The sewing-room was a busy scene, with Miss Dora and two other ladies making the machines whir and groups of workers getting material ready for the machines or “finishing off.” Mrs. Thurston, appealed to from all sides, quietly directed the work,—while Miss Fanny was here, there, and everywhere, helping everybody. Almira heard, in the course of the day, that Miss Fanny was quite wealthy, that she had contributed a great deal towards getting up the box, and was going to pay the freight.
There were several children besides Marty and Evaline. They were employed to run errands, pass articles from one person to another, and fold the smaller pieces of clothing as they were completed. As the day wore on and the novelty of the thing wore off, most of the children got tired and went out to play; but Marty, though she ran out a few minutes occasionally, spent most of the time in the work-room, keeping as close as possible to Mrs. Thurston, to whom she had taken a great fancy.
Soon after dinner Miss Fanny came to Mrs. Thurston and said,
“Now, Mrs. Thurston, if you don't get out of this commotion a while you will have one of your bad headaches. Do go out in the air. We can get on without you for an hour.”
So Mrs. Thurston took Marty and went into the grove back of the house, and it was while sitting there on a rustic seat, with the magnificent view spread out before them, that they had their missionary talk.
While sitting there on a rustic seat ... they had their missionary talk. Page 158.
Mrs. Thurston described her home in Southern India, and spoke of the kind of work she and her husband did there—how he preached and taught in the city and surrounding villages; how she instructed children in the schools, and visited the ignorant women, both rich and poor, in their homes. Often, when not able to leave home on account of her children, she had classes of poor women in her compound, as the yards around the houses in India are called. She also spent a good deal of time giving her servants religious instruction.
“You know,” she said, “it is very, very hot there, and we Americans can only endure the heat by being very careful. At best we sometimes get sick, and we must do all we can to save ourselves up to teach and preach. That's what we go there for. If we should cook or do any work of that kind, we should die; so we employ the natives, who are accustomed to the heat, to do these things for us. Then, these servants will each do only one kind of work. That is, the sweeper wont do any cooking or washing; the man who buys the food and waits on the table wont do anything else.”
“That's very queer,” said Marty.