Siam and Laos, as Seen by Our American Missionaries
History
Siam and Laos, as Seen by Our American Missionaries
Laos -- Description and travel; Missions -- Laos; Missions -- Thailand; Thailand -- Description and travel
“Miss Olmstead and I, together with our assistant, Ma Tuen, have been
training little fingers in fancy-work, or rather overseeing the
finishing up of things, to go into the exhibition. April 25 we placed
our mats, tidies, afghans, rugs, cushions, needle-books, edgings,
work-bags and lambrequins in the cases allotted to our school in the
Queen’s Room, and on the 26th we were again at our post as exhibitors
to receive His Majesty the king and give him our salutations upon his
first entrance at the grand opening. While we were looking for him in
one direction he suddenly entered from another, followed by his
brothers and other members of his court and the consular dignitaries.
We did not see him until he had walked up the long and magnificent
hall and was within half a dozen paces of us. He was dressed in a
perfectly-fitting suit of navy-blue broadcloth, without any gaudy
trappings, and never did he wear a more becoming suit. His face was
radiant with joy, and his quick, elastic step soon brought him to us.
He uttered an exclamation of pleasure at seeing us there, shook our
hands most cordially, took a hasty survey of our exhibits, and then
cried out with boyish enthusiasm, ‘These things are beautiful, mem;
did you make them?’――‘Oh no,’ I responded; ‘we taught the children,
and they made them.’――‘Have you many scholars?’ was his next
question.――‘About thirty-one,’ I answered. Turning again to the cases,
he exclaimed emphatically, ‘They are beautiful things! and I am coming
back to look at them carefully――am in haste now.’ And off he went to
look at the other unviewed departments. Since then we see by the paper
published in Bangkok that His Majesty has paid the girls’ school of
Bangkok the high compliment of declaring himself the purchaser of the
collection, and has attached his name to the cases.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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