Next came a girl of six years, whose father was a Christian. She also
was full of tricks, and, with Janie, was enough for one house. But
there was also Okin, a boy of about eight, whose mother was a slave
with no voice in his upbringing, but whose mistress wished him to be
trained up for God, a mischievous fellow whose new clothes lasted
usually about a week, but willing and affectionate and, on the whole,
good; and another boy of ten called Ekim, a son of the King of Old
Town, whose mother gave him to Mary when she first went out. On her
departure for Scotland he had gone back to his heathen home and its
fashions, but returned to her when she settled in Creek Town. He was
truthful, warm-hearted, and clever, and as a free boy and heir to a
responsible position the moulding of his character gave her much
thought and care. The last was Inyang, a girl of thirteen, but bigger
than Mary herself, possessing no brains, but for faithfulness,
truthfulness, honesty, and industry without a peer. She hated to dress
or to leave the kitchen, but she washed, baked, and did the housework
without assistance, and was kind to the children. These constituted
her inner circle, but she was always taking in and caring for derelict
children. At this time there were several in the house or yard. Two
were twins five months old, whom she had found lying on the ground
discarded and forlorn, and who had developed into beautiful children.
Their father was a drunken parasite, with a number of wives, whom he
battered and beat in turn. Another castaway came to her in a wretched
state. The father had stolen a dog, and the mother had helped him to
eat it. The owner threw down a native charm at their door, and the
woman sickened and died, and as all believed that the medicine had
killed her no one would touch the child. The woman's mistress was a
daughter of old King Eyo, and a friend of Mary, and she sent the
infant, dirty and starved, to the Mission House with her compliments.
Mary washed and fed it and nursed it back to decent life, but on
sending to the mistress a request that one of the slave women might
care for it, she got the reply, "Let it die." She let it live.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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