Lolo’s eyes danced with joy when I engaged him. African eyes as compared with others, besides being remarkable organs of sight, serve a great variety of secondary uses. They can laugh, or sing, or plead, or weep; they can love, or they can break all the commandments. But the most beautiful and expressive eyes in Africa are those of the boys. Lolo at once regarded this new relationship as a kind of fatherhood on my part; and he amply repaid me, not only in faithful service, but also in personal devotion which was quite pathetic, and which in the course of events was put to an extreme test. He was both brave and affectionate—a typical African boy. On my part, it was my knowledge of Lolo that first inspired me with a strong desire for a school, and enabled me to realize what a moral factor a school of such boys might become in transforming the life of the people. The African baby is a beautiful, solemn-eyed little creature, who looks out at the world as if he were undecided whether to stay. About half of them decide not to stay. The African baby is cunning and bright, but it seldom cries, and it is not given to play nearly as much as the white child. As the child grows older he cheers up. It has been said that only when he reaches years of indiscretion does the African become joyful. From that time on he is joyful to the end. But the African boy, before he becomes stupidly happy, bears the strongest stamp of humanity and is more interesting than at any other stage in his career. On the first long march into the forest, Lolo easily kept up with the caravan and when we arrived in camp busied himself in waiting upon “his white man”—opening my box of clothing and getting everything that I wanted, taking off my shoes, bringing water, making my bed, helping the cook, waiting at supper and a score of other duties. On the first day of this journey we passed through Lolo’s town, about two or three hours from the coast. The chief was Lolo’s own father and there was some likelihood of trouble; for the boy had slipped away without his father’s knowledge. Lolo hid in the bush while I sat down in the palaver-house and called for the chief, thinking it best to tell him that I had employed his boy and in some way to win his consent. He kept me waiting an unusually long time. But when he appeared no explanation was necessary; it was evident that he had been making his toilet. He was dressed in a pink calico Mother Hubbard, which came about to his knees and was longer in front than behind. I thought he had it on wrong side to the front, but I was not sure. It was the more incongruous because he was very tall and strongly built. He was so preoccupied with this new robe of state that it was the easiest thing in the world for him to part with a son; and there was no need of a present, nor even of diplomacy. During my first term in Africa, a year and a half, Lolo was with me all the time.