“The mechanical industries were under the special charge of Wm. H. Mead. His sons—Johnnie and Sammy, the former about 12, and the latter nearly 11—out of school-hours are valuable helpers in each department, alternating where needed most.
“Willie’s two pit-saws, in the two years he has been in Malange, have turned out $1,500 worth of planks and scantling, about half of which he sold, and used up the other half on improvements of mission property. To haul the logs from the forest, Sam had the oxen and Willie bought a huge Portuguese cart, with wheels of hard-wood, about four feet in diameter, and a hard-wood frame to match, all very strong and durable.
“The outlay of the earnings of these workers, for the past two years, over and above self-supporting subsistence, may be seen in the following exhibit:
“(1) The roofing and fitting up for school and chapel purposes of the unfinished hall, 18x40 feet, belonging to the block of buildings first bought for the mission. The girders, plates, rafters and collar beams are all of enduring hard-wood. The roof is double; the nether is covered with fire-proof clay; the upper with thatch grass. The shutters and doors, and frames for both, are of sawn hard-wood. Its slab benches, without backs, give quite a ‘rise’ to people always
accustomed to sit on the ground. The cost of these improvements in material, labor and money is estimated to have been $300.
“(2) The farm-house, 15x20 feet; corn crib, about 6x11 feet, set on posts, capt with inverted tin-pans, to prevent the rats from getting up; and two out-houses, about 10x10 feet, and a corral of heavy logs for the cattle, cost a total of $100.
“(3) Willie Mead’s saw-pits, a shed, workshop and appliances, located in the mission yard, cost about $100.
“(4) A new mission-house on the same lot on which stands the old one. It is 24x30 feet, two stories high. The lower story is built of dressed stone, the upper of adobe brick, solid walls, below and above, three and one-half feet thick, with a second-story, veranda front and rear of the building. Double fire-proof roof—as the chapel roof before described. Doors, window shutters, and frames of both, together with the verandas and upper-story floors, are all sawn hard-wood. The lower floor and walks outside are of flag-stones. It is the only two-story house in Malange, and believed to be the only house in Angola furnished with a chimney and fireplace, which adds greatly to its comfort in the really cold weather of Malange at this season of the year. The upper story is used by Sam and Ardella, and about half a dozen of their adopted native children. The lower story has also sleeping accommodations, but is the dining-room for Sam, Ardella, Robert Shields and Bertha, and the school ‘internoes.’ The house is not large, but most symmetrical and substantial, and is prophetic of progress, and bears from the veranda facing the street a tall flag-staff from which floats the flag of our home country—the stars and stripes.
“The brethren estimate the cost of this building, in materials, money and labor, at $800. To buy all the materials, and depend on hiring workmen, it could not be done for that amount. It will be observed that the aggregate outlay for these improvements amounts to $1,300, not a dollar of which was furnished by our Transit and Building Fund Society; the brethren preferring to do it themselves than to ask for or receive aid from home. They are now engaged in building a wall round our Malange Mission premises 1,000 feet long.
“(5) The farm Brother Sam bought, with its field of sugar cane, so thickly set as to defy anything short of an elephant a passage through it; its fruit orchard; its live stock of twenty herd of cattle, including three yoke of oxen; and eleven breeding sows and male, and chickens, is worth in the market one thousand dollars.