Under Many Flags

by Katharine Scherer Cronk; Elsie Singmaster

Daddy let the fire go down and went back to the mission porch. It was almost noon, and the hot sun commanded all men with white skins to get under cover. He sat down to tell his friends in America that the engine was in place, and, as he wrote, he remembered his arrival at the mission, its desolation, the sinking of his heart. His pen dropped from his fingers.

One man had, after all, done a great deal.

Mr. Day had, after awhile, a new title, given to him by a college at home. First he had been Dave, then David, then he had been the Reverend Mr. Day, then "Daddy," and now he was "the Reverend Doctor Day." Probably he liked "Daddy" best of all.

He had ceased entirely as he grew older to think about other people caring for him; what he wished for was to care for other people. He had had many to love, the dear wife who worked with him, and two babies whom they could only keep for a little while. Then there was Leila, a little daughter who was brought up in America. When she was nine years old she went to Africa, but lived only a short time.

He had also hundreds, even thousands, of black boys and girls and men and women, those who came to the mission as children and married there and bought themselves little farms near by, and those who came and stayed only a little while and then went back to the jungle. Of these, some forgot all they had learned, except one thing, that here was a man who had come from so far away that they could not measure the distance, simply to do them good.

For twenty-three years Dr. Day worked on, almost without rest. Mrs. Day came home to America, worn-out, but with high courage to the end of her life. She would not let anyone say that she would not get well and that she could not go back and work with Dr. Day.

"In Africa everything depends on how brave you are. I expect to go back."

Dr. Day saw many of the missionaries who came to help him fall by his side; he saw his first native helpers grow old and die, but he was as brave as Mrs. Day.

"This is my work," he would say. "I need no rest. This is my place."

In 1896 he came home. It was December, and more than thirty years had passed since that December day when he had started out in the bleak morning leading his poor horses. He traveled on a fast steamer, but it was clearly to be seen that before he reached the dock he would have started on another journey. The friends who came to meet him found only his tired body.