Emma L. Burnett

“ Marty asked.
“Why, yes,” said Hannah, before Miss Walsh could reply. “Don't you remember the 'Chinese Slave Girl,' that Miss Agnes read to us?—at least read some of it. And don't you know how they are tortured by binding their feet?”
“That isn't done on purpose to torture them,” said Mary. “That's a custom of the country.”
“Most of their customs appear to be tortures,” said Marty.
“Yes,” said Miss Walsh, “the customs of barbarous and half-civilized nations are very hard on the women and girls.” ”

“ There was preaching that Sunday in the schoolhouse at Black's Mills, a village between four and five miles distant in the opposite direction from Riseborough. It was quite a novelty to Marty to go so far to church, but it was a lovely drive and she enjoyed it extremely. It certainly seemed strange to attend service in the battered little frame schoolhouse, without any organ or choir, and to eat crackers and cheese in the wagon on the way home, as Mrs Stokes was afraid she would be hungry before their unusually late dinner. ”

“ The ladies laughed, and Miss Fanny said,
“Mrs. Thurston was a missionary in India for many years, Marty, and would be there yet if she was able.”
“India!” exclaimed Marty, with wide-open eyes. “In Lahore!”
She had heard more about Lahore than any other place, and to her it seemed like the principal city in India.
“Oh, no!” replied Mrs. Thurston. “Far from there, hundreds of miles. Lahore, you know, is in Northern India, in the part known as the Punjab, while my home was in the extreme south near a city called Madura. Are you especially interested in Lahore?” ”

“ Marty never enjoyed any Christmas season so much as this one, when she worked so hard to give happiness to the poor. She had her temptations to overcome, too; for when the stores were filled with beautiful things that she would like to buy for herself or her friends, it was very hard to keep from entrenching on the money she had saved up for a special Christmas missionary offering. But her year's training in missionary giving had not gone for nothing, and she was able to make a missionary offering a part of her Christmas celebration. ”

“ Edith mends her old toys for poor children. She keeps her bright cards and picture books as nice as possible, and when done with them carries them to the Children's Hospital or to the Almshouse; and she is very careful of her clothes, so that when she has outgrown them they will do for poor little girls. There are children now down town going to Sunday-school in her clothes. So you see that even if your money goes to the missionary work, you need not neglect other ways of doing good.”
“I think it's grand!” said Marty with long-drawn breath. ”

“ Howell, “you have not asked God to help you in your new enterprise.”
“Why, no, I haven't,” replied Marty. “I never thought of it.”
“My dear child, we are nothing in our own strength. We should always ask God to help us, in what we attempt, and ask for his blessing. [Pg 52] Unless he blesses our work, it cannot prosper.”
“But I don't know how to ask him,” said Marty, speaking softly. “The prayers I say every night are 'Our Father,' and 'Now I lay me,' and there's nothing in them about mission work. ”

“ I wouldn't have Fanny see them in their everyday clothes for anything; and they don't seem to have enough good clothes to go around.”
“Let's see what they've got,” said Marty, plunging into business with her usual energy.
“Well,” said Edith, “Queenie has her new white Swiss, so she's all right, and she can have Virginia's surah sash. Louisa Alcott can wear her black silk skirt and borrow Queenie's blue cashmere waist. But Harriet has nothing fit for an evening.”
“Let her wear the sailor suit she came in, and say she's just home from the seaside,” suggested Marty, after a moment's meditation. ”

“ She was with her mother on the side porch, Monday morning, when Mrs. Stokes, coming out of the kitchen with floury hands, inquired,
“Mrs. Ashford, did you see the little boy in the carriage that just passed 'long?”
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Ashford.
“Well, you just ought to have seen him when they brought him up here three weeks ago—his folks are boarding over at Capt. Smith's; such a pale, peaked child I never saw! Had been awful sick, they said, and now you see he looks right down well.”
“Why, yes, he does,” said Mrs. Ashford. “I should never imagine he had been ill very recently. ”

“ When she had learned what her visitors' errand was, she had called her sister and brothers and had sent Hugh over for Maria and Joe Pratt. Then they had quite a conference on the shady porch, Ruth sewing busily all the while.
“I'm afraid I can't help much,” said Marty.
“Why, you have helped and are helping ever so much. You've got Evaline all worked up, and Maria too, and by telling us what you do in your band you have given us many hints for ours.”
“Now, Ruth,” said Evaline, “let's begin the band right away, so that we can have some meetings while Marty's here. ”

“ Ashford.
“I have taken some steps since Edith got me started, haven't I? I've learned a good deal about missions, and I find it a great deal easier to give money regularly now than when I began. Don't you remember how at first I either wanted to give every cent I had or else not to give anything? But I found out that wasn't the best way to do.”
“And another thing,” said Mrs. Ashford, “you have been the means of some of the rest of us taking steps. Seeing how well your systematic giving is working, I have started in to do the same way.”
“Oh! have you, mamma?” exclaimed Marty. ”

“ Jennie was glad of the chance to learn and made good progress, so that by Christmas, when Marty and Edith gave her the Bible they had talked of in the summer, she could read it quite well.
“I think, after a while, when Jennie gets still stronger,” said Miss Alice one day at Mrs. Ashford's, “I will teach her something of arithmetic and writing, because she will never be able to go to school, and some knowledge of the kind will be useful to her. I will teach her to sew nicely, too, and when she is older she may be able to earn her living, even if she is lame and delicate.” ”

“ JENNIE.
“I do b'lieve,” said Marty one day, after she had been a member of the mission-band for several months, “I do b'lieve that hearing so much about the poor little children in India and China and those places, and trying to do something to help them, makes me feel far more like helping poor children here at home. Now, there's Jennie—I know I shouldn't have thought much about her if I hadn't been thinking of those far-away children.” ”

“ In the evening her father came in for his share of the requests.
“Papa,” she asked, “would you just as soon give me my ten cents this evening as Monday?”
“Certainly,” he replied, taking a dime out of his pocket. “What's going on this evening?”
“Oh, nothing's going on, but I've begun to have a box for missionary money—that lovely cardinal one of mamma's with gilt spots on it—and I'm going to put tenths and offerings in it and take them to the mission-band to help send missionaries to the heathen.”
“Well, that's good. But what are you going to do about candy and such things?” ”

“ But you will certainly save yourself a great deal of worry, and will be likely to do more good in the work you have begun, by following Mrs. Howell's advice of having a plan of giving and keeping to it.”
“Well, I'm going to try that way in real earnest now,” said Marty; “but I wish it was as easy for me to be steady about things as it is for Edith. She never seems to get into trouble over her tenths.”
A few days after this, when she was spending the afternoon with Edith, Marty told Mrs. Howell what a time she had had, and added,
“Doesn't it seem strange that I can't give my money regularly?” ”

“ Dora. “The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”
Ruth. “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.”
“Dora, Dora,” said Miss Fanny, with an imperative little gesture, “'Jesus shall reign'” —
Miss Dora obediently began to sing,
“Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Does his successive journeys run,”
and was at once joined by the others. ”

“ It would only be fair to take something in exchange,” said Miss Fanny. “Just think!” she added persuasively, “isn't there something you'd each like to have a quarter for?”
Marty still held out against taking money for the flowers, but all at once Evaline exclaimed brightly, “Oh, the mission-band!”
“Mission-band!” cried Miss Fanny. “Familiar sound! Are you mission girls?” ”

“ Ruth was so much taken with Marty's plan of making tenths the basis of what she gave to missions that she concluded to adopt the same plan.
“That's easy enough for you,” said Almira. “You have your salary and half the butter-money, but I have no income. You know we don't sell much butter. I'll have to think of some other way to earn a little money.”
“Well, do hurry and think what we can do, Almira,” said Evaline fretfully. She depended on her sister always to do the thinking. “I'm afraid we wont have anything to give.” ”

“ Marty and Edith often accompanied Miss Alice when she visited Jennie. Sometimes they each took a doll to visit Laura Amelia, also carrying some of their dishes and having a dolls' tea-party. This always pleased Jennie very much, though at first she scarcely knew how to play in this quiet, lady-like fashion, as she had only been accustomed to playing in the street with rough children before she was hurt. Of course she had had no chance at all to play during the last year.
Sometimes the girls read little stories to her. ”

“ It would not do for these different families of Christians to keep in their own little pens all the time and never help each other. But as yet it has been found best for each denomination to have its own missionary society, though there are some Union Societies, and perhaps in coming years it may be all union.”
“Now there's this mountain band,” said Marty reflectively. “The people in it are not all the same kind. I mean some are Methodists, and some are Presbyterians, and the Smiths are Baptists. I heard Ruth say she didn't know what would be best to do with their money.” ”

“ You, my young friends, in your happy childhood and girlhood, cannot conceive the miseries of these poor little creatures. Thank God your lot is cast in a Christian land, and oh! do all you can to send the gospel light into these dark places of the earth.”
The girls had a great deal to say about this letter, and as it was sewing afternoon, Miss Walsh allowed them to talk over their work instead of having any reading.
“Somebody told me,” said little Daisy Roberts, “that in India they don't care as much about girls as boys, and sometimes they kill the girl babies. ”

“ Ashford; there isn't a mite of danger,” said Hiram, gathering up the reins. “Get up!”
“Get up!” cried Freddie, who had watched the process of getting started with the greatest interest, and who was now holding a pair of imaginary reins in one tiny fist and flourishing an imaginary whip with the other.
Hiram laughed aloud. That Freddie could walk was funny enough, but that he could talk and make believe drive was too much for Hiram. It was some time before he got over it.
“How's Evaline?” asked Marty. “Why didn't she come to meet us?” ”

“ They were particularly delighted in hearing about this last; they thought it highly romantic that the meetings were held in that lovely grove, and were amused by the idea of meeting in the barn in case of rain, and also of Hiram's consenting to join as an honorary member.
“Now,” said Miss Fanny, “you will agree to sell some of your flowers, wont you? See how nicely it all fits in—we want some flowers very much, and you want some money for your mission work. So it's a fair exchange. Girls,” she said, turning to her friends, “you know this is Mrs. Thurston's birthday. ”

“ Thurston. “Education for women is very much more thought of than in former years. A great many girls are now allowed to attend the Government and other schools, and many men in these days are anxious to have their wives educated. Some employ teachers to come to their houses and teach the inmates. If only all these women could receive a Christian education, India would soon be a delightfully different place.” ”

“ But in every case they aim to make their visit the means of carrying the gospel to these women.”
“Are they willing to have you talk on religious subjects?” asked Mrs. Ashford.
“Some of them are not. You know there is, of course, as much diversity among them as among any other women. But after they have got used to our coming, and have examined our clothes and asked us all sorts of questions, some of them very childish ones, they generally listen to what we wish to say and become interested in the Bible and the story of the cross.” ”

“ Miss Alice saw that Jennie did not altogether understand Edith, so in a few simple words she explained that Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd, and calls us to follow him. Then taking up the picture again she repeated what she had said about shepherds and their flocks, and also went over some of the hymn they had been singing, until Jennie began to get into her little muddled brain quite a clear idea of Jesus, our Shepherd. ”

“ She wanted to belong, but then she was not a child.
“Do you know of any band, Marty, that has both children and young ladies?” she asked.
“No,” replied Marty. “In our church the young ladies have a band themselves.”
“But this isn't a church band; it's a neighborhood band,” Ruth interposed; “and as we haven't many folks up here, I think it will be well not to divide our forces, but to include all in one organization. Of course Almira must belong. ”

“ She is a sullen, ill-natured kind of woman—I mean Mrs. Torrence—and hard to get at. So I thought I might possibly get at her in this way, and your account of missionary ladies going to zenanas to teach fancy-work in order to get a chance to tell the women of God and the Bible, put it into my head that I might try something of the same kind.”
“Oh, it is just the same,” cried Marty, “except that it's altering and mending instead of fancy-work. How curious it is that zenana work away off in India should make you think of helping a poor woman close by in Landis Court!” ”