Under Many Flags

by Katharine Scherer Cronk; Elsie Singmaster

There are also some of the queerest animals in the world, especially the ant-eater, a bow-legged creature seven feet long from the tip of his snout to the tip of his hairy tail. There is a queer little opossum about the size of a mouse, with enormous black eyes, fan-like ears, and a long tail, which runs about in the trees like a squirrel. Most interesting of all is the lungfish which can live either in the water or in the air. In the wet season he stays in the swamps and eats and eats, and when the dry season comes and the swamps disappear, he burrows in the ground and lives without eating anything, by using up the fat he has stored.

There are many birds both large and small, from great ostriches down to tiny hummingbirds, and there are insects of all kinds, ants and crickets and mosquitoes and beetles and locusts, and there are twenty-four different kinds of frogs, each with a different croak.

For many weeks no rain falls, and the Indians have a hard time to get along; then when the rain comes they have more than they need to eat, water-birds, fish, and, by-and-by, their harvests. They do not mind having to tramp round in deep water, because wet weather brings plenty.

Among the Indians in this strange country was a young man named Poit. One morning in December Poit awoke with a frightened, anxious heart. It was not because he was too warm, though in December in Chaco the mornings are hot, nor because he had not slept comfortably on his bed on the ground nor because he was hungry; it was because he plotted a wicked deed. Today Poit planned to do the most dreadful thing anyone can do, he was going to kill his best friend, the missionary.

Though these Indians lived so uncomfortably, they did not want to change their ways, and they killed everybody who came to explore their country or to search for silver or to tell them of the love of God. Even soldiers sent to conquer them by force failed because they were so fierce and cunning.

The chief reason for their resistance and their cruelty was not wickedness, but ignorance and dreadful fear. They were afraid of spirits and afraid of witches and wizards. They were so afraid that the souls of the dead might come and annoy them that whenever anyone died they destroyed the village and went to another place to live. This wasn't very difficult because their houses were made of boughs stuck into the ground. They were especially afraid of people unlike themselves, and this was the reason they killed foreigners.

In spite of their objections, a little mission had been established among them. It was situated on the banks of the Paraguay River and its influence did not extend very far inland, but it was a beginning. The first missionary died as a result of his hard work, and there arrived one day a new missionary, a tall, slender young man, hardly more than a boy in years, whose name was Barbrooke Grubb.

Mr. Grubb was not satisfied to stay along the river where he could see only a few of the Indians, he determined to travel to the interior villages. He knew perfectly well that the undertaking was dangerous. He had heard of the explorers and the missionaries whom the Indians had murdered; he knew that a poor white man who had strayed from his companions and had taken refuge with them had been slain; he knew that if sickness broke out while he was staying in a village, he would be held responsible and be killed. He knew that if an Indian had a bad dream about him, he might kill him.

Nevertheless, he not only visited the interior of the country, but he lived with the Indians for months at a time, staying in their villages, eating their strange food, hunting and fishing with them, so that he might learn all about their ways and help them. He went unarmed and unprotected, saying that he was a messenger of peace.

He had many thrilling experiences, and some that were very funny. Of course he did not know the language well at first and he mistook the word "evil" for the word "good," and assured the people that he was a friend of the "evil spirit."