"We were talking about the rumors of war," said Miss Crawford. "Do you think there will really be a revolution?" "There must be a revolution," she answered. "You Americans would never have had freedom to govern your own country if you had not had your revolution. It is even worse in China. Three hundred years ago the Manchus came from the north and took the government away from the Chinese, put a Manchu emperor on the throne, and made the yellow flag with its dragon the flag of China. They compelled the men of China to plait their hair in queues, and whenever a Chinese man dared to cut off his queue, the soldiers of the emperor cut off his head. The Chinese want to be free to rule their own land as you do in America." "I wish that China was a republic like the United States, but I'm afraid I'd make a poor soldier in a revolution," said Jennie Cody. * * * * * In October came rumors of riots and warfare. One evening as Jennie Crawford sat writing in her room in the school building, she heard a loud knocking at the door and a voice calling. There stood Jennie Cody holding up a letter. She had sped across the drill ground of the school and along the dark city wall to the hospital. "A letter has come from the father of a pupil," she gasped. "He is a Chinese official and he says that there are rumors that a rebellion will start tomorrow." "We have heard many rumors of war," said Jennie Crawford. "This is only another." The next day passed and the next and the next and still all was quiet. That night she slept without fear. Early the following morning a Bible woman came to her. "I've been up all night," she said. "The people are fleeing to the country by hundreds, carrying on their backs bundles of bedding and clothing. All night there has been a procession leaving the city. They say that the revolution is beginning and that the hardest fighting will be in Hanyang because the guns and powder are stored here in the great arsenal, and both armies will try to capture that." Before noon another letter came. Jennie Crawford read it quickly. "The American consul says, 'All American women and children must leave Hanyang for a place of safety at once. Fighting has begun near by!'" Dr. Huntley, the physician in charge of the hospital, called a meeting of all missionaries. "We don't want to go," said Jennie Crawford. "The school is full of girls, and the hospital is full of patients. We don't want to leave them." It was agreed that the women and children in the hospital and the girls in the school would be safer at their homes. Jennie Crawford and the teachers found escorts for pupils and patients, while Dr. Huntley went across the river to Hankow to consult the British consul.