must not think less, but more, of her for coming out of such a home. It is not always the girls and boys who are highly favoured that grow up to do the best and biggest things in life. Some of the men and women to whom the world owes most had a hard time when they were young. The home life of President Lincoln, who freed millions of slaves in America, was like Mary's, yet his name has become one of the most famous in history. No girl or boy should despair because they are poor or lonely or crushed down in any way; let them fight on, quietly and patiently, and in the end better things and happier times will come.
Mrs. Slessor now left the factory, and for a time kept a little shop, in which Mary used to help, especially on Saturday afternoons and nights, when trade was busiest. The girl was still dreaming dreams about the wonderful days that lay before her, but, unlike many others who do the same, she did her best to make hers come true. She wanted to learn things, and she found that books would tell her, and so she was led into the great world of knowledge. The more she read the more she wanted to know. So eager was she that when she left home for her work, she slipped a book into her pocket and glanced at it in the streets. She did not know then about Dr. Livingstone, the African missionary and traveller, but she did exactly what he had done when he was a boy: she propped a book on a corner of the loom in the factory, and read whenever she had a moment to spare. Her companions tell how they used to see her take out a little note-book, put it on the weaver's beam, and jot down her thoughts—she was always writing, they say; sometimes it was poetry, sometimes an essay, sometimes a letter to a friend. But she never neglected her work.
How different her lot was from that of most girls of to-day! They have leisure for their lessons, and they learn music and do fancy work and keep house and bake—and how many hate it all! Mary had only a few precious minutes, but she made the most of them. The books she read were not stories, but ones like Milton's Paradise Lost and Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, and so deep did she become in them at night that sometimes she forgot everything, and read on and on through the quiet hours, and only came to herself with a start when she heard the warning whistle of the factory in the early morning.
She was fond of all good books, but the one she liked most and knew better than any was the Bible. She pored over it so often that she remembered much of it by heart. In the Bible Class she was so quick and so ready to answer questions that Mr. Baxter, her minister, used to say, "Now, Mary Slessor, don't answer any more questions till I bid you." When every one else failed he would turn to her with "Now, Mary," and she always had her reply ready. She was never tired of the story of Jesus, especially as it is told in the Gospel of St. John, for there He appeared to her so kind and winsome and lovable. When she thought of all He did, how He came from His own beautiful heaven to save the world from what is sinful and sad, and how He was made to suffer and at last was put to death, and how His teaching has brought peace and safety and sunshine into the lives of millions of women and girls, she felt she must do something for Him to show her love and thankfulness and devotion.
"He says we must do as He did and try to make people better and happier, and so I, too, must do my best and join in the war against all that is evil and unlovely and unrestful in the world." So she thought to herself.
She did not say, "I am only a girl, what can I do?" She knew that when a General wanted an army to fight a strong enemy he did not call for officers only, but for soldiers—hosts of them, and especially for those who were young. "I can be a soldier," Mary said humbly. "Dear Lord, I will do what I can—here are my heart and head and hands and feet—use me for anything that I can do."
The first thing that she did was to take a class of little girls in the Sunday School, and thus she began to teach others before she was educated herself, but it is not always those who are best trained who can teach best. The heart of Mary was so full