"Would you still be glad if we had such fighting and riots here as they had across the river in Hankow last week?" asked Jennie Cody.
Jennie Crawford laughed. "I've never had a chance to find out what I would do in a battle," she said. "I'll tell you about that later."
"Things look as if you might have a chance to find out very soon," said Jennie Cody.
Presently a native Bible teacher came in and sat down with them.
"We were talking about the rumors of war," said Miss Crawford. "Do you think there will really be a revolution?"
"There must be a revolution," she answered. "You Americans would never have had freedom to govern your own country if you had not had your revolution. It is even worse in China. Three hundred years ago the Manchus came from the north and took the government away from the Chinese, put a Manchu emperor on the throne, and made the yellow flag with its dragon the flag of China. They compelled the men of China to plait their hair in queues, and whenever a Chinese man dared to cut off his queue, the soldiers of the emperor cut off his head. The Chinese want to be free to rule their own land as you do in America."
"I wish that China was a republic like the United States, but I'm afraid I'd make a poor soldier in a revolution," said Jennie Cody.
In October came rumors of riots and warfare. One evening as Jennie Crawford sat writing in her room in the school building, she heard a loud knocking at the door and a voice calling. There stood Jennie Cody holding up a letter. She had sped across the drill ground of the school and along the dark city wall to the hospital.
"A letter has come from the father of a pupil," she gasped. "He is a Chinese official and he says that there are rumors that a rebellion will start tomorrow."