Marty was very deeply impressed by what Miss Stevenson said. She thought it would be a grand thing to go away off as a missionary. She wondered if God would call her to go. She hoped he would. Only she would not wish to go to such a civilized country as Japan; the very worst part of Africa or the wildest part of Asia would be what she would choose.
Her mind was so full of the subject that she did not want to talk about anything else, or to talk at all, and was glad that Edith was going to her aunt Julia's from the meeting, so she could walk home alone. She concluded that as soon as she reached home, she would go into her room and pray that she might be a missionary. Then she could not wait until she got home, and being on a quiet street, she slipped behind a tree-box and offered this little prayer: “Dear Lord, if missionaries are still needed by the time I grow up, I pray thee let me be one. For Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.”
She walked in home very soberly for her, and going directly to her mother, asked, “Mamma, should you like me to go away over the seas and be a missionary?”
“No, indeed!” said her mother emphatically. “I should not like it at all. You mustn't think of such a thing.”
“But if God calls me to go?” said Marty, with quivering lip.
It would be hard, after all, to leave this dear home. She scarcely knew whether she wanted her prayer answered or not.
“What do you mean?” inquired Mrs. Ashford, drawing her on her lap.
Then Marty told all about the meeting, and what she had been thinking, and how she had prayed to be a missionary.
“I want to be one if God wants me to, but I don't see how I can go away and leave you all,” she said, half crying.
“Well,” said her mother soothingly, seeing she was trembling with excitement, “we need not talk about it yet. It will be a long time until you are old enough or know enough to go. You will have to go to school many years yet, and then, perhaps, to college, for you know the better missionaries are educated the more good they can do. Then you must learn to make your own clothes and take care of them, and it is well to know a good deal about housekeeping also, for missionaries have to know how to be independent, and be ready for any kind of life. You would hardly be prepared to go before you are twenty, anyway, and that is ten years yet.”