By The Time
She Had Gone Four Miles She Met The Procession, The Woman Coming To
Her And All The
Rest of the village yelling and howling behind her.
On the top of her head was the gin-case, into
Which the children had
been stuffed, on the top of them the woman's big brass skillet, and
on the top of that her two market calabashes. Needless to say, on
arriving Miss Slessor took charge of affairs, relieving the
unfortunate, weak, staggering woman from her load and carrying it
herself, for no one else would touch it, or anything belonging to
those awful twin things, and they started back together to Miss
Slessor's house in the forest-clearing, saved by that tact which,
coupled with her courage, has given Miss Slessor an influence and a
power among the negroes unmatched in its way by that of any other
white.
She did not take the twins and their mother down the village path to
her own house, for though had she done so the people of Okyon would
not have prevented her, yet so polluted would the path have been,
and so dangerous to pass down, that they would have been compelled
to cut another, no light task in that bit of forest, I assure you.
So Miss Slessor stood waiting in the broiling sun, in the hot
season's height, while a path was being cut to enable her just to
get through to her own grounds. The natives worked away hard,
knowing that it saved the polluting of a long stretch of market
road, and when it was finished Miss Slessor went to her own house by
it and attended with all kindness, promptness, and skill, to the
woman and children. I arrived in the middle of this affair for my
first meeting with Miss Slessor, and things at Okyon were rather
crowded, one way and another, that afternoon. All the attention one
of the children wanted - the boy, for there was a boy and a girl - was
burying, for the people who had crammed them into the box had
utterly smashed the child's head. The other child was alive, and is
still a member of that household of rescued children all of whom owe
their lives to Miss Slessor. There are among them twins from other
districts, and delicate children who must have died had they been
left in their villages, and a very wonderful young lady, very plump
and very pretty, aged about four. Her mother died a few days after
her birth, so the child was taken and thrown into the bush, by the
side of the road that led to the market. This was done one market-
day some distance from the Okyon town. This particular market is
held every ninth day, and on the succeeding market-day some women
from the village by the side of Miss Slessor's house happened to
pass along the path and heard the child feebly crying: they came
into Miss Slessor's yard in the evening, and sat chatting over the
day's shopping, etc., and casually mentioned in the way of
conversation that they had heard the child crying, and that it was
rather remarkable it should be still alive.
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