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Show - 2 - the water nor have the breeze it might have brought to his aunt's much more comfortable and pretentious dwelling, farther to the west, and fronting the lake. I had been so deeply concerned for him thirty years ago when he was a prisoner there, that the last morning, when we were waiting outside the gate for the bus, I slipped back in and went to the door of his little house and looked through the windows at the servant dusting inside, and hoped that he hadn't been utterly disheartened by the failure of his hopes for his people. When one sees the historic places where So-and-so died, and the Pearl Concubine threw herself into the well, and a general hung himself, it is easy to see that Death rode close behind a great many people in those days of the Empress Dowager, and Kwang Hsu must have loved life. Probably he thought he'd be more use alive than dead. In spite of my husband's illness from an infection, with the resulting three weeks quiet on his part, we were able through the exceeding kindness of friends to see quite a bit of the beauty of Peiping, the Forbidden City and the lovely Altar of Heaven, and a little of the shops and the arts of the place; I was so glad to see the city again as a whole after a generation of at least nominally republican life had made it a city for the people, instead of an imperial one. Even the wall of the old Imperial City was down in most places, and the old palaces are now just show places. We had another significant opportunity, for me at least, when we stopped at Tehsien on our train journey south to see the work Dr. j Alma Cooke is doing. After years of following and supporting her as one of our cherished W.B.M.P. workers, it was a delight to see her in the place itself actually doing the things she wrote about-when she had time to write; we both regretted that I could not get out to Lintsing; she was there when we arrived in T., and came back to show } us round the Porter-Williams hospitals for a day, before we came on south. One experience we had on the way down the coast, that I had never shared before; our steamer ran down a junk with its attendant boats, and the rescuing of the 26 men thrown into the water was an adventure I would not like to share again even remotely. They had just returned from a trip to Pootoo to worship at that famous old sanctuary, to bring good luck to their newly-begun fishing trip: the 19 taken on board our steamer were brought to Foochow to be returned to their homes, Christmas was as busy a time as ever, in spite of the fact that the Synod voted to hold Christmas celebrations in all churches on Christmas day itself, thus attempting to do away with the day after day and week after week exercises that the missionaries usually indulge in. The compound was given a Christmas treat of having Grace Funk Andrews down from Chefoo for a month's holidays, renewing her old acquaintanceships, and making a few new ones. The presence of our wonderful new musician for the College teaching, Albert Faurot, gave us a splendid treat in hearing him play the Messiah and sing parts of it, one Sunday afternoon. He is fitting into the work of the school in a very fine way, socially, religiously, and musically, though here only since mid-September. There were Christmas exercises at the school, and the mission one as last year was at our house, at least the tree and the evening's gaiety were here, following a service at the Topping home, and dinner together at the medical house. And the great strain of nearly two |
