University of Virginia Library PZ7.W242 B 1890 Hnyanitiiyioo LIBRARY OF THE | UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA wil | on So chy | as PRESENTED BY DR. EDGAR WOODS, Jr. WO Cle ties, 14 4 ‘— | a ) mw < | ; wae ) f Ni Oat Ge i | py A AL eet Tented es) fC fj | Zz & 06 {| || Office: CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA, | Peirce armen ETT NTE a ee ATCC PRR nt eh As thane A RAs gnc2 Ay i f TA PSR Ke Y, fe LV it i LEM, IZ I FA V , ATM Vhs OH Fe Wicie ité, , yp ets iC ; { 4 4 fh Wel AACAAVE »§ LHaA eu Kee FE ee HE LEAN, lien. aA Cae a : r od paLg, Je lk. _ te, Cera Weta Hegel o > of 4h /F 70 °A BAG OF STORIES.EebAt OF STORIES BY ANNA B. WARNER Author of ‘Stories of Vinegar Hill,” ete. AMERICAN FRACT SOCIETY, I50 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. ‘Copyright, 1883. By Rosert CARTER & BROTHERS.A BAG: OF SFORIES. ——~oo—— CHAP PER. I. “Mamma,” said Tryphosa, sitting on the rug and gazing into the fire, “do you think I shall have any queer things this Christmas?” “OQ mamma, do you think I shall?” demanded Lex, starting up from a yet easier position in the fireshine. «Now Alexander, do be quiet,” said Trypho. “Boys can do queer things enough, without having them.” « Girls can’t, I s’pose,” retorted Lex. « Say, mamma?” « Whatever do you both mean?” said mamma. “I have queer things enough already, with two such children.”A BAG OF STORIES. « But I mean,” said Trypho—“ hush, Lex, I spoke first—I mean like Carl Krinken’s, mamma. You know all his things told him stories.” . So they did—splendid!” said Lex, catching the idea. “Go ahead, Try.” “@! if you want an old: stocking ane a pine come and red cent, said mamma, “that is easy, and my Christ- mas labours will be much diminished.” «Will you, mamma? could you?” said any. SCenanly: | can write for the pine cone to-day to your grandfather.” | But mamma,” said Inry, “ im a- fraid—” “So am I,” said mamma _ smiling: “very much afraid indeed.” ‘What are you atraid of, mamma?” said Lex, leaning on his elbows and looking up at her. ahi el ani italia aliasA BAG OF ‘STORIES. 7 « Afraid—nay, pretty sure—that if this charming plan of gifts were carried out, we should have a rainy Christmas.” «Mamma, how can you possibly tell ? Papa says the weather's proverbially un- certain,” said Lex. “What makes you think it would rain?” ‘In doors?” suggested mamma. “What, you mean we should cry?” said the boy. “Ho! I shouldn't cry.” « Why should we, mamma?” said the girl. «Well, you know,” said mamma, “stories are things to be heard and not seen; and in themselves the ‘ queer’ gifts might not look interesting.” “Tell us: what they would be, and then we can judge,” said Lex. “Dear me, no!” said his mother. ‘That would never do. Besides, I do not know myself yet. I shall have to8 = 3A) BAG OF SHORES: think. But things with a history are | not always as pretty to look at as oN | things fresh from the shops.” . “Then you think we'll be disap- pomted,.mamma?, said Try. “ But Carl Krinken wasn't.” (le was a boy. said dex, said cLex, ‘because I've got fifty cents and five cents and ticee cents to put into: it.” i Wwex.< said eiryphesa,. “ly do wish youd learn to add up things.” “Ho!” said Lex, diving down into Hite bas. “(Vhat's the way. girls tall Hollo! who’s this old party?” He drew forth a little stone image, not exactly like a man, not at all like a woman— like no living thing you could name.A °BAG: -OF STORIES: 31 It might have been called the very figure - of ugliness. “I say, Trypho,” said Lex, studying his new possession, “its very sensible in mamma to give this to me, for youd dream about it, Sure.’ “TI suppose that’s an idol,” said Try, drawing off a little and looking at the ugly thing askance. silol~ said ex, “€ shouldnt wou der; but I should think they’d make bigger ones while they’re about it. What next, Uny 2’ Next and last was a very heavy lit- tle package—a yellowish piece of ivory, some eight inches long, sharp at one end and broad at the other, and with a beautiful curve between the two. This was for Tryphosa. “Another idol you'll see,” said Lex, peering at it. “The horn of a heathen32 Avy BAG OF STORIES: cow, I guess. But I'll tell you what, try, if the heathen, are sue stupids, they Il never get ‘one cent from me.” And Lex nodded his head with great emphasis. But now the breakfast bell rang in earnest; and the children could only gather up their treasures and hurry down.CHEAP TER hi: «]T THINK,” said the mother, as she sat with her children Christmas day, “that I will not tell you even the names of all your queer things at once. One by one you may bring them, one a day, for the story, and then you shall have the name too.” “We sha’n’t know ’em all till New Wea at that rate; said Lex. “but it wilh make tne. stories last said *lry. “I-think I should ltke to have mine just on Sundays, mamma, and then they wouldn't be all done for thrée weeks.” “Mad if-l mixed in mime, it would 3 (33)34 A BAG OF SHORING. be cis, Said Ieex. “Well, Weont care But mamma won't tell all sorts of sto- Hes Om sunday, “ Missionary stories,’ said Tryphosa. “Ho! these are missionary stories, are they?” said Lex, fingering his pock- et as if he thought the fifty cents and the five cents and the three cents al- ready in danger. “You will know what they are when you hear them,” the mother answered, with half a smile and half a sigh. . “* Ves; I will tell them on Sundays if you like; they will suit the day.” “To-morrow is Sunday,” suggested Trypho. ® Well’ love?” “Mamma,” broke in Lex, “I guess youd better tell my baby story first.” “Your baby story?” “ Yes’m—this thine, ‘said Wex, dis:A BAG OF STORIES. 25 playing the little picture, “because Try didn't agree with me about it, and it disturbs my mind when she don’t.” “Naturally,” said his mother, laughing “But I’m quite willing you should, mamma, said Tryphosa, gently, “if he wants it.” “Thank you, my dear,” the mother answered, with a kiss. ‘You are my little try, andido:” Trypho blushed with pleasure, and Lex wrinkled up his eyebrows. cl spose lini theiry. ands dorte he said. ‘ But then everybody can’t be all alike, and you always say, mamma, that somebody must give up; so we'll look out for the baby story to-morrow.” And if he himself was not entirely con- tent with this polite arrangement, at least Pex dic not tell: Tea was early on Sunday nights that36 A BAG OF STORIES. every one who could might go to church. Only the mother rarely went, having, as she said, her own little congregation at home; and so now, while the bells were calling from spire to spire, and troops of church-goers filled the street, mother and children gathered round the library fire, and wanted no better light. The room was all still, with only the burning and puffing of the soft coal in the grate; and the teller of stories sat in a great arm-chair, with Trypho by her side and Lex at her feet. Lex was as fond of basking in the fireshine as ever a young striped snake in the sun. Just now he was resting on his elbows, with the picture before him. “Mamma,” he said, “here are three things—the woman and the baby and the river. Now, which’ll you tell about hasty 7A -BAG OF. STORIES. 37 “ Mamma,’ Trypho questioned, “is it a real baby?” 3 “Of course,” said Lex. “How could there be a story about him if he wasn’t ?” “T cannot affirm,” the mother answer- ed, “that this is the picture of the very baby I am to tell about; but it is so like him that it will do as well. The name of my baby was Luckie.” “Luckie!” repeated Lex. “I wonder why I wasn’t called that. Mamma, shall I hold Luckie right up before you, so you can see him every minute?” “Thank you, no,’ said the mother, turning away from the picture, which icex fourisned aloit: “1. know it all by heart, dear, and that is quite enough.” “7 said the woman was dancing him round to show him the river,’ said Lex. “Only I don’t see why she didn’t dress Intay ditstsAy BAG OF “STORIES. “ And so I thought, mamma,” said Try- phosa, “that maybe she was going to give him a. bath; but 1 dont see iis clothes anywhere. Would she have ’em in a basket, manima, as we doe - “She would not have them at. all, Diy. ‘Little children -in India do not wear clothes.” Babies) “Yes, and much older than _ babies. Even a rich little oirl, till she 1 sie years old, wears only three things. Guess what they are?” ‘Shoes and stockings and a frock,” said Trypho, promptly. “Ho, no!” said Lex. “A bonnet and a parasol and a fan—ain’t it, mamma?” The mother could not help laughing. “For once,” she said, “you are nearer right than your sister. But the three things are a gold necklace round herA BAG_ OF _STORIES., 39 neck, gold bracelets on her wrists, and silver rings about her ankles.’ “Not really, mamma?” “Really. ; “That's a good deal of cash to put on a girl,’ said Lex, while Tryphosa sat in shocked silence. ‘ What makes ‘em think so much of girls out there?” “Much? They think very little,” said mamma. ‘Girls are hardly counted in the family. If you ask a Hindoo how many children he has, he will tell you, ‘One child and three girls.” Lex rolled over on the rug with de- light. ‘That's about it; “he said: . ““Now, ditzy, 3sOW See. “Yes, if you’re a heathen,” said Try, with a touch of natural indignation. «But, dear mamma, if they don’t like their poor girls, why do they give them gold bracelets?” For deep down in her40 A BAG. OF- STORIES, young heart Try thought the glittering things extremely pretty and desirable. “QO bracelets are not. the measure of love,” said the mother, smiling; “and the poor mother over there, Try, has at least a good excuse. She will not punish her boys because they are the important ones of the family; but for just the opposite reason neither will she punish her girls. She knows that as soon as they are married they will be mere wretched slaves, and she is glad to make their little bit of child-life as pleasant as she can. Perhaps that ex- plains the bracelets. But leave the chil- dren for the present, and let us talk of pire Hyer, “Js it a particular river, mamma?” “Very particular. It is the Ganges, the sacred river of India.” Trypho jumped up and went for herA “BAG. OF- SEFORIES. 4! little globe, then stooped down in the fireshine. ‘“ Mamma,” she said, twirling the globe, “India is away, away off— clear across the world; and there’s the Ganges—see, Lex ?—the sacred river of India.” “What’s a sacred river?” demanded ex “A tiver -the people count holy. ‘Who can tell the holiness of the Gan- ges?’ say the Hindoos. ‘The man who gives alms and bathes in the Ganges will be free from all sin and dwell for- ever in the city of God.” “Then I should think they'd bathe all the time, if it’s as easy as that,” re- marked Lex. « And is she going to bathe the baby, to make him holy?” said Tryphosa. «“ Alas,no. But people do bathe there a great deal, Lex—thousands at a time,A BAG OF STORIES. A2 —each one hoping that ‘a dip in the Ganges cleanses from all sin.” ‘And: ‘so ~they ‘come out, “just «as waicked as jever,. said” Py. ‘Yes, and feel it too, fos next day they go in again. The women have certain special places, to which they come in crowds... Sick onestcay, «© it will do me good to bathe in the holy water ;’ and well ones answer you, ‘Do not speak against my Gunga, or I cannot stop to listen. One poor sickly woman came week after week with a basket of grain and a plate of flowers.” e\Wihat tor? @ said: dex “For an offering. First she took her bath, then threw grain and flow- ers into the river, then sat down and thought for a long time.” “QO mamma, what about?”a o ot R ~ MD oH ° i 3s ape BAG OE. STORIES: 43 “ldo not: know, Iry. feeling alter God, perhaps, as the Bible says: yearn- ine for some, one to tell her that. “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from alk sins x «Mamma, said Jeex, “4 wish you would please let the picture talk, be- cause .youre sure to: make 1 a mise sionary story.” 2 d “Very well,’ said the mother, with her gentle smile; “the picture may talk, and there shall not a missionary _ shew his face.- Then the story will stand some chance to be finished, for of course you will not interrupt the picture.” “You have heard enough of the river,’ so the picture began; “ now look at the woman. She is a Hindoo; and the Hindoos worship three hundred and thirty million gods,—not all at once,44 Ai bAG OF STORES. nor does every man serve every one, but they -have so many to choose from. Cows, monkeys, snakes, are all sacred to a Hindoo, and these are about the best of the things they worship. minone the worst’ is. Kali, Kali 46 called the goddess of vengeance. It would astonish you to see her image, ——an immense figure, painted blue, with four hands, and her tongue hanging out of her mouth. This tongue is of gold; and in one hand is a knife, in another a man’s head, while two are empty and lifted up.. On her neck is a necklace of human heads, round her waist is fastened a belt made of human hands, and she is decked all Over with jewels and stains of blood.” ex cited Ont at that, acd Try hid her face in her mother’s lap. “Mamma,” she said, «I wish youdA BAG OF STORIES. 45 tell the story and bring in six mission- aries.” « Wait,” -said. her mother; “let the picture go on.” “This woman worshipped Kali. Now it came to pass -one day that her only son fell ill. If he should die, there would be nothing left but a miserable little girl. This must be Kali’s doing; but what could have made her angry? Then the woman remembered that she had once listened to words spoken against Kali by a Christian, and, to pacify the angry image, she vowed great gifts to her if only her boy might get better; but the boy grew worse. Then, in her distress, she vowed a very terrible vow indeed— that if she ever had another son, she would sacrifice him to Kali if this one might live. The husband heard and gave his consent, and slowly from that46 A BAG OF -STORIES: time the little sick boy began to mend, and was soon quite well.” “Qh. I hope she didn’t have another baby!” cried Trypho. ‘“Why, of course she did,” said Lex, with a perceptible sniff in his voice. The picture went on: “ Yes, she did: long months after this, a lovely baby boy; and then it seemed as if the mo- ther's heart was slowly breaking. She would kiss him and fondle him, and fairly wash him with her tears; and now, people said, she never smiled any more. If any one came near her, she would clasp the baby tight; but the father took no notice of it in any way, trying to harden his heart for what must come.” “Guess his heart didn’t need much trying!” said Lex, hotly. “Luckie had lived six months when one day an old priest came and de-A= BAG OF - STORIES: AF, manded that the vow should be paid ; but the mother was so wild in her cries and entreaties for a little more delay, that though the priest was very angry, yet for that time he consented and went away, declaring that Kali would take vengeance; and the mother, wasting in a slow heart-fever, kept her baby for three months more. Then the father became ill; and when he got better she dared not wait any longer. The two par- ents, with the baby, went off to. one of the particularly holy places on_ the Ganges; and then one afternoon, while the baby was asleep, the mother took him up, threw one end of her veil over his face, and, walking off as fast as she could to the edge of the ttver, she flung him out into the waves as far as her strength would reach.” ‘Oh! ols cried both the children..45 A BAG OF STORIES. “Didn't she jump right in after him again? Didn't she cry her eyes all out?” “No,” said mamma (for the picture was not supposed to know any more); “she turned and walked away as fast as she could; and as for crying, the priest had told her that would spoil the sacrifice.” “Wicked old wretch!” cried Lex, while Try crept into her mother’s arms, and wept silently. ‘“I’d just like to pitch him in. But didn’t anybody pick up the baby-?” The mother hesitated, softly stroking T'ryphosa’s hair, and her own lips in a tremour. “T hardly like to tell you,” she said, “and yet it is best you should know. The little one sunk for a moment, and then as it rose a great alliga- tor bit off the pretty head, and theA BAG OF STORIES. AQ little body floated away in a red wave Of its Own Dliood.- But at that there came such a how] from Lex as broke up the conversation.CHAPTER TV. “Mamma,” said Trypho, as they came round the fire the next Sunday night, “if you had told the story, not making believe about the picture, would you have told it just so?” “Now hush up about that picture!” cried Lex, almost angrily. “I haven’t thought of anything else this whole week, and I want something to take the taste out of my mouth. Only if missionaries are any use at all, I don't see why they let such things happen.” “But you objected to having mis- sionaries.” “Mamma,” said Trypho, “how could people do so?”& BAG OF SLORIES. 54 “Fear and ignorance,” said the mo- Gren “*Ehe dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.’” “Dark: places =) “repeated ex: le that where the dark faces live?” “Net only there. . Uhe Lord Jesus ic the Light of the world; and wherever he-is not known that: place ic dane whether it be a country or a city or only one little human heart.” “Why dont they ask him to come and skzze then?” said Lex, with much emphasis. And the mother answered in the exquisitely pathetic words of Scripture: «« Flow then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard ? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach, except they be sent?’ ”=~ J2 A BAG (OF STORIES. Lex winked his eyes a little, but kept a bold front. “Maybe they wouldn’t let ’em, if they were, he said indefinitely. But she went on: “<«Flow beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things!’” “dre the people glad?” said Trypho, softly. “OQ so glad! Sending from far-off villages to beg that the teachers would come to them; asking with sorrowful wonder, ‘How long have you known about Jesus? Why did you never tell us before? Then our fathers and grand- fathers might have learned the way to heaven, and our children have lived to HOW: UDi. = P Lex gave a little sniff that was half tears and half scorn.A BAG OF STORIES. 52 “People don’t drown their babies ev- erywhere, I s'pose?” he said. “No, they are not always drowned, but in different ways a multitude of little ones are killed by their heathen parents. One poor Chinese mother af- ter. she became a Christian confessed, with bitter tears, that in the old days she had with her own hands put seven of her children to death.” «She should have become a Chris- tian sooner, said Lex, indignantly, “Wicked thing!” But his mother answered again, “‘ How shall they believe ia him of whom they have mot heard?’ ” « But still, mamma, I don’t understand how even heathen -could kill the chil- dren. said “Pry. «Sometimes because their own lives are miserable, and they think the chil-By. A BAG OF STORIES. dren's will be so too. Sometimes for a vow of fear, as with Luckie’s mother. And sometimes because heathen prac- tice has trampled out natural love, and they weary of taking care of anybody but themselves. Even ‘the tender mer- sies of the wicked are cruel.’” “Well,” said Lex, mounting to his feet and pulling out his little purse with an air of great resolution, “that thing has got to be stopped; and if mission- aries can do it they’d better begin. So here’s my three cents, mamma, and I’d like to have somebody sent off to the Ganges right alway." And ex ‘con: posed himself on the rug again, with a business air that was striking. The ‘mother looked from him to the little coin in her hand. “But Alexander,” Trypho began, “three cents—”A> BAG OF ‘STORIES. 55 « Three cents can do much with God’s blessing,” her mother interrupted her. «But now, Lex, you have something new to pray about.” “ My three cents?” queried Lex, look- ing up at her through half-shut eyes. «At least they weve mine. Mamma, I don’t believe that old priest would let a missionary do a single thing. Not if he went twenty times. But you can , ) try. « And you can pray,” said his mother, smiling. “Ask in faith, nothing waver- mie. hleres is 2 whole cent for each of us to ask about.” Lex laughed a little: the idea was pleasant. ‘But suppose the old priest shouldn't?” he said. « Lex,” said his mother, “nothing truly given to God is ever lost. Somewhere, somehow, he will use the gift. And56 A BAG OF “STORIES. though the priests are strong, the Lord is stronger. Pray in faith, give in faith, work in faith.” “I'd like to pitch that old fellow into the river first, though,” said Lex. “Ah, Christ died for him too, said the mother gently. And then there was a pause. ‘I'ryphosa spoke next. “Mamma, did you know that you . wrapped up one of my queer things in a piece of paper that wasn’t quite— am least it looked not guile — clean, mamma?” “So then you found two queer things together?” “The paper looked queer, because youre so particular,” said Try. ~“ There were just some bits of wood inside; and I thought maybe you were in a hurry, and didn’t know.” £O wes, I knew,” said the mother.A BAG OF STORIES. oF smiling. “It was more trouble to get that piece of soiled paper than almost anything else in the bag, Try.” “But mamma, it was gveasy,—’ and Try dropped her voice, as if it were disrespect to say the word of anything her mother had touched,—“and there are some queer-looking words on it.” “ves, know,” ssaid® the: mother “Come! that is the very story to tell you to-night. Away across the sea, in Spain, a certain colporteur came one day to a pretty village among the hills.” “A what, mamma?” said Try. “A colporteur: or you may call him a Bible peddler, for he carried a pack slung round his neck, and it was full of Bibles and Testaments.” “ Are they heathen in Spain?” asked Lex. “No: and yet many of the people58 A BAG OF STORIES. live in darkness, trusting in priests and. saints, and knowing very little about Jesus. ‘The priests bid and forbid, and the people dare not disobey, because they think the priests can keep them out of heaven.” Lex gave a little grunt of extreme disapprobation. “That's ‘most as bad as thinking the Ganges can let ’em in,” he said. “ Well, mamma ?” “Well,” said his mother, “when a place is so dark as that, the first thing — is to send in a light; and people in En- gland and America had given pounds, shillings and pence, with cents and dimes and dollars, to print a great many Spanish Bibles.” “ What's a Spanish Bible?” said Lex. “Our own Bible, only printed in Span- ish instead of in English. And now my colporteur, with his pack of blessedA BAG OF STORIES. 59 books, went forth to spread them far and wide among the people.” “Would he give them, mamma?” “ Ves, wherever the people were too poor to buy; and otherwise he would sell them for almost what we call cost price, and the money would be used for printing more. You must imagine the bright, hot sun, the little village nestled down among fig trees and or- ange trees and myrtles, with high hills rising up beyond.” “Not real orange trees, mamma?” “Real orange trees, with real oranges on them, and finer ones than you ever saw. lol sade ex; ‘1: cuess, Milk be a Bible peddler,to.go to Spain. . Mis- sionaries must have a jolly good time.” The mother smiled. “I dare say it all looked very lovely that day,’ she60 A BAG OF STORIES: said, “and no doubt the peddler’s heart was full of joy; and if it was the first time he had gone forth upon this work, I can fancy the lightsome gladness of every step. Was he not bringing ‘de- liverance to the captives’? the clear wa- ter of life to men all dying with thirst?” “If it was the first time, mamman Tryphosa repeated. ‘“ Wouldn't he like it the second time too=:: “Might get sick eating oranges,” sug- gested Lex, as an extreme possibility. ex) said his mother “wren your hammer was new you thought you could hit the nail on the head every time.” pecs: tome li didi t. though,” said Lex; “and I pounded- my fingers be- sides.” mile Word says, (Is not my word like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?’ And now with it my col-A BAG -OF. STORIES. 6] porteur was to attack men’s hearts of stone. And the first time, Try, we all think the stone will crumble at a touch; but then we learn how hard it is, and that the Lord’s own hand must wield the -hammer. I do not mean that the peddler forgot this. I ‘am sure, from what came after, that his heart was full of prayer as he walked along, and that he was trusting in Jesus, and only fol- lowing him; and so he came up to the little village, and at the entrance he stopped under a great chestnut tree, and set down his pack.” “(hestnuts!” said Lex. “Spanish chestnuts—like those you see roasted in the streets. hen he cpened his pack, took out a Bible, and began to talk.” “Who to? = said Lex. “Not many at first. A woman with62 A BAG JOF STORIES. her pitcher, a muleteer with his team, a boy gathering nuts. But if only one stands and listens while another stands and talks, their will soon be more. Ihe peddler held his little book- up high so that all might see, and spoke out loud so that all might hear; and soon he was the centre of a little crowd, all eagerly listening as he told of Jesus and the forgiveness of sins, and heaven.” “OQ mamma, had they never heard it belore? ~ said Iryphoy “and whee did they say ?/ “You can fancy, dear. One would cry, ‘That is good!’ and another, ‘ Give me a book!’ and another, ‘I'll take two!’ until presently our peddler had his hands full, what with telling and explaining and taking out books. Then the men stood turning over leaves andA BAG OF STORIES, 62 reading for themselves, here and there, questioning and commenting; and the more they read the better they liked it. According to the saying, ‘Thy words were found, and I did eat them,’ so stood the people, devouring the good tidings. The bakers boy ran over to hear; the vine-dresser left his pruning and came up, tools in hand.” “I'd like to have been there,” said Trypho, with shining eyes. “I wonder if he read them the tenth chapter of John.” ‘Tio, hol” -said Lex; “you may. dé= pend he read about Stephen.” “There was cause to think of Ste- phen pretty soon,” said their mother, “for in the midst of it all up came run- ning the village priest, in a great rage —running and storming, with words like hailstones and abuse that was worse64 A BAG OF STORIES. tian a eale of wind. ie cursed: the peddler, he cursed the people who had listened to him, he caught away the Bibles from their hands, and tore them up, and trampled the pieces under foot, threatening to turn anybody out of heaven who ever touched such things again.” “He'd have to get there first him- sel, remarked Lex. “The peddler told him the books were only good; and then the priest proposed to send zm straight out of the world, or at least to prison. So it went on, the peddler answering little, the terrified people silently stealing away Bic by one.’ “JT should have knocked him right down,’ said Lex, “and then when he got up hed have had some sense.” ‘xh, you will not dv. for a. BilleA BAG OF STORIES. 65 Peddler “yet,” said Ais mother. “The ond: said, «ff my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight’; but as it is they must often suffer wrong. And | suppose by de- grees the gentle meekness of the col. porteur had its effect, for the priest finally let him go, but bidding him look out for his life if he ever came that way again. So he Shut his pack and walked sadly away, and the rest of the crowd all scattered: the priest went home: and there was nothing left but the old tree, with the white Bible pages strewing the ground beneath it, ike the trees own leaves in autumn. When all was quiet, the baker, who had been peeping out of his shop the whole while, crept softly out, and gath- ered up the leaves to tie his cakes in. So much good wrapping-paper must not 566 Ao BAG ‘OF STORIES. be lost, and it couldn't make heretics of his macaroons.” “OQ I’m glad the peddler didn't see him,” cried Tryphosa, almost in tears, “rolling up cake in the Bible! Think of my tenth chapter!” “Wouldn't it have been braver to stay and go to prison and be killed?” said Lex, who was often disposed to be critical. “If it would have done any good; but this time it seemed to be the Lord's will that the peddler should live and carry his Bibles to other places. Months passed away, and he was still busy in a far distant part of Spain; and the baker sent out his cake in the strange wrappings, and the people whispered over their work, ‘ Well, that wasn't a bad man at all, and the things he ‘told were good.’ A long while after thisA BAG OF STORIES. 67 it became needful for the peddler to re- turn to the city from which he had first set out. Now he had by no means forgot- ten the little village, and still less did he intend to go there again; but travelling on among hills and cross-roads he some- how missed his way, and one day just as the sun was setting he suddenly came to a little hamlet, and knew it for the very same.” “Did he run away?” said Lex. “That was the first thought. But the turn into any other road was miles be- hind him, the country was wild, with woods and hills and robbers in plenty, but no boats nor cars nor stage-coaches, and it was almost night. Perhaps in the gathering dusk no one would notice him; but anyhow his way lay through the village, and through he went.” “Right straight through?” said Lex.68 A BAG OF, STORIES: “Straight through. And if his heart beat quick, it yet rested in God,-so that his step was firm. Looking neither to right nor left, he passed along, and was well-nigh through the village, when just as he reached the old chestnut tree a man came running up from behind. ‘ Holla!’ he said. ‘Aren't you the book-man? Weren’t you here three months ago?’ ” Lex looked up eagerly, for when he was frightened it was always a tempta- tion to_say yes and no in the wrong place. “The old priest said hed kill him if he came back,” he remarked. “Truly the peddler had not forgotten, but he answered, ‘Yes. When the man waved his hat, and shouted, ‘ Mr. Book- man! Mr. Bookman! here’s Mr. Book- man!’ And the people came running Wo, irom. all: directions, < klere she isA BAG OF -STORIES.” 69 that’s he!’ The peddler could hardly make himself heard as he told them that he was merely passing through their village this time and would on no account delay. ‘Have you got any more books?’ cried the people. ‘Books! books! open your pack!’ And in the midst of the confusion up came ee priest again, running faster than ever,’ “O= dear!” cried’ Lex, putting his head down on the tug; “its too bddl I guess I'll go to bed.” Tryphosa pulled out her handkerchicf, “Wait a minute, faithless little boy,” said his mother, smiling. “ All thr rough that summer when the people had found their cake wrapped up in those won- derful leaves they kept the leaves and read them; and by and by one was converted, and by and by another, and now even the priest wanted a book.7O A BAG ©F SIORIES. So the peddler spent the night there rejoicing, and next day, without a single book left in his pack, he set forward to the great city to get more; and the | people blessed him till he was out of sight. Which all means, children: ‘Com- mit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.’ ” « And that’s one of the leaves,” said Trypho, holding up the little paper, with its grease spots where the cake had been.CHAPTER WV. ‘“FIERE’s something very heavy to- night, mamma,” said Tryphosa, slowly unrolling her piece of ivory; “and Lex said I might bring it, though last Sunday night was mine too. Wasn't it good of him?” “Not particularly,” remarked Lex, “be- cause I wanted to hear about the thing myself. What is it, anyhow, mamma?” ile is a whales tooth. oa wades toot: ered: ex, “(© the whale that swallowed Jonah!” ‘Alexander! said” Itypho; “what can you be thinking of? Jonah wasn’t a missionary.” ‘e@ wasnt he though!. said: bex:72 A BAG OF STORIES. “1s pose he didn't go to preach to the Ninevites, and upset ’em all into sack- cloth and ashes! Jonah not a mission- ary—ho!” « Alexander,” Trypho repeated, ‘“‘mam- ma is laughing at you.” horive me, Lex; it was. hacd nes to laugh a little,” said his mother. “ Yes, Jonah was an old-time missionary. But as to the whale: if a whale could live from Jonah’s day to ours—’ “Hed have wanted a new set of tect, I guess; broke in’ Lex. << Bee pardon, mamma. So you think it wasn’t that whale?” “Tam pretty sure it was not. I think this whale lived in the seas of our west- ern hemisphere; but just where it was taken I cannot say. I only know where this one tooth was bought. Turn over your globe, Trypho, and far down inA BAG OF STORIES. 73 the southwest corner of the great Pacific ocean you will find a group of islands called the Fiji. They lie to the north of New Zealand, and much to the south of the Sandwich Islands.” “And west of ’most everything till you come to Austraha,”’ said: Lex. —“The Fiji Islands. They don’t look like much.” “Such little specks!” said Tryphosa. “ Little specks on your little globe; but on this real round earth on which we live they are a group of many islands, and some of them very big. There are more than two hundred of them, Try, though not more than seventy or eighty are lived in by men and women.’ “More than two hundred islands,” said Trypho; “and out ‘in the sea? QO, what a pretty place!” For Try had had one glimpse of the salt water, and had fallen deeply in love with it.7A A BAG OF STORIES. Ves, osaid the mother, “Pit 1 beau- tiful to look at, whether you take the larger islands, which are ninety and a hundred miles long, or the twenty-five- mile islands, or the little dainty green spots that are not a mile across, or even the uninhabited ‘specks.’ Some of them were thrown up from the bed of the sea by volcanoes, and some are all coral below, while above are palm trees, co- coanuts, bananas, sandal wood, bread- fruit, oranges, yams, pineapples and more other: things than -F can fel: Then in the sea are brilliant-hued fish, red and purplish—green and gold col- our, among the large sorts, with shoals of little beauties, the deepest blue or the richest green, and so small that you could keep a dozen in a tumbler. There are blue starfish and orange-col- ored starfish; and corals of every shadeA BAG (OR: STORIES: 75 and tmt risé up and make’ a- perfect under-water rainbow round some of the islands, marking off the clear blue of the harbours from the purple waves of the great sea. And wherever ‘the surf rolls in upon a coral beach it breaks in snow-white lines of foam.” “Oh, mamma!” cried Tryphosa, clasp- ing her hands, “oh, dear mamma, let's go to Fiji next summer!” ‘Sounds rather better than your great Nahant,” said Lex, who had not seen salt water. «Next summer?” said the mother, smiling. ‘Next summer would be the Fijian winter. The hottest months in Fiji are November, December and Jan- uary. «Why mamma!” said Try. “When ever do they have Christ- mas?’ said Lex.-who had eaten the most was the best 76 A BAG OF STORIES. “OQ Fiji is on the other side of.- the world, you know, and of course things there seem to us upside Gown: and as for Christmas, Lex, a few years ago no one in Fiji had ever heard of the Saviour for whom Christmas is named, and of course they knew noth- ing of the day itself. The people were all heathen, and very dreadful heathen. Their king might have been called the king of the Cannibal Islands, for I think they were the worst cannibals in all the world.” “Cannibals?” said’ Lex, —« They’re the folks that eat other folks. This grows interesting. Well, mamma?” “Mamma, they didn’t really eat peo- pice said Irypho, with.a- voice face pleaded against the dreadful truth. “ Indeed they did, Try: and the oneA BAG OF STORIES. 77 fellow, and would boast of his doings. One chief set up a stone for every hu- man body he had eaten, and before he died the stones numbered about three hundred.” « And that meant three hundred whole people!” cried Trypho, with wide-open eyes. “JT don’t believe he told true,’ said Lex. ‘Three hundred! Why, one man would last him a year, wouldn't it?” “Really I cannot give precise dates on that point,’ said mamma, With 2 shioht ishiver; ‘but there-is no doubt the story is true.” «“ He must have been a whopper,’ said Lex. “I s’pose there was nobody big enough to eat hem.” “J forget whether it was that man’s son, or another, who had eaten sixty- eight when the missionaries came. Then78 A BAG OF STORIES. he was converted, and so his row of stones was never finished.” The children gazed at her. “But, mamma,’ said Lex, somewhat indefinitely, “did they eat themselves ? When a Fiji man said the baby looked good enough to eat, did he mean it?” “Lex,” said his mother, “ your imagi- nation has no nerves. No, they did not generally eat ‘themselves,’ nor even each other. For the most part it was the captives taken in war time (and war time is always, among savages), or stran- gers wrecked on the islands, or a man’s special enemies. Although if .a great chief was building a new canoe, he would often have several men killed as ‘food for the carpenters,’ and then two of three: more, that the new. decks might be first washed down with blood; and it has happened that a chief bade———— —— a3 A BAG OF STORIES. 79 his only wife fetch wood and grass and leaves for the oven, and a bam- boo to cut up the meat, and then coolly killed her and cooked her and Cat her up... “TI wonder which tasted best,” said Lex, with a speculative face, “his friends or his enemies.” But Trypho hid her face in her mother’s lap. ‘Mamma,’ she said, “it’s too dread- ful! I wouldn’t go to Fiji for anything in the world!” ‘Nice missionary you'd make!” said Lex. “ Wait, mamma, please; I’ve got an armful of questions. How could he cut things with a bamboo?” “A piece of slit bamboo was the com- mon butcher-knife in Fiji. The cutting up is generally all done before the cook- ing; then the different pieces are wrap- ”) ped in leaves and laid in the oven.5O A BAG -OF STORIES: “There’s another thing,’ said Lex; “what's the oven like?” “O it is just a hole in the ground, larger or smaller as need requires. For preparing a great feast the oven may be ten feet deep and fifty feet across. But whatever the size, it is first filled with firewood, and upon this is laid a quantity of large stones. Then the wood is kindled, and by the time it is quite burned down. the stones are hot and lying at the bottom of the oven. Now whatever is to be cooked is heaped up- on these stones—fish, pigs, turtles, yams, sweet potatoes, mussels—and over them is spread a thick layer of green leaves, and upon that a layer of earth four inches deep. Then the cooks sit about, and get ready their leaf dishes and cocoanut shells; and when the steam begins to puff out through the leavesA BAS OF STORIES, SI and earth it is a sign that the cooking iss done.” “That's just like our clam-bake,” said Try, proud of her small seaside eX peri- ence. “Ho!” said Lex; “your clam-bake was a mighty affair! I guess all your people kept outside the oven.” “ Alexander,” said Try, “they never put people in those pretty ovens!” “Ah, yes, they do,” said the mother, “though not often with anything else. And while Fijians will eat other things with their fingers, for human flesh they use a special kind of fork. See, here is a picture of one. This was a foot and a half long, made of dark wood, polished and carved, and you see it has four prongs.” The children studied it with grave faces. ee ee said Lex, “couldn’t you82 A BAG OF STORIES. have got the real thing instead of the ICtUTe t « “Indeed no!” said the mother ear- nestly; “I would not have had you touch anything so dreadful.” «Well, I'll tell you what / think,” said Lex; “I think the sooner such folks eat each other up the better. I won't send any missionaries ¢here, I know.” Then the mother answered, “‘ The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.’ ” “Ves, said Lex, judicially, but it’s no use there. Why, while my mis- sionary was talking to ‘em, they'd eat him up.” “Mamma, said Trypho, “ how. did my shark’s tooth get to Fyi? It didn’t ever help kill anybody?” And the lit- tle girl drew off and looked askance at the yellow ivory.A BAG OF STORIES. 8 ‘No; it helped save life,” said the mo- ther, “and this was the way: Years ago, when things were at their worst in Fiji, a band of missionaries. had been sent from England to the Friendly Isles (look on the globe, children), and some of the natives had become Christian. They were not cannibals there, but still the heathen darkness was black enough. There followed then, in the year 1834, a great revival in the little native church of Tonga; and the people, all astir with their new Christian zeal and love, began to remember poor Fyi and to pray for her. ‘Then some one must carry a light into that dark: place..- The people of Tonga had not enough missionaries for themselves, and- yet they were ready to divide with Fijii—just as one hungry man will share his last loaf with another.” “They weren't hungry for anything84 A BAG OF STORIES. but people, in Fiji,” said Lex. “Jy missionary shouldn’t have gone.” « Fiji was dying of want without know- ing it, then, if you like to put it so; and the happy Christians in Tonga were ready for anything that would give Fiji the bread of life. Two missionaries were set apart to go, and after a little waiting they went on board a small sailing ves- sel, and in four days reached Fiji.” “Guess their wives had cried their eyes out by that time,’ remarked Lex. «Their wives were missionary wives, and went along.” “ But they'd be eaten,’ said Lex,—-“and then how would the missionary husbands ec “Alexander, do stop, satd “Eryehe. “Mamma, do you think they told the Lord when he sent them, as Ananias did about Saul?”A BAG: -OFs. STORIES: 85 nn, dos not: doubt it: saying not only ‘Lord, we have heard,’ but « Lord, thou knowest.’ But now, as then, the Lord made answer ‘Go;’ and if there were grave fears on board the little vessel, I am sure there were quiet hearts. “Every spare minute that came the missionaries studied this new language to which they were going, and then they landed in Fiji, with only the word of the Lord in their hearts, and in their hands a letter from the king of dtonga. Whe little ship Jay om and on, while her boat bore the mission- aries to the shore; and as it drew near a great crowd came together, running and shouting and making signs. And such a looking crowd you never saw. They are dark-skinned people, as you know; not quite black, as some African86 A BAG. OF SLORIES. tribes, but much darker than the Chi- nese, and of a very peculiar tint. Some one has said that if our American In- dianS are the red men, Fijians may properly be called purple men.” “But that is frightful,” said Tryphosa. eS eurple men!” (No, it isnt; ts queer, said wes “How funny they must look in their white summer suits!” “They do—in ¢hezr summer suits, which indeed are winter suits as well; for a Fijian wears but one garment the year round. The native cloth is made of pieces of tree bark beaten out and glued together, sometimes figured and stained in a gay pattern, sometimes just plain white or brown; and the man’s dress is a strip, from three yards long to a hundred of such cloth. This he winds about him, over the hips, andA BAG OF STORIES. 87 with sometimes a turn or two round the body higher up, and then both ends are left trailing behind.” “OQ hot said Lex. “7zots where your trains come from, Miss Try.” “J haven’t any trains,” said Try. ‘“But- you want. em." “One learns to dislike a good many things in heathen lands,” said the mo- ther. ‘Commodore Wilkes, of the Uni- ted States Exploring Expedition, used to say that ear-rings always reminded him of nose-jewels; and he never could bear to see even young women with bare neck and arms. ‘Cover up your shoulders!’ he would admonish them; ‘I have been among the heathen.’ For the women’s dress in Fiji is but a broad beautifully-braided band of roots and bark and grass, with a deep fringe, tied round the waist with wide strips of bass,88 A BAG SOF STORIES: the ends of which, on state occasions, are also left trailing.” “Mamma,” said Trypho, ‘do you mean that the Fiji people wear nothing else —no clothes?” “A good deal else, Trypho, but not much that is like clothes. Pink and white shell armlets, shell finger-rings, ivory bands at the ankle and knee, neck- laces of dog’s teeth, shark’s teeth, the jawbones of bats, the backbones of snakes, and beads made out of shells. Then on the dark naked breast a pearl shell as large as a plate, a boars tusk or two, or white and yellow cowries. On the forehead perhaps a tuft of scar- let feathers; in the ears great rings ten inches in circumference, or a straight piece as thick as your finger, or even as your wrist.” “Ts that all?” said Lex, with deep irony.A BAG OF STORIES. 89 “By no means; said -the. mother, smiling. “Some wear a long garland of flowers and vines thrown over one shoulder and falling to the waist, or fillets of dry grass upon the legs and arms. Others have spots burned in a regular pattern down the back and sides and arms, leaving white scars.” “Bamed|” ered dex, = *on't if nace to burn yourself, down there?” “ Doubtless; but what will not men and women endure for fashion—and beauty? -Thé women’ are oiten - fat tooed also, shewing blue spots at the corners of the mouth and barbed lines on the fingers. Many men wear a great white fleecy turban, and everybody paints, and dresses his hair.” “Paints ie said Try. “Why, they are purple already.” “That ts not enough, in Fiji; but the90 A BAG OF STORIES. ways of improving the colour are various. One man paints his entire face bright red. One paints his half black and half yellow, the dividing line coming straight down through his nose. Another has it all black, but touched up with red and yellow spots. Another is yellow with black lines—the lines going up and down on one side of the face and straight across on the other. One man shows yellow chin and cheeks with a scarlet forehead; while the next has black fore- head and cheeks and a yellow chin, and the next face is completely quartered —two opposite corners yellow, one black and one red.’ “Mamma, stop and let me laugh,” said Lex; “I can’t take time while you are talking. Ain’t I glad I’m an Ameri- Cayo i ie leone “ Yes, said his mother.A -BAG OF-~ STORIES. Q1 hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.” “T suppose they don’t dress their hair as. we do, -satd Try, “those queer Ti people.” “The hair-dressing has as many va- rieties as the face-painting. Chiefs and rich men keep regular hair-dressers, who spend hours a day upon their masters’ heads; but how shall I tell what the finished heads are like! First of all the hair is dyed with one or more col- ours: jet black, blue black, ashy white, and various shades of red; young people generally preferring bright red and flax- en. Then it is combed and stiffened and smoothed into the desired shape, with a sleek, even surface that makes the head look as if cut in marble. And some heads, Lex, some finished heads, would measure three feet round.”92 A BAG OF STORIES. “Well, I should think,” said Lex, “that a fellow with a vermilion face, and three feet round of white and_ yellow hair, would look decidedly sweet.” “And a purple man, to begin with,” said Try. Whereupon the children had a good laugh. |The" heads “are. not “all” so. larce, though some are even larger; but the styles are many. One head seems cov- ered with stiff paint-brushes, sticking out in all directions; a part of the hair being cut away, and the rest combed out and stiffened into that shape; and another is shaved clean, except for a great patch at each side; while yet another is shaved in front and on top, and then the hair behind is brushed up into a tall fan. This head looks like a great black mop, with a brilliantly-white roll in front, and )A BAG OF STORIES. 93 _this one seems covered with a crinkly, curly worsted cap. Nothing disturbs these structures but the rain or the dew; the most violent heathen dancing does not ‘turn a hair.’ Only remember, I am speaking of things as they weve in Fiji. Much of that strange, wild hair- dressing has, I think, passed away; for when people begin to act like Chris- tians, they will soon cease to look like heathen. “But it was among just such a look- ing crowd, children, that the first mis- sionaries landed in Fyi; and when you add the wild outcries in a strange tongue, and furnish the men with heavy knotted clubs and spears ten or fifteen feet long, and battle-axes of hard wood, you can well believe that the landing was a sober thing. I think, as the little boat drew near the: shore, more than one’ heart94 A BAG OF STORIES. may have taken up the old appeal, ‘ Nei- ther know we any more what to do; but our eyes are upon thee. ~ “Didn't they wish themselves away?” Gatel [Lex, “Why no; for just this they had come; and their minds were far quieter than yours when the red cow looks at you; but only because the Lord was their trust. There was nothing about the first Wesleyans who went to Fiji that was not quiet. The helmet of salvation rested securely upon their heads; the shield of faith guarded every weak point. What could barbed arrows do, where even ‘the fiery darts’ of the devil were quenched and useless?” “My mother would do just so,” said Trypho proudly. ene. aint a-going !’\-“said Bex “We're good enough heathen for herA BAG OF STORIES. 95 I guess. And she couldn’t take us, because they eat up children down there.” “T don’t know about that,” said the mother, ‘but they certainly used to kill them in untold numbers. On some of the islands, more than half the children were always put to death. ‘Why should a girl live?’ said the people; ‘can she swing a club? will she throw a spear?’ Or if the mother tired of the care of her baby, she would smother it with her own hand, and dig-a hole at her side, and throw it in. Then sick peo- ple were strangled, to save trouble; and very old people were smothered, or drowned, or buried alive, to get them out of the way.” ‘Mamma, said Lex, pulling out his little purse, “I think I’d better give you my five cents right away, before I forget96 A BAG OF STORIES. and give it to somebody else. Because I don’t choose to have the babies choked, if it azz’¢t much use for ’em to live. Nor the poor old folks, neither.’ And Lex laid the bright half-dime in his mother’s hand, “Why, Alexander,” said Trypho, “youre giving away all your money! Now you've. only fifty cents left.” “Can't help that,” said Lex. “This thing has got to be stopped.” “I don't see how you can stop such men, satd Try. “There is an old promise to the Lord's people,” said the mother, “ which reads thus: ‘A little one shall become a thousand.’ It is what St. Paul meant when he said, ‘I can do all things through Christ.’ And if ever the words were magnificently carried out, they were in Fijii Among such wild hea-A BAG OF STORIES. 97 then as I have described, the little band of Wesleyans began their work, and for many a long, weary month they laboured. on amid the thick. darkness— ‘darkness that might be felt ’—until at last the morning broke and the day star arose over Fiji. But what the mis- sionaries suffered in the meantime, none but~ the Uord= will ever know: They were sick, they were threatened, they were heart-broken with the terrible things around them, and which for a long time they could not stop. Some- times when a cannibal feast was pre- paring, the ovens were dug close by their home; and then, as the frightful festivities went on, the missionaries could only close their blinds and pray—pray, perhaps, the whole night through. Their crops were destroyed, their food was stolen; often, moment by moment, they by 498 A BAG OF STORIES. expected to see their murderers rush ies “Well, I should have gone away and saved ’em the trouble,’ said Lex. «They went away—some of them— after awhile,’ said the mother, her cheek flushing, “but not back to England. ‘And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.’ Invitations and ships were not wanting. But they never wav- ered, nor quitted Fiji till God himself called them to a better country, and by a shorter voyage. Mr. Waterhouse died, crying with his latest breath, ‘ Mis- sionaries!. missionaries! missionaries!’ John Hunt, broken down with six years’ intense labour, forbidden to speak, lay still awhile, weeping silent tears; then lifting his hand. erted out: ©“@O) letemeA BAG OF STORIES. 99 pray once more for Fiji! Lord, bless Eiji Save yt) Ehou knowest my soul has loved Fiji!’” “Don’t see how he could,” said Bex shortly. “You see how he dd. And oh, by this time many of the people loved him. They came together, weeping, praying that their missionary might recover; one chief, who was formerly a fierce terror in the islands, now pleading, ‘ Lord, take me—take ten of us—but spare thy ser- vant to preach Christ to the people.’ But the time was come for John Hunt fos test.. | The mother was silent a little; then suddenly took up the whale’s tooth. “Tam forgetting my story,” she said. “Visitors had come to the island of Mbau, bringing presents to the king, and of course they must be feasted; and ) cerIOO A BAG OF STORIES. also of course, for the honour of the island, it must be a cannibal feast; but there were no prisoners on hand. ‘We will seek for enemies, said the chief of the fishermen, who was also the chief provider for feasts; ‘and if we can't get enemies, we will take friends. And if we can find neither, some of ourselves must be strangled; for human beings we must have, or Mbau will be dis- graced.’ So they manned their canoes and sailed away, truly ‘seeking whom they might devour;’ and by and by word came back to Mbau that the boats were returning with a load of women. The news spread, the excited people came running to the shore, and before long this message reached the mission- house on the island of Viwa: ‘ Fourteen women will be brought to Mbau to- morrow, to be killed and cooked.’A BAG. OF SEORTES, IOT “Now just at this time all the men of the mission were far away on another island, and only Mrs. Lyth and Mrs, Calvert, with their children, were at the mission-house, and there was not a mo- ment to lose. So what do you think these two brave women did, little daugh- ter?” said the mother, wistfully stroking Try’s head. “They got a canoe, and some one to row it, and set forth alone for Mbau.” 7 “But. what for? 2 cried ‘Lex, © Bhat would make sixteen women!” “I think they must have said, with Queen Esther, ‘I will go. And if I perish, I perish.’ For ‘ hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. And surely nothing but love—love to God and love to his creatures—could102 A BAG OF STORIES. have kept their hearts steady as they drew near Mbau, and heard the shouts, the roll of the death-drum, and every now and then a shriek. But through that awful din sounded the eager voices of the two Englishwomen, urging on their boatmen to greater speed.” Whe mother paused. Try crept inte her arms, and Lex stood at her knee with his eyes aglow. “Children, she becan’ acam, ‘itis said of the Lord Jesus, that ‘when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them;’ and now when these two missionaries lifted up their eyes, they seemed to see jesus only. As they sprang out of the boat, a Christian chief ran up to them, crying, ‘Make haste! some are dead, but some. are alive! They hurried on, right through the bloody crowd, and up to the king’s house, whichA> BAG OF SPOREES, 103 all women were forbidden to enter, un- der pain of death. And Tanoa, the old king, was himself a very great cannibal.” “Then what did they go there for?” said Lex, pounding his mother’s knee and knitting his brows. “Only the king could stop the mur- ders. On they ran, the two pale women, with the dark-skinned chief beside them; and with a whale’s tooth in each hand they pressed right in to the presence of the king, and made their prayer.” “OQ my dear whale’s tooth!” cried Trypho, laying her cheek against it and then bursting into tears. “What was the good of that?” said Lex, with another pound. ‘““Whale’s teeth were the only ivory brought to Fiji, and so were very pre- cious; and were the usual gift from any one asking favours of the king. You1O4 Aap NG, OF STORES: can imagine how astounded the king was when the two women came rushing in; and as he was very deaf, they had to raise their voices and tell their story twice over. And then, as the Lord would have it, he was so struck with their courage—admired it so much, per- haps—that he not only forgave them, but answered to their petition: ‘Those who are dead, are dead; but those who are alive shall live only;’ and at once a messenger darted away with the tid- ings. Alas, it was too late to save them all,’ said the mother, withasigh. “Nine poor creatures had been already mur- dered, and there were only five to be Serine. “Well, that was a great deal, mam- ma, said Try. “A great deal. And from the king’s house Mrs. Calvert and Mrs. Lyth wentA BAG OF STORIES. 105 to the chief fisherman, who was sitting up in full dress after arranging his feast, and rebuked him sharply for his evil work. Then they went home.” “Safe, mamma?” said Try. fate, -71he andellcof the Lord en: campeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.’ ” “They didn’t see the angel,” said ex “No; but they had learned this, ex: -SWhat- time =F am alraid = will trust in thee.’ And when you can do that, with all your heart, it matters very little what you see.” * | wonder: said dex. meditatively, “if one could keep off the red cow that way.”CHAPTER V1 “Mamma,” said Lex, “Try gave me some sugar-plums for a piece of my big drawer, and now her things keep running over into my side, and she'll have the whole drawer pretty soon.” “«] “might as ..well, said Dayphe: «My things are really important, and yours are just rubbish—old strings and scraps and muss.” “It’s my muss, though, and I like ” “it said Ibex so keep out!™ “Gently, gently, poor little red man,” said the mother, laying her hand on Ie ead. “Iry has never heard the story of her deerskin purse.” “Has that anything to do with my (108)A BAG. OF STORIES. 107 drawer?” said Lex. “Because if it has, ma’am, I wish youd tell it right off. Why I’ve just routed out that very purse from under all my kite-tails.” “I think Try was partly the sufferer then,” said his mother, laughing. “Yes, and if you look like that, mamma will call you a red boy again,” said his sister. “She hasn’t done it the first time ver said Lex. “But go ahead, mamma, please. Try’s got the purse in her pocket, and my image can wait.” And Lex threw him- self down upon the rug to listen. “T don’t know what you mean about the story,” said Try. “He laid down a ruler to mark off his side, mamma, and I just pushed it a little bit two or three times because my things were crowded.” “Fro!” satd Lex. “That's fine rea- soning! Well, ma’am?”108 A BAG OF STORIES. ‘Tt isenear four hundred=yeéars;’. she began, “since this great continent was discovered; and when the pale-faces first landed in North America, and for - many a long year after, the country was full of red men.” ‘Andians, * said Juex... “I: know: that ‘Red-handed red men, Mr. Demo calls fwem. “Tush!” said his mother; “ never do you call them so. When all white hands are ‘pure from the blood of all men, then we may dare give hard names to our dark-skinned heathen neighbours.. There will be a strange overthrow of “human judgments in that day when ‘he who knew his Lord’s will and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes, and he who knew it not ‘with few.’ Yes, the land was full of red men. Not red like Trypho’s cheeks,A BAG OF STORIES. 109 but a coppery red, and with black eyes and black hair. Like most savages they were divided off into tribes, each tribe having its chief; and, according to universal custom in the heathen world, the women did the work and the men did the play. They hunted the buffalo, they tracked the deer, they trapped the beaver, they fished, smoked, eat and fought. On the other hand, the women planted and hoed the corn, took care of the children, made the mit- tens and moccasins, cooked, put up the tents and took them down, and in all family removals carried thé tent-poles and other household stuff on their shoulders, unless a pony happened to be part of the family wealth.” “Nice men, I must say!” remarked Trypho, with strong disapproval. “Well, women can sweep and dust“IO AS BAG OF -STOREBSs better than they can hunt,” said Lex, a touch of original barbarism shewing itself. “There is no sweeping and dusting in an Indian tent. Imagine a number of long poles set round in a circle, but slantwise, so that they can be tied to- gether. near the top. On this frame: work are stretched buffalo hides or deer skins, or even (in some of the tribes) birch bark or mats. The fire is built in the middle, and a hole over- head lets off part of the smoke.” “What becomes of the rest?” que- ried Lex. “It wanders round among the people below, and helps keep them warm.” “But I should think the fire would Dien the Hoor, said Pry. Piltere is.no floor but sthe bare ground, and no furniture. The door is of skin or birch bark like the rest, hingedA BAG OF STORIES, ITE on with strings, and in bad weather tied fast down, except at one corner, which you can turn -back and so Cheep iia, The roof-hole too has a skin shutter to be shut up on occasion,” “Se if it rains they just sit in the smoke,” said ary. “Yes, a wigwam is a cold, dark, smoky place, like the lives that are lived there: -.No books, no tables or chairs or bedsteads. “A blanker or ews lie in one place, a few dressed skins in another, a kettle, a pan; a basket of roots or a sack of corn, stand here and there. The men are away on the hunt or the war-path, the squaw sits on the floor weaving baskets or fringing new leggings for her husband, and the baby stands in a corner.” “Then I just guess he tumbles down,” said Lex, “and squalls, too.”112 A’ BAG OF STORIES. “Wrong on both points,’ she an- swered, smiling; “he cannot fall down, for he is tied fast in his cradle, and he cannot move. The cradle is in three pieces: a board for the back, a. little board or hoop at one end for a foot- rest, and at the other a bow or arch which springs across from side to side, and guards the baby’s head. These pieces are ~ pegeed’ together, or tied with deer’s sinews, and are carved out of maple or bass-wood, and very light. Then a moss bed. is laid in the cradle, the baby is wrapped in a blanket and put in place (no clothes, Try), and then round the whole thing—pappoose and cradle—goes fold after fold of the finest cloth the mother can get, wrought with beads, and tied and decked with the prettiest trimmings she can find. Very proud she is of her cradle, and theA BAG OF STORIES. ris baby looks just like a small mummy: hands and feet, arms and legs, are bound fast, and only ‘the head and neck are left free.” © and “he can’ kick? said Trypho. | Nota bite -On-a journey the mo- ther hangs the whole thing round her neck by a loop of bark or deer skin, tosses it over her back, and away she goes. The thick-set forest twigs can- not reach the little face, protected by its wooden arch; even a fall would not matter. If the mother stops to rest she hangs the baby on a tree, and in the wigwam on ‘the cradle Peo. OF stands it up against the wall like an umbrella.” “And he don’t yell?” inquired Lex. “Not as our babies would; the little Indian seems to be learning his first lessons of self-control and silent endur- 81A A BAG OF STORIES. ance. The small brown face peers out from the top of the package, the big black eyes wonder patiently at this strange world.” But something flushed the mother's own eyes then, and she paused suddenly. «Well, I do say babies have the hardest time in those heathen places,” quoth Lex. “Mamma, I don’t like it!” said Try- pho, half Feady:, £0. cry... “ Don't they every take ’em out and play with ‘em?” “They play without taking them out. The pappoose is rocked to sleep on a tree branch or swung there for pleasure; the wooden arch over his eyes is often hung with trinkets to amuse him when the mother is busy, and if you could see a game of bo-peep at the door of a wigwam you would learn, Try, that Indian babies know how to laugh.”A BAG OF STORIES. 115 “Ah, tell us!” cried both the chil dren. oO what do they say?” ss Suppose the pappoose and his older Sister are at play. The cradle hangs in a tree, the dusky face peering over. The Indian girl sings in a smal like the baby’s: 1 voice ‘““* Who is this ? who is this ? eyebright bringing , To the roof of the lodge ?’ i Then she mimics a bird’s cry and an- swers: ““ Kob-kob-kob (it is I, the little owl), (Coming !) Kob-kob-kob. (Coming !) Kit che—kit che! (Down ! down My And as she darts towards it down goes | the little head, and baby and girl shout together.” “Ah, how nice!” said line Now the lullaby, mamma?”L1O he BAG OF STORES. «Here is one that is very simple and very sleepy: « «Swinging, swinging, lullaby, Sleep, sleep, sleep. Little daughter, lullaby, Swinging, swinging, swinging. 29? « That's good, sate Bin. | laa glad she says ‘little daughter "—poor red squaw!” “Tt’s not so very sleepy, though,” said Lex, critically. « Ah, you should hear them sing in Indian!—‘ Wa wa, wa wa, wa we yea. I shall go to sleep myself.if I say any more. The children laughed and clapped their hands. «But I don’t see why you said ‘a pan,’ mamma,’ said Try, going back in thought to the wigwam. “Dont they have any dishes?” (Ves, pretuy he birch bark ahaies,and others carved out of wood, and in old times they made pottery. Now, of’ course, they can buy from the traders. But an Indian does not trouble himself much about change of plates. “If his pan will not hold all the dinner, why, turn out the potatoes on a corner of his blanket, and send back the pan for turnips.” “What is he doing with a blanket, at dinner time?” said Lex. “That is often the most important part of his dress—a blanket or a deer- skin robe, or one made of squirrel skins. Then leather leggings and moccasins, and a wonderful headdress of feathers. They are a wild, roving people by nature, never caring to stay too long ta a place; and so when deer grow scarce or fish become shy they strike tents and away. The red man shoulders his A BAG OF STORIES. 117,118 A BAG OF STORIES. gun, his wife and the pony load. up the rest, and off they tramp to some fresh hunting ground.” «Guns like ours?” said Lex. «Like ours now, when they are so easy to get; but in the long-ago days they had only bows and arrows—won- derful arrows, Lex, with heads of stone —-and stone-headed spears and stone hatchets and tomahawks; for until the pale-faces came they knew nothing about iron.” “Then I should just like to hear,” said Lex, closing his right eye with the air of one who propounds a difficulty, “how they made their arrow-heads and things. You cant cut stone without iron, ma’am.” «Wise little boy,” said his mother, smiling, “ you have yet to learn the grand truth that when a thing zs, it isA BAG OF STORIES. II9Q quite useless to say it cannot be. There are the stone things remaining—differ- ently shaped, I have been told, accord- ing to the tribe; and we can only sup- pose that the red men cut one stone with another. I think it is said that they themselves cannot do it now. Many other curious things they fash- ioned in those days—needles out of fish bones and thread from the sinews of a deer’s leg; they carved shells; they dyed leather and osiers and quills with many bright colours, and then wrought the quills in gay patterns on birch bark and leather, and the osiers into exquisite baskets. In short, children, they did an amount and variety of fancy work with their rude implements that I could never equal, with all our Berlin wool and silk and canvas.” “ Are these quills?” said Try, lookingI20 A BAG 2OR STORES. closely at the embroidery on her little purse. “Porcupine quills.” “ Did they eat all sorts of queer things feos «card Lex. “J think they had a pretty good bill @f fare—sea fish and brook fish, with others from river and lake, game of all kinds, birds from land and water, potatoes, corn, wild fruits, nuts and ma ple sugar. - «That's ’most as good as Spain and oranges,’ said Lex, who had a.weakness for the sweet product of the maple. “I font see but Ill have to turn Indian” Oot theyre heathen, said, Try. “Yes, the wild red men know noth- ing of God as we know him, nothing of the Bible. They have no schools, no churches, no hope that is worth having. The best thing they can wish for theA BAG OF STORIES. I21 next world, is that it might be a great hunting ground, where the game would never grow.scarce nor the arrow miseé its mark. The men of sone tribes put food and water by the grave, that the poor spirit may be fed on its long jour- ney; and in others they shoot the chief’s favourite horse when he dies, and place his bow and arrows in his hand, that he i“ may be mounted and equipped for ‘the happy hunting ground.” “T should think they might h learned better in four hundred said Try. ave years, — Dut what I want. to Know just hiss said ex: “if the land’s full of | ‘em, why don’t they come along and | let folks have a Sight? = “lwo. big, quéstions” said the “mo: ther, “but they must wait, Look < at the clock 1”CHARI R: Wil, Berore another Sunday night the mother had hunted out from among: her stores other bits of Indian work—stone arrow-heads and a pair of moccasins and a heavy-stone hatchet; but best of all was a package just come from the West, containing a small pattern OL a wigwam and some queer little rag dolls in Indian dress. The children could hardly be satisfied with looking. “Yes,” she began, “ one might think that in four hundred years books and churches would clear all heathenism out of the land. The Sandwich Islands took far less time, and even Fiji made swifter prog- ress; but you must remember that the (122)A BAG OF STrORIDS: ey country was very large, the tribes very many and speaking different tongues, and at first and for a good while the white men were but few. They did try, those early New England settlers, to teach the red men the worth of that for which they themselves had left home and friends. They taught and preached, they set up churches and established a a religious society for the Indians. In other places, too, such work was done; and if all the settlers had been like them, who can tell what wonders God would have wrought? But alas! there began to come over colonists who had : neither left England for religion’s sake i nor brought any with them to America: ; and so while honest men were on honour even with savages, and true Christians saw in their poor wild brothers a peo- ple for whom Christ died, there were124 A BAG OF STORIES. others who cared nothing for the Mas- ter, hating both his example and ‘his command. Whey cheated the Indians; they took their land without paying for it; they made promises, and broke them; they removed landmarks, push- ime the tculer, Try, by little.and little, a long way from where it was first laid down; they bought valuable furs from the Indians, and paid for them with cheap beads and worthless trinkets; they taught the simple people to drink ‘fire-water, and when they were drunk then cheated them yet again.- If an In- dian complained, coming to his senses and demanding his rights, why, shoot him down! or perhaps shoot him lest he should complain. . Of course that was a game at which two could play; and when the red men took. savage vengeance, as they had learned fromA BAG OF STORIES. 125 their fathers, they were treated like wild beasts,—hunted and abused and killed off—called treacherous because they broke faith with men who kept no faith with them, and bloodthirsty because they, in their heathen darkness, lailed ‘to practise “such: virtues as very few white men shew in the full blaze of Bible light. “Bork see nar many,” said mamma, with a sigh, “who ‘take joyfully the spoiling of their goods,’ and wil ‘suffer wrong’ rather than quarrel; and I never look at an Indian without thinking how bitterly he must hate the pale-faces, unless he is a saint all through.” ‘Mamma, they ‘did such dreadful pee sald Ii, Myc rend about it in my first book of history.” © Dreadtal, my. child; as no words can tell; but remember, they did as they had been taught. Neither were all the126 A sBAC OF STORIES. dreadful things on one side; and, for my part, I cannot much wonder at the red men. In many places they had wel- comed the white settlers, helped them, protected them; but when they saw the small colonies begin to grow and spread, when inch by inch they found them- selves crowded back, then, indeed, they made many a wild attempt to kill off the pale-faces, to get back their land; and in such a war even the otherwise friendly Indians might well join. Their forests were falling before the white man’s axe, their wild streams were set to turn his mills, their beloved hunting grounds were cleared and ploughed, and villages rose up where once had been the smoke of their own camp fires.” “ Then they could make money faster,” said Lex. “They did not want to make money;A] BAG OF SEORIES: 127, they did not wish to be farmers and mill-owners. The last thing a wild In- dian desires is to ‘settle down,’ Hunt- ers and warriors had their fathers been, and such were they; and as their land and their life and their customs began to change and melt away, as they found themselves obliged to fall back step by step before the mysterious power of civ- ilization, it was no wonder if the tribes made now and then a fierce struggle for what they held most dear, and, fail- ing in that, took fiery vengeance on the intruders. But when you read such stories, children, and there are plenty of them, and true, remember always that these poor red men knew nothing of Jesus and the Golden Rule. They felt only that they were wronged; they saw but the passing away of their fair inher- itance.”128 A BAG OF STORIES. “Mamma,” said Trypho, “I thought the United States was big enough for everybody.” «“FExcept the race to whom it. first belonged,” said the mother, sorrowfully. “Yes, there would be room enough if people only minded the ninth command- ment. Jt was not the. United States at first, you know, but only separate col- onies; and when our nation was formed and our government established, rules were made that the red men should have at least their share. Certain por- tions of land were set apart for them to be theirs alone.” ‘“Then why weren't they contented?” said Lex. ‘“ Because the bargain was never kept. | should not-say never, Some of the best land in Connecticut belongs to the Indians to this day, and so in the StateA BAG OF STORIES, 129 of New York; but in general the “reservations,” as they were call Indian ed, were reserved only till some one else wanted them. In this way, children. I give you a whole drawer in the black bureau, Eex, to- let Trypho have the rest of yours. Then to-morrow Try looks into your new drawer and wants that, and I bid you let her have it and take instead a drawer in the white bureau; she asks for that I tumble you and your things into one in the green press.” “Suppose I won’t go?” said Lex. “Then if you were the Indian and Try the white man and I the govern- ment at Washington, I shoul VOU.” and when d make “Well, if Indians are much like me, I should think there’d be a big fuss pretty often,” said Lex. “And so there have been wars and mas- 9 :130 & BAG OF “STORIES. sacres and bloodshed without end. And when bad agents are sent to carry out bad orders, of course they make every- thing worse. Indians say the President sends out West, to deal with them, the wicked men he is afraid to have near himself. So the tribes have been moved from place to place, grieved and home- sick and angry, their numbers wasted with battle and captivity; while new dis- eases brought among them by the whites have mowed down thousands, and fire- water has slain its hosts. Some of the tribes have quite died out, others are eut down to a handful, and the very memory of some is lost. Children, there is one Bible in the world that nobody will ever read. It is a trans- lation made by John Eliot for a par- ticular tribe in New England. The tribe has long since passed away, theirA BAG OF STORIES. I31 very name is unknown, and no man living can speak their language or read one word in the old Bible.” “But maybe somebody did read it once,” said Trypho, wistfully. “ Maybe,” said the mother, her eyes filling, «O yes, I believe it, for no work really done for God js ever lost. There will be people of that very tribe ‘with palms in their hands’ in the day of the great gathering—stars in John Eliot’s crown; trophies brought by him to the feet of Jesus, Saying, ‘ Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds.’ It was not ‘laid up in a napkin,’ that blessed old Bible; but until the great day we shall “never know for. whom “i was printed.” “Mamma,” said Lex, “do you think the Indians would keep faith if we did?” ‘ Perhaps just- as often as white men.132 A BAG OF STORIES. It is not every white man, you know, who will do that. I will tell you one story out of many. Somewhere out West, I forget the precise place, a cer- tain new settler had a fancy for a bit of the Indian reservation. So he bar- gained with the chiefs, learned their price, paid it to the last cent, and built his house. Farm and garden grew up around him in time, well stocked and fruitful. He never pushed the ruler an inch; he never took the smallest thing beyond his own bounds without paying for it; he tilled his land, and minded his own business. It came to pass after a time that one of the many wars broke out between the red men and the whites, and down came the Sioux in war paint and feathers, a flerce, savage, reckless band. This man’s quiet little home lay exactly in their track. If his heartA BAG Ck STORIES: 133 did not flutter, I dare say his wife’s did, as the Sioux came near, with their horses on the run; but when they neared that spot the troop just divided and passed round. They did not take a chicken, they did not touch 2 fence rail, not one trifling thing did they even put out of place; but then they dashed on to other settlements, killing and burn- ing wherever they came.” “ Well, I should think the other peo- ple would have felt small,” said- Lex: “But they wouldn’t know,” said Tye pho. “Mamma, I’m glad the Sioux don't live about here.” “You are too young to understand all about this Indian question,” said the mother: “but there are two things I want you to remember: first, that all this great country once belonged to the red men, and has been-either taken134 A 7 BAG OF ‘SLORIES. from them or bought for almost noth- ing.” “And when they wouldn't sell, then bocy Were mace 10, said ex. “Yes, I understand that. What next, mam- ma?” But the talk ended then. Only Try- pho ran back in great glee from a close confab with Lex on the way up stairs. (© mamma, she cried, “Lex says when he’s President he'll set the whole thing straight; so you needn't worry.” « Will he?” mammaanswered. “Well, that will indeed be truly delightful.” And it may also be noted, that next day Try put the ruler back in its proper place, and kept it thereCHAPTER VIII. “Mamma,” said Lex, “I wish you would tell us a great deal more about Indians. It is very remarkable.” “He means our Indians,” added Try- phosa. “They are not all ‘our’ Indians, you know, these red men of North Amer- ica; there are many in the British prov- inces, as well as in the United States. But they are all really one people, al- though each tribe has its own peculiar speech and customs. Brave, crafty, poetical, fierce, they are like no other wild race on the face of the earth.” “Please tell us about the poetry, mamma, said Try. (135)[so A BAG OF STORIES. “Ho!” said Lex, “that’s all girls think of. I want to hear how brave they are!” “You will have -to. improve -very muea welore, you are as brave,” said mamma, “for they can bear pain with- out flinching, and hunger without com- plaint, and taunts without answering a word. They can ride like the wind and not fall off; they can steer a canoe through the wildest rapids; they can track a deer or an enemy through the forest by only the broken twigs and the crushed leaves. And nothing will ever make our proud white race so poetical as their red brothers. We call our pretty girls Fanny and Molly;. but the Indians name their beauties ‘ Bright Byes, and ‘Evening Star, and the ‘White Fawn. Their crafty man 1s ‘Black Snake;’ their tardy one is ‘ Lit- SFP. fle puctic.ee A BAG OF STORIES. 137 “Maybe he was a round little man,” said Lex. , “Maybe,” the mother answered, smil- ing, “but he must have been slow as well. Then they have ‘Red Cloud’ and ‘Ring Thunder,’ ‘Four Bears’ and ‘Blue Tomahawk,’ ‘ Split-log,’ ‘ Makes- himself-red’ and ‘The-man-that-stands- and-strikes.’ Not all very poetical, I must allow. But where white men found only an old Dutchman’s name for our beautiful river ‘running towards the midday sun,’ the Indians called it the ‘Shaw-nay-taw-ty’ or ‘Beyond the pines;’ while that part which winds through the Highlands was ‘ Shatemuc,’ the pelican or swan’s neck. Oxy new settlements are Smithtown and Bricks- burg, Mechanicsville and You-bet; but the Indians said Ohio, ‘ How beautiful!’ ”» and Alabama, ‘Here we rest.’138 A BAG OF STORIES. “Mamma, it’s delightful!” said Try. ‘@® Id like to have an Indian name too!” “You will—when you go West as a missionary, said the mother. “ In- dians always rename their friends. The Dakotahs called one of their beloved teachers ‘Payuha, ‘Hlaving a’ head, while her baby boy was ‘Good Bird.” “Well, do they write poetry?” said Lex, much impressed. | “Q yes—cradle songs, and love songs, and war songs, and all sorts of wild legends. That is, they make them up—‘ write them in their heads,’ as you call it—and then sing them or repeat them.” “You know she told us a cradle song, said. Try. “ Real love ‘songs, mamma?” The mother laughed a little.Pg A BAG OF “More, if you please, ma’am.” “What more shall I tell you? How a mounted Comanche at full speed will swing himself over and hang at the side of his horse, quite out of sight of the game or the enemy, and then shoot over the horse's back? or howa mounted Creek will lean down and catch up a coin or a pebble from the ground with- : out even checking his horse?” \ Hl “And not pitch over on his head?” | said Lex, open-eyed. ‘Certainly note:~ BAG OF. STORIES. help ’em on. They'll be too many for you!” “Do?” said the mother. “What do good soldiers do when the enemy pours in his reinforcements? ” “Fight till they die,” said the boy coolly. “And I guess you would.” «And with us is the Lord our God, to help us, and to fight. our battles,” added the mother softly. “Dr. Scudder said he would ‘hold fast to missions with both hands, and if one hand was cut off he would grasp with the other; and if both were gone he would take hold with Ins teeth! ~~ “And then every heathen Christian begins right away to help—don't. he, mamma?” said Tryphosa. ‘Indeed yes; every heathen Christian does. O how they work, those con- verted idolaters! And so the little armyaX a ene A BAG OF STORIES. 179 stands firm and grows, winning now this place, now that, for Christ. Idols are all swept out of Madagascar, and out of the Sandwich Islands, and from many a house and many a heart in India and China and Japan. Fiji and New Zea- land are almost clear; and among the hills of Burmah instead of the clatter of heathen worship, you may now hear na- i. tive congregations singing ‘Rock of Ages’ in their native tongue. Some passer-by left a little copy of the Psalms at a far-away inland village in” Africa. Either the book was in the language of the tribe or else one of them could in- terpret, andthe people read it and read ( | it, until with one accord they cast away | their idols; and for two or three years| before they ever saw a missionary they prayed to that wonderful One of whom their book had told, and in every way180 A BAG OF STORIES: they could think of tried to serve him. So you see what work even a small thing can do with the Lord's blessing upon it. Everywhere black men and red men and yellow men are ready for teachers, if only the teachers would come.” «Why don’t folks send ’em then?” said Lex. “For lack of two things, child, men and money. You cannot send the men without the money, nor the money with- out the men.” “T suppose I could help a little,” said Trypho, pondering; ‘maybe I could. Mamma, how many good red Indians Bue. there >” “Tieiy many .-Christians. in-all* tie tribes? I do not know, Try. I heard of a Chickasaw who paid-half the cost of five hundred Bibles for the school chil- dren among his people. Among theA BAG OF STORIES, 181 Dakotahs there are more than eight hundred church members now, and to these Dr. Riggs says we may add eight hundred more, ‘who have died in the faith and gone home to glory.’” “Then they'll be among the ‘ many nations and tongues and kindred and people.” Oh, I’m so glad!” said Try, drawing a long breath. “Mamma, don’t you think my doll could do with her calico dresses this winter? Because Aunt Kitty gave me a piece of blue velvet for her, and then that could go out to Dakotah for the red women to make into a missionary bag.” “JT think the doll could be extremely comfortable in calico.” “You begin early with your children, Miss: Trypho,” said Lex. “Make ’em toe the mark when they’re little. Won't Dolly feel smart on Fifth Avenue! Ho!”(82 A BAG OF STORIES. Tryphosa coloured. «Never mind, little daughter,” said the mother, smiling. ‘ You must bear to be laughed at. I do not expect to wear a velvet dress myself, Try.” «No, mamma,’ Try answered, hesi- tating; “but, you see, dolls always do.” « A great while ago,” said the mother, “when the tabernacle was to be set up, and all sorts of precious materials were wanted—gold and silver and brass and jewels and fine linen and spices—the Lord said unto Moses, ‘Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering. Of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering. And the people brought, on those conditions, so much that Moses had to bid them leave off. So it was, long after, when David collected gifts for the building of the temple. TheA BAG OF STORIES. 183 people poured in such treasures, and did it so gladly, that the king rejoiced over their readiness as a special token of the orace. of God? *Who am -I, he: said: ‘and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort?’ Children, ‘the Lord loveth-a cheerful giver;’ and I do not believe his blessing ever goes with an unwilling gift. You must think over the velvet, Try, and pray over it, before you venture to offer it to the Lord for his work.” “T didnt. pray over my five cents,’ said Lex. “But you gave it willingly; and you, have prayed over it since.” “Vestn, said’ Vex, looking up an surprise. “ How did you know, mam- ma?” She smiled; “I jadzed. from the eaverness with which the five cents184 A BAG OF STORIES. followed the -three.. That isthe _way it works. Take stock in missions, and then look after your stock; invest, and follow up your investment. ‘There is a charming story told of a young min- ister in New England, who, when -he first took charge of. a certain strug eling country church, ‘was warned against one particular and_ particularly rich old man. ‘He never comes to church, they said; ‘he believes in nothing. You will just be insulted.’ However, the young minister took higher counsel: prayed his way, and paid his visit, and talked to the rich unbeliever as freely and simply upon different subjects, church matters in eluded, as if it had been the house of his oldest deacon; and the rich man opened his mind, and said “he didn’t like churches, especially this one,A’ BAG OF STORIES: 185 and was sorry his young visitor should be mixed up with such a concern. The minister answered with a few wise, kindly, regretful words, and came away; but a day or two after the old man sent him a good round sum for the church; then some weeks later another. Then one Sunday morning the old. man himself walked up the aisle of the little church,—and_ then was never missing from his place. After awhile some one spoke to him about it. ‘Yes,’ he said, “ever since I put some money in the thing, I’ve wanted to see how they managed it.’ But he put more in than his money; and before a great while the young minister had the joy of baptizing this man, who had lived more than eighty years without Christ, and of receiving him into the church.”186 A BAG OF STORIES. “How he must have loved the min- . ister!” said Trypho. v1 “Ah, who can tell? One of the poor South Sea Islanders, who lay dying, said to his missionary, ‘When I get to heaven I'll first of all thank ert and praise Jesus for having saved a _ i peor eteature like me, and then Ul | tell him about you, for it was you who first told me the way to heaven; and when you come I'll take you by the hand, and lead you to Jesus, and cay to im,.‘|ésus, this is° the man L told you:'about. —Lhis is the man you sent to tell me about your own love. his, is the man!.,- Amd ad think,’ said the mother, softly, “that it : will be something in that day to have ‘ ai such an introduction, from even ‘one | of the least of these my brethren.” “And he'd been an image servant,”A BAG OF STORIES. 187 said Trypho. “Mamma, what do they do with those things when they get done with them?” “The idols? Burn them sometimes. As the conjurers of Ephesus burned their wicked books, so the poor Afri- can ‘gree-gree woman’ brings out all her charms, all her materials, and puts. them on the fire, trusting the Lord to help her get a living in some righteous way. When the queen of Madagascar had formally given up image worship, a day was set for de- stroyine the royal’idols. - First a. ire was made of the temple fence, and i on this was thrown all the personal = property of the chief idol,—its ‘things,’ 4 as you children call them: a silken gown, a long cane, a pair of horns and three umbrellas. Then the image itself was brought out, and the peopleVe | : 188 xX BAC OF SEORIES. shouted, “He-is a god! He will not burn!’ But it did, and all the people saw it.’ “What wasnt a stone image, then.” “No, it was a little shapeless bit of wood, as big as a man’s thumb, decked with two wings of scarlet silk. Other idols followed until they were all gone; and then the people came to the queen, and asked for teachers of the new religion, for now they had nothing to worship. In the South Sea Islands the idols were sometimes burned, sometimes sunk in a hole in the ground, sometimes thrown into the sea; or they were made useful as fence posts, or stripped of their gay trappings and ignominiously hung up by the neck. Often they were handed over to the missionaries to dispose of; and one chief asked that his might beA BAG OF STORIES. 189 sent to England to shew Christians there what the heathen darkness had been; bit another boiling they eat that: if not, they patiently went without till Monday morning. Sometimes he would pour into their Saturday-bought rice other rice which he had bought on Sunday; then the mother and child would set the whole aside and never touch it.” ‘But, said Lex, “that dont seem so much, when you're hungry, just to buy a jittle reer’LS Sree ee ae ek le fe A BAG OF “STORIES: 211 “You know there is no little or much about obedience,” said the mother. «A crack open is as bad as a foot, if the command is ‘shut the door.’ And when eople obey, even at their own cost, it proves that religion is worth some- thing to them, The Malagasy mother and child made no parade, no fuss; they just simply obeyed. And the quiet re- ality of their faith was too strong for the heathen father. By and by he, too, gave up his old life, was baptized, and became a right hand to the mission.” ‘Mamma, I believe your hard stories come out righter side up than if they were easy, said Lex. “Things afways come out right that are done only for God. But I think | of that mother and daughter sometimes, when I see hot rolls going to one house Sunday morning, and ice cream to an-2 lee AS BAG OF STORIES. other Sunday afternoon,—houses where there is no ‘famine of bread or famine of water, but only ‘of hearing the word Gl the Jord. “So those women did something for missions, too,’ said Try. « Ah!” the mother answered, “there is no missionary like a holy life, whether lived at home or abroad, and people living such a life will always find count- less other things to do. One receives a sick missionary into her house and persuades her rich neighbours to send him dainties she herself has not. An- other takes many a weary step about the city,.to find good, cheerful rooms for a poor missionary family come home to get well; and another takes the chil- dren for a time into her own over- crowded hands, that the mother may rest. Por people may give service ‘asaan, Lee SSNS AS DAGE OF STORIES, Ze well as money. Look at your bits of wood, Lex: they were once the church bell in Raratonga, and a young man of the island when he became a Chris- tian begged that he might always sound tre call to: senvice. Ik= was: one: little thing that he could do to shew his love for the cause and to help it BAG OF STORIES, 215 eT like that? said Lex: ‘But 1 guess somebody must have made up your Fiji clock story, mamma. Flowers don’t care when they open.” “O- yes, they do Some of ~them,: said» -lrypho. “Dont ~ you. remember the evening primroses last summer, and the four o’clocks?” ‘Pacte «said: cex, «Well dl sires nothing’s too queer to happen. What next, mamma?” “The young Raratongan gave his service. In one of the Hervey Islands each Christian family set apart a pig for the mission. The pigs were sold to the captain of a trading ship and brought more than a hundred pounds sterling; and, although this was the very first money the people had ever had, they gave every penny of it to the mission ‘to cause the word of God to216 A RAG OF SHORIES: exow.- cthen I read the other day of a poor woman here in New England. She had a houseful of children, and she kept one cow. All the milk the children did not need the mother sold, putting the pennies, as they came, into the savings bank. There they lay at interest, and before her death she asked that the sum, whatever it was, might be given to foreign missions. Children, those stray milk pennies had grown into more than three hundred dollars.” “ But mamma,” said Trypho wistfully, “qe haven't got a cow, and we can’t take care of tired missionaries, Lex and J.” “A little girl,” said the mother, smil- ing, ‘earned two cents a week by car- rying water to an old woman, and din- ner to a young man; and all that went to missions. Another girl, laid by with her last illness, unable to leave her bed,A BAG’ OF SPORTES: 217 made for herself, secretly, a list of peo- ple to pray for. There was a revival in the village, and friends noticed that she asked eagerly from time to time the names of the converts. After her death the little list was found under her pillow. Every one named there had been converted; and name by name she had checked them off as the glad news was brought that one by one had en- tered the kingdom.” “ Mamma, was that w#e¢sstonary work?” said Trypho. “A” soul: is a soal anywhere, child: lt was ‘work for ‘the: Master: if was bringing sinners to him, and I suppose that is the essence of all true missionary work. Another, a very old lady this time, in New York, for many years Dee fore her death, had two particular people on her heart, and never once missed218 A--BAG -OF. STORIES: praying for them every day. These were the queen of England and_ the queen of Madagascar.” “Then I ought to pray for our minister and for that old Brahmin,” said Trypho. “Mamma, said Lex, “you give a fellow too much to do. First he’s got to live all right, and that isn’t a small job; then he’s got to pray, and hal takes lots of time. Then he must run round and tell folks, and then he must give away all he’s got and rake and scrape to get more.” “ Very correctly stated,” said the mo- ther with a smile. “And so you see how true are the Lord’s own words: ‘Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.’ No one can serve Christ first who does not in every way put his own self second,”SN CHAP I Bik 2 2e1T. “Now for my pieces of wood,” said Trypho. “Your. pieces. of wood, “Iry, come well after the others: those told of little things done for the cause, but these of the greatest. For they are slips -of olive wood, dear, and they came from the Mount of Olives.” “The real Mount of Olives by Jeru- salem,” cried Try,‘ where Bethany was, and the garden, and Mary and Martha?” ‘The real Mount of Olives. They are bits of an old tree that grew there.” “Phat is very remarkable;. said ex, getting up to examine the olive wood. (219)220 A BAG OF - STORIES: “But I don’t see what they have to do with missionaries, mamma.” “Do you not?” said his mother. “Think,—who was the greatest mission- ary this world ever saw ?” “Ho! I don’t know,” said Lex; “I don’t s pose I could tell six names of ’em all.” “There was Henry Martyn,” said Trypho. “Ive got a book about him. And David Brainerd.” “And the German with a twistified name,’ said Lex. “I'll tell you, mamma —you mean the missionary who made the Bible there’s nobody left to read.” “John Eliot? no, you are wrong.” “The most wonderful ones 7 remem- ber,” said Try, “ were the women in Fiji who saved the other women’s lives, But there were two of them.” “Yes, and that was only in Fiji. And Henry Martyn was only in Asia,A BAG? OF SEORIES. and John Eliot was only in Massachu- setts. Great work they all of them did, and great hearts and great grace they bad. to-do it. Bat: the one 1 mean: children, was sent to every part of the world, a missionary to every liv- ing soul.” ‘Mamma, I don’t see how anybody could do that,” said Trypho. “ He wouldn't live long enough,” said bex. “ He did not live so very long among the people,’ said mamma; “not as long as many another I have told you of. And yet no one ever did such work as he, or suffered such things in the doing.” “Was everybody glad-to see hime ” said Lex. “Some, and some not, as it is_now; ‘despised and rejected’ of many, and ‘altogether lovely’ to some; to one ‘aioe A BAG OF STORIES. root out cf a dry ground,’ and to the next ‘fair as the lily of the valley.’ ” “But, mamma, said Ttypho, “that sounds just like the Lord Jesus, and he wasnt a missionary.” : “Was he not?” said the mother; “then I wonder who ever was. He who came ‘to seek and to save the lost,’ to turn people ‘from darkness into light,’ to ‘open the blind eyes and set the cap- tives free;’ he who ‘went about doing good.’ What do you mean by a amis- sionary, children?” “I thought they had to quit home and everything, and go ’way, ’way off,” said Lex. “And how.- far is it from heaven to earth?” said the mother, «As he said, ‘I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.’ And what is it for a mereA” BAG OF STORIES. 223 man to give up home and friends? The Lord Jesus laid aside his glory which he had with the Father ‘before the world was, and ‘made himself of no reputation, and took on him the form of a servant. The best human missionary that ever lived is but a faint, far-off copy of the Lord, Jesus: Christ.’ “Well, P've learned something,” said rex. ( BAG= (OF < STORIES: 227 of the earth, and his light is the life Of mmen,.2 | ‘“ How did you get these, mamma?” | “They were sent from Jerusalem by : one of the missionaries.” ‘Missionaries there too?” said Lex. “To the Jews, mamma?” “Partly to the Jews. But there are not so very many Jews in Palestine now, there are more Ishmaelites.” “They are the Arabs—the Jews’ cous- ins; -said=eex. ‘“ How do our questions stand now?” said the mother. Welly ve: eiven all 1 had” said Lex, “and Try’s given the doll’s velvet. That's what we’ve done.” “Tt wasn’t the doll’s, Alexander, it was mine,’ corrected Try. | “Then next comes, what have other people done? Think and tell me.”228 A BAG OF STORIES. “They ve cafned.nioney, - said Lex, “and then they've gone without it. And they've taught people, and prayed for ’em, and taken their chance of being eaten.” “There is no such thing as chance. But they have said with Paul, ‘I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die for the name of the Lord Jesus.’ They have answered with Isaiah, ‘ Here ami, send me.” “TI wonder if you'd like to have me say that? queried Lex, looking” up at his mother through half-shut eyes. ‘Ah, child,” she answered, “there you touch another thing that people have done: they have not only given themselves to the cause, but harder yet, they. have given their children.” “Yes, I s’:pose you wouldn’t so much mind being eaten up yourself,” said Lex. “T am afraid I should mind it,” saidAD BAG -OF STORIES, — 229 the mother, laughing a little. “I have told you some of the lesser things done for missions, and I have reminded you of the greatest; for no one could give so much as the Lord himself. But fol- lowing him comes a shining company of ‘good soldiers of Jesus Christ ’—men who have ‘loved not their lives unto the death, for the love they bore to him.’ And if not life, then none of the smaller things which make life pre- cious. Some of them have left home and friends and wealth and_ pleasure, and have spent their days in the dark places of the earth. Others, unable to go themselves, gave up their sons and daughters. When I was a child I heard an old deacon speak at a church meet- ing, and one sentence I shall never forget. His voice shook, and his eyes were full, but how clear the words rang230 AW BAG OF -StORILES. out: ‘I bless God that I have one son a missionary. I wish I had more!’ It was that very son, Trypho, who sent home your bits of olive wood from Je- rusalem. Henry Martyn left friends he loved so well, that on the way to th ship he fainted, from sheer sorrow of beart. - David -Bramerd, _ weak; alone broken in health, in six months trav- elled three thousand miles, not in rail- cars and stage-coaches, but on foot or on horseback, through a wild, unsettled country, and over a district more than two hundred miles in extent. Ill and suf- fering as he was, this is the sort of life he lived. All night he lodged in the open woods: then spent most of the day discoursing to the Indian king and oth- ers. And even in winter he slept on skins and on the ground. That sounds hard. But now hear the description ofA BAG -GE STORIES: 231 him given by these very Indians to their grandchildren, as the grandchildren have told it in our times. ‘He was a young man; he was a lovely man; he was a Stafi; he was a. staff to walk with. -He went about from house to house to talk religion; that was his way. He slept on a deer-skin or a bear-skin. He eat bear-meat and samp. Then we knew he was not proud. When the Indians assembled to dance and have a feast, he would go there also, and go away in the bushes and pray for them. Then some would say, ‘“ We do not want this white man here. Let us make away with him.’ But others said, ‘‘ No, -we will not kill him.”’” “And there he was praying away for them all the time,” said Icex. “Well, folks have done lots! I guess I will too, when. I am a man.”A BAG OF. STORIES. 232 “Mamma, it’s dreadfully interesting,” said Trypho. ‘But who do you think really ever gave the most?” «She cant know... Saidclex.- “brow are you going to measure? Its- like the sum In my arithmetic about a basket of apples and a yard of silk.” | “Gut | do know, sard.the mother: “Tt was the woman (and others like her) of whom the Lord himself, who knows all things, said, ‘She hath done what she could.’” “Why, lve done. that,” said Tryphe.: too, said lex; “(and pretty nearly what I couldn't.” Woat. have, yous leit?” said the nother. ay “lwo-empty pockets, maam, said _ Lex. Tryphosa sat thinking. “Well, you know she spent all her money for Christmas,” the boy wentA BAG - OF - STORIES. 233 on, “and J/’ve given you all mine since. I haven’t a thing, mamma, good or indifferent.” “Nothing for the Lord who gave his life for you? Nothing to help the millions groping in ~ darkness? Not even a farthing candle, Lex?” The boy twisted himself about. «Mamma, | havene a-cent.. And att sold my top and my kite, it wouldn’t be much.” “And if they were sold they’d be gone,> said Trypho. “1 was think ing of my hoop.” “T was not,” said the mother; “the hoop and kite help you to study, help keep you well. I should not wish you to sell them, But if there was not such a thing in the house, I should still ask, ‘Children, what have you left”234 A BAG OF STORIES: “Then, maam, I think yeu'd be queer too, said Lex: ‘lex, said ‘his. mother, “it- ong nouse burned down, and papa lost all his money, what should I have to live on?” “My two hands!” cried: the boy, stantiao wp: “I tell. you what, Td work so you wouldn’t know anything had happened.” ‘And: I could sew, mammia,’ said ‘yy, -ptessin® up: to her.- “Anda would do all the dusting.” The mother looked at them tenderly. “But how if you .were sick and could not work?” she said. “Then we'd have to do as the other girl did, and just pray,” said Trypho. “Now we have our question an- swered, said the mother. “When anybody has ‘nothing left, the moneyA BAG OF STORIES. 235 spent, and the top and the hoop must for some reason be kept, he has still always two hands to work, a head to plan and a tongue to speak. He may not be able to stir away from his own city, but he can be a home missionary there, and he can pray for those who have gone far, far away to the lands of foreign missions, and for the hea- then among whom they toil.” “Do missionaries need praying for?” said ‘Tryphosa. “They need. ust such prayers. as St. Paul desired for himself: that they may ‘speak boldly, that they ‘may be delivered from wicked men,’ that cthe word of “God may have free course and be glorified. With one other petition of which Sf. Paul at least never spoke. {Pray for the mis- sionaries, writes one of them from Fort230 A BAG OF STORIES. sully, “that. they be not homesick, For our dear missionaries, when they first see heathenism, are sometimes homesick and heartsick too. I heard of a mission school in India where dil eae otner little native — childien prayed for each class as it went up to recite, that they might have ‘clear heads, and be able to understand.’ ” lt. takes so lone fo pray,” said Trypho, with a sigh. S“lnue;< said the mother smiling. “A missionary in Japan asked one of fie. native, Christians to pray for a particular school. The woman § said she would if she could, but that it was midday now before she got through praying for her own school, her vil- lage, her own family, all the mission- aries and all their children.” “Well, I do say!” burst out Lex.AS BAG? Ol SlORTEES: 2237 ® Mamma,” said Trypho, “if we had no servants, maybe you could afford to pay me just a little for dusting the parlour.” ; “T can afford to pay just a little for dusting my room, as it is,’ said the mother. © aay Jr. Will you? cred Gy. “That would be something.” “Not tmauch sata Ilex. “ leex,>said “hig, mother, ‘the peo- ple who wait to do much will always do little. They tell of a part on. 2 certain temple in India which is gilded all over, and how do you_ think the gilding is kept up? Every worshipper, whenever: he can get a. bit of gold leaf, no matter how small, goes to the temple and sticks it on. here are just two rules for little people or big people who work for Christ; one is, ‘As —238 A BAG OF -STORIES. | ye have opportunity;’ and the other, rt ‘Of such things- as ye have, Yes, i] tmere 1S one™ more: ~ \Whatsoever- ye ao, in wor or déed, do all