Mr. Kim Yun O, the wealthy man of the village, one who had been a great sinner but was now one of the strongest and most earnest of the leaders, had invited us to occupy his new sarang or guest room. It was quite a commodious sunny room, and we were pleased to find it was quite new, so we need fear few of our little enemies.
While Mr. Underwood was holding his classes with the men in the church all day, patients of all kinds came to me in the mornings for several hours. Then I taught the girls and boys how to sing the hymns, for they had never known what it means to sing, and though they made a joyful noise to the Lord, it was not joyful to the fleshly ear at all, but a most awful combination of discords, flats and sharps, mixed up in the most hopeless confusion, whole bunches of keys on one string, moanings, groanings, sounds of woe as if all the contents of the pit had come forth before the time, or all the evil spirits exorcised from the village had returned to spoil their praise.
The young people were the most hopeful to begin with, and were soon doing remarkably well. Every afternoon we women had a Bible class together. Most of those who came were baptized Christians or catechumens, though some unbelievers were always present. About twenty-five crowded into Mr. Kim’s anpang each day. It is delightful to be allowed to teach such women, so hungry for truth, so eager to learn, so full of humble loving interest in every word, with such a spirit of childlike faith.
Mrs. Kim, in whose house we were staying, was a busy woman, and her life was not an easy one. She was small and frail, with two children, her husband and old mother to work for, with one servant to help. The preparation of food for her own family and many Korean guests (for a Korean gentleman’s guest house is always well filled at meal time) was in itself no light matter. The rice comes in very rough, only partly husked, and must be pounded a long while in a great wooden vessel, with a heavy club, larger at either end, which is almost all that a woman can lift (a fine exercise for athletic women’s clubs). Water is usually brought in on the head from quite a distance, brass bowls and spoons kept bright, garments must be washed and smoothed, with what pains I have already described, animals cared for, fires made.
But the country women work in the fields, too, helping to sow the cotton, tobacco, rice and barley. When the cotton is ripe they pick and prepare it, and only after much toil is it ready for use. Then they weave their own cloth and make up their own garments, in the dark little rooms in which the women live and work. They prepare and dry certain vegetables for winter’s use, and with much labor, themselves press out the castor oil which they use in their tiny lamps. In the fall they make their kimchi for the whole year.
Timely hints dropped now and then, and the example of a Christian husband’s care for his wife, have done wonders among the native Christian homes, and much lightened the hard lot of the women. Of course we did our own cooking in all these little villages, our personal entertainment adding nothing to the work of the poor house wife. The people at Sorai are extremely generous and were constantly bringing us presents of chickens, eggs, persimmons, etc. We were much embarrassed by all this bounty, for we knew the people were poor and that such gifts cost a large sacrifice on their part.
When one’s wages are not more than ten cents a day a chicken means quite a good deal of money. Yet we could not refuse their offerings, for when we tried to do so they felt so hurt we found it was impossible. The people already at that time were paying the running expenses of a Christian day school, which they had endowed, by setting apart the income from certain fields for this purpose, and if the crop was poor and the income insufficient, they made it up to the required amount.
While here in Sorai we had a new and rather unpleasant experience with the working of the Korean kang, which we thought we knew well. In the midst of winter the wind suddenly turned in the wrong direction for our fires. The fire being built at one side of the house and the chimney opening at the other, we made the very chilling discovery, that when the wind blows into the smoke vent a fire cannot be coaxed to light. Our room was bitterly cold, and it is surprising how a floor, which can become intolerably hot, can also under the proper circumstances become so cold and damp. I was obliged to wrap my rheumatic frame in furs and rugs, while they brought in a great bowl or wharrow full of glowing charcoal fire, with which I was comparatively unacquainted. However, that night the room began dancing about in the giddiest kind of way, all grew dark—and my husband spent several hours with me in the cold night air outside our room, in the effort to ward off successive fainting attacks. When our child, too, complained of headache and giddiness, we no longer questioned the cause, and henceforth preferred pure cold air to carbon dioxide.
It was interesting in the cold, sleety, snowy weather to see how the Christians managed to attend church, even from long distances. The women would fold up their clean skirts and put them with their shoes and stockings on their heads, roll up their pajies or divided skirts quite high out of the reach of wet, and with a thin cotton apron, or no outer wrap at all over their heads and shoulders, trudge miles through snow and mud, facing a cutting wind. Quite a number of people were examined for baptism while we were there. One old woman, whose case seemed rather doubtful on account of her ignorance, was asked what was her dearest wish. “That I may be with Jesus always” was the reply. “And how do you know you will always be with him?” “Because I am holding close to him now, and will hold close all the way.” She had at least learned that Jesus supplies the soul’s whole need, that to be in his felt presence is heaven, and that to hold and be held by him is the only way to reach and be kept there. Surely she had the end and aim of all theology in a nutshell.
