Scant justice would be done to the work of missions, if no account were taken of the work done by the wives of the missionaries. Their work is seldom reported, and is not always reportable, but it has to be done all the same. In one sense their work is never done, for they are always at it, helping in a score of unnumbered and unsentimental ways. They visit the schools, conduct the sewing-classes, look after the Bible women, and teach the female Bible-classes. They look after the women of the churches—old folk, young folk, well folk, feeble folk, and all sorts of folk who need bits of help, and odds and ends of guidance, good advice, and wise suggestion. Besides that which cometh upon them daily—the care of their households, their small families, and the attention native servants all require.
They have to make the most of the preparations for their husbands when they go off on itinerating tours—see to his cooking-utensils, stores, stretcher, bedding, &c. Some of them would starve by the way if their good wives did not look after them. If there are any social amenities to be observed in order to good standing in the community, as there are sometimes, the wives have to see to them, or they will not be done. They have to see that their husbands are not barbarized while about their work. Some of the husbands would go round with sleeves out at the elbows, or in their cook’s white drill coat, which the washerman had by mistake put along with the missionary’s, or in shoes careened over on one side and tied with twine, if their wives did not look after them. They would get to taking their breakfast in the pantry, or on their desks, or even go off into the country without breakfast, if left to themselves.
Every time they return from an itinerating tour their wives have to put them through their facings, make them presentable to society, and not a discredit to those that sent them out. Nor is this all that missionaries’ wives have to do and see after. They have to be the general supplementers in most mission fields of all manner of minor unfinished items in the round of missionary life.
In some fields the wives have to mix medicines, spread plasters, give out doses of ‘pain-killer,’ quinine, castor oil, warn the children against green fruit and colic, put on patches, sew on buttons, deal out bits of thread and needles, doctor the children, ask the children how their mothers are, and the mothers how the children are, keep count of the baptizing gowns, look after the preparations for the Communion Service, keep the desk supplied with pens, ink, paper and postage stamps. And so on, and so on, with twenty other things of no account in making up a ‘report,’ but all of which are most valuable items of solid missionary usefulness, and go a very long way in making the work of their husbands a success or a failure.
There are many gifted, cultured, gracious women, whose devotion to the cause of foreign missions is soul-refreshing to see or to read about. But there are also others, equally gracious women, although not equally gifted and cultured, whose labours, sacrifices, and influence are and have been such as even their more gifted and cultured sisters have never come near—gentle, sweet-tempered, tender-hearted, unobtrusive women who, seldom seen on platforms and never in the pulpit, and little heard of even in missionary circles, are not much reckoned among the workers and forces making for righteousness—and yet the influence, example and work of such are among the most powerful factors in the mission field. For not only do they reign as queens in their own homes—which are always models of what such ought to be in cleanliness, comfort and hospitality (‘Marys in the House of God, Marthas in their own’)—but also in the huts and homes of the natives, because they reign in the hearts of the native women, who adore them, and look up to them as their highest example of all that is Christian, womanly and motherly.
With limited gifts and but little culture—as those words are generally understood—they are greatly gifted in tact, mother-wit and sanctified common sense, and rich in that heart-culture which counts for so much in all Christian work, but especially in foreign mission work. Like their prototype, Mary of old, they do what they can, and their influence and example, like the odour of her ointment, are felt far and near. For they fill their fields of labour with their aroma, penetrating to the most unthought-of places, and permeating all the ways and walks of native and missionary home, social and public life. Such are not only mothers in Israel, sisters in sorrow, and helpers in every season of affliction and time of need, but they are the Marys, Marthas, Dorcases, Priscillas and Phoebes of the mission field, and rare and precious blessings they are to it and to all connected with it.
In those early days there were very few horses, and those not good, while all were very dear. Our pastors, chiefs and other head-men, when they knew I could ride, strongly advised me to buy a horse. There were only a very few men at Fihàonana trained to carry the so-called palanquin with any comfort. Often when I wanted them they were engaged in field or other work for their masters, and could not be had. But the horses were high-priced, unbroken, and riding was exhausting in the rarified air at an altitude of 5,000 feet above sea-level, and hence I was loth to get one. Nor was that all. When on horseback you could not carry an umbrella, and, even in the cold season, without one you were so beaten on the shoulders by the sun’s rays as to feel after a few hours as if you had been belaboured with a stick. Walking was almost an impossibility, and would have been suicidal.
My hand, however, was forced by a strike among my palanquin-bearers. One morning, coming out of the house to go off to a district Bible-class, I found my men with my palanquin waiting for me, but before lifting it they asked where we were going, and on hearing inquired what wages I was to pay, I answered, ‘The usual pay.’ They said they had made up their minds that, unless I promised one shilling a day, they would not carry me. ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘the best thing you can do is to make up your bodies to go home, for I won’t pay you one shilling a day.’ ‘Then, sir,’ they said, ‘we will never carry you.’ ‘Very well,’ I answered, ‘just put up my palanquin,’ which they did, and returned to the village.
I saw them in church on the Sabbath, but they did not come near me for about a month. The churches sent to see if I was ill, or why it was that I was not visiting them, nor coming to conduct Bible-classes. I told them: ‘My bearers have gone stupid, and refuse to carry me unless paid one shilling a day, a sum to which I cannot agree. I cannot walk to visit you, or would gladly do so. I have no horse, although I mean to get one now; but if you will send bearers I shall be delighted to visit you, as I am weary of this inaction, but am helpless until a horse is procured.’
About a month after the refusal to carry me, on entering my study one morning, I heard a knock at the door which led into the lean-to, where patients were seen, and where there was a place for the palanquins and a carpenter’s shop. Upon opening the door, a man was standing with the side of his head on his hand, groaning and looking the very picture of misery. He said he was suffering from toothache, and had been ill all night. I remarked that that was a most painful thing, and inquired what he wanted. He answered that he wanted me to draw his tooth. Telling him to sit down on the doorstep, with his head against the study door—that was the operating chair—I asked him to open his mouth, to see which tooth it was. Getting the proper forceps, I asked him where his shilling was. ‘What shilling?’ he asked in amazement. I said, ‘I charge one shilling for drawing a tooth.’ ‘A shilling for drawing a tooth!’ he gasped. ‘Yes; you could not get it done cheaper, even if you went over to England. If I went it would be much more, but as you are only a poor man I will only charge you a shilling; but turn it out quickly, as I have a deal to do to-day, and have no time to waste in haggling.’