The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's: The Story of the Work in HwochowCable, Mildred
Religion
The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's: The Story of the Work in Hwochow
Cable, Mildred
Missions -- China -- Huo-hsien (Shansi Province)
Little Goodness is the boldest girl in the school. She is only five
years old, but will any moment that she can run away from the
Kindergarten Court unseen push open my door, and show me with great
delight and most disconcerting self-assurance some treasure she has
found--a grub, or maybe some one else's new handkerchief. The frown I
summon to my aid when the offence is repeated more than once a day, is
rather a failure, but poor Goodness has had to learn by sterner methods
that the teacher's word is law. It is not easy to be stern with her for
she is a most fascinating little creature, and yet her parents wanted
her so little that she was found, as a wee babe, buried alive. With
difficulty her life was saved by the missionary to whom she was taken,
who has cared for her ever since. Her most serious offence in this
school, and a cause of scandal to the whole Kindergarten, was the
helping of herself to five cash from the collection plate when it was
handed to her in the Sunday service.
When a new graduate who has been faced for the first time by her class
appears at my door, I know before she begins to speak that her errand is
to inform me she has found herself to have accepted a burden and
responsibility which she is utterly incapable of bearing. I make no
great effort to hide my amusement, and call to her remembrance the
complete assurance with which she was prepared to enter upon her career
during her last term as a Normal Student. I also tell her I have been
expecting this interview and, needless to say, from the humorous side we
naturally turn to the serious.
Teachers are constantly coming to me for advice as to the best method of
dealing with those symptoms of original sin which cause small children
to bewilder their elders by the utter depravity of their moral nature.
What, for example, could I say to Kingfisher who was heard, when praying
audibly, to petition heaven that Rosebud with whom she had quarrelled
might lose all her good marks?
The weeping Butterfly was peremptorily ushered into my presence, accused
of using bad language. I could see by the expression on the teacher's
face that it was no trifling matter. She had said: "Chrysanthemum, when
you walk it is like the hopping of a frog." She had thus compared a
fellow-scholar to an animal, a form of speech which in Chinese, as I
well knew, amounts to a curse.
Peach Blossom, ever since the first day she came to me has been a care
and responsibility. Conscious of her good looks and of her capacity to
secure a following of devotees, she has conducted her small court with
increasing joy to herself, and annoyance to me and my Staff. It was
impossible to ignore her presence, and while she was scrupulously within
the rules and regulations of school discipline she somehow managed to
sail so near, and yet avoid, the point of defiance that we were baffled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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