While in the United States, Dr. Peoples had succeeded in procuring a font of Lāo type, with the necessary equipment for printing. For twenty-three years we had used only the Siamese Scriptures and literature. With many present disadvantages, it had some compensations. Those who could read Siamese had access to the whole of the Old and New Testaments. The press was set up in Chiengmai, and Rev. D. G. Collins was made manager. The first printing done was Mrs. McGilvary’s translation of the Gospel of Matthew.
My daughter had been sent down to aid the Phraners on their river trip. Word was sent ahead that Mrs. Phraner was not well. As they drew nearer, her condition became so critical that Dr. McKean hastened with all speed to meet them. When she reached Chiengmai, her condition, while still critical, was more hopeful. I was ready to start on my tour as soon as the party arrived. When I left home, we were still hopeful that rest, kind nursing, and medical treatment would set her right again.
During my absence this year I was fortunate enough to receive a regular weekly mail from Chiengmai. A staff of engineers were surveying a railroad route for the Siamese government, and had a weekly mail sent to their stations along the line. They were very kind to include my letters also, which was particularly fortunate in that thus I could have news of the invalid left behind.
I have learned to start on my tours with very flexible plans, leaving much to the guidance of providential openings on the way. On this trip, at the village of Pāng Krai—which, because it was a mile or two away from the road, I had not visited in seventeen years—I was delayed three days by a reception so cordial that I could not pass on. On my previous trip a man from the village, Noi Tēchō by name, came with his little girl across to our camp and begged us to visit it. This I could not then do; but he remained with us till late at night, and seemed to be a believer. I now found that in the interval the man had kept the Sabbath, and had given such other evidence of his sincerity, that we could not refuse his reception to the communion and fellowship of the church. On the last night of our stay we had a baptismal and communion service that was memorable. The man made a good confession before many witnesses, and his little daughter was baptized as a non-communing member.
As in many other cases, this family had been driven by trouble to our religion. Originally he was the slave of a prince in Lakawn. The accusation of witchcraft then settled on the family; but before they were driven off the Prince compelled them to borrow money in order to redeem themselves from him—to do which the man had to give two of his children as security. After a move or two, he was driven by famine from Lakawn, and came to this village.
One morning at Wieng Pā Pāo I was summoned in great haste to attend one of the engineers who was thought to have been nearly killed by a fall from a runaway horse. I found that he had broken a collar-bone, but was otherwise uninjured. I applied all of my amateur surgical skill, and set the bone. But my patient, naturally enough, could not feel quite sure; and thought it safer to go down to our hospital and get Dr. McKean’s judgment on the case. He found the bone set all right.
Late one Saturday evening I reached Bān Pā Hōng in Chieng Rāi province, and stopped with the first Christian family. Next day I learned that in the next section of the village there was a Christian girl very low with consumption. Early on Monday morning I moved on, but was only in time to see a lovely form and face apparently in the most natural sleep; but the living soul had departed. I had baptized her two years before, when she was fourteen years of age. She had been sick for seven months, and had spent most of the time in prayer. It made me inexpressibly sad when I learned that her strongest desire was to see her own “Paw Krū” before she departed. On the previous evening, when she heard that we had reached the village near by, she said, “And the Paw Krū is at Noi Lin’s, and I cannot see him!” I preached her funeral sermon, and saw her decently buried.
The next Sunday morning, while sitting in the Mê Kawn chapel and preparing for service, I looked up and saw standing on the ground before the door some people in a strange costume evidently not Lāo, looking in as if in doubt whether to enter or not. I immediately recognized them as belonging to the Mūsô tribe, quite numerous in the mountains near by. Their ready acceptance of my invitation to come in showed that they were waiting to be asked, and feared only lest they might be intruders. As the Mūsôs will be prominent in our narrative of this and the two following years, a word of introduction may be desirable.
They are one of a numerous group of hill-tribes which have gradually followed the mountain ridges down from the interior of the continent. They live under a patriarchal government, if it may be rightly called a government at all; and they enjoy great personal freedom, though the authority of the clan approaches very near to absolute despotism. They are worshippers of spirits, which are held to preside over the universe and the destinies of men generally; while as a tribe they are under the guardianship of their own “spirits.” They have a twelfth—day sabbath or sacred day, not very definitely marked. They make a great deal of their “kin waw” or New Year feast, when all communication with other villages even of their own tribe is cut off during the five or seven days of their feasting. The religious head of the village is called Pū Chān, and the head Pū Chān of a province holds in his hands the conscience of all his flock.