Children -- India; India -- Social life and customs; Missions -- India
Shortly before that time we had been brought into touch with the medical
missionaries at Neyoor, in South Travancore. The senior missionary, Dr.
Fells, was about to retire; but his successor, Dr. Bentall, cordially
agreed to let us rent a little house in the village and fill it with
babies, though he knew such a houseful might materially add to the
fulness of his already overflowing day. He, and afterwards Dr. Davidson
(now the only survivor at Neyoor of that kind trio of doctors), seemed
to think nothing a trouble if only it helped a friend. So the little
house was taken and the babies installed.
[Illustration: ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF NAGERCOIL, WHERE WE STOPPED TO REST.]
The first day, September 25, 1905, is a day to be remembered. I had gone
on before to prepare the house, and for a day and a half waited in
uncertainty as to what had happened to the little party which was to
have followed close behind. I had left one baby ill. She was the first
child sent to us from the Canarese country; and I thought of the friends
who had sent her, newly interested and stirred to seek these little
ones, and of what it would mean of discouragement to them if she were
taken, and my heart held on for her.
At last the carts appeared in sight. It was the windy season, and six
carts had been overturned on the road, so they had travelled slowly.
Then a wheel came off one of their carts and an accident was narrowly
averted. This had caused the delay. The baby about whom I had feared had
recovered in time to be sent on. She was soon quite well, and has
continued well from that day to this.
How familiar the road between Dohnavur and Neyoor became to us, as the
months passed and frequent journeys were made with little new babies!
Sometimes those journeys were very wearisome. There was great heat, or a
dust-laden wind filled the bandy to suffocation and blew out the
spirit-lamp when we stopped to prepare the babies' food. How glad we
used to be when, in the early evening, the white gleam of the stretch of
water outside Nagercoil appeared in sight! We used to stop and bathe the
babies, and feed them under some convenient trees, and then go on to our
friends with whom we were to spend the night, trusting that the soothing
effect of the bathe and food would not pass off until after our arrival.
Those friends, our comrades of the L.M.S., like the Medicals at
Neyoor, seemed made of kindness. How often their welcome has rested us
after the long day!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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