On one of her early journeys up to Ikpe she met with a slight accident,
a pellet of mud striking one of her eyes. The people were alarmed at
the result, and would have gone off at once to the District
Commissioner had she not restrained them. Some native workmen passing
his station later mentioned the incident, and within a few minutes the
officer had a mounted messenger speeding along the tract to Ikpe, with
an urgent order to the people to get her conveyed in the Cape cart to
the nearest point on the road, where he would have a motor car waiting.
Next morning, although it was market day, the members of the church
left everything and took her to the spot indicated. Here were the
District Commissioner and a doctor, with eye-shade and medicine and
every comfort, and with the utmost despatch she was taken round the
Government road to Use. The hurt was followed by erysipelas, and she
was blind for a fortnight and suffered acute pain and heavy fever; but
very shame at being ill after so fine a holiday made her get up
although the eye was swollen and "sulky," and she was soon in the midst
of her work at Ikpe as if nothing had happened.
Building, cementing, painting, varnishing, teaching, healing, and
preaching filled in the days. A visitor found her once at 10 A.M.
finishing school in a shed. She continued it in the afternoon. Then she
visited the yards of the people, and they crowded round her and brought
her gifts of food. Later she leant against a fallen tree trunk and
talked to one and another. In the gathering dusk she sat on a small
stool and attended to the sick and dressed their sores. After dinner
some men and lads arrived carrying lamps, and she held her catechumens'
class--a very earnest and prayerful gathering.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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