Had It Not Been For The Fear Of Incurring Miss
Slessor's Anger, She Would, At This Point, Have Been Killed With Her
Children, And The Bodies Thrown Into The Bush.
As it was, she was hounded out of the village.
The rest of her
possessions were jammed into an empty gin case and cast to her. No
one would touch her, as they might not touch to kill. Miss Slessor
had heard of the twins' arrival and had started off, barefooted and
bareheaded, at that pace she can go down a bush path. 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.
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