There was no lack of Christmas fare. An officer of high standing had received his usual plum-pudding from home, but as he was leaving on furlough, he sent it to "Ma"; a cake had come from Miss Wright, "the dear lassie at Okoyong," and shortbread had arrived from Scotland, But there was not a drop of intoxicating drink on the table.
After dinner the old home songs and hymns full of memories and associations were sung, often tremulously, for each had loved ones of whom he thought. Jean, who had secured a canoe and come from Okpo, and the other children, were present, and they sang an Efik hymn; and although Mary was the only Scot present the proceedings were rounded off with "Auld Long Syne." "I just lay back and enjoyed it all," she wrote, "It is fifteen years since I spent a Christmas like it. Wasn't it good of my Father to give me such a treat? I was the happiest woman in the Mission that night! If I could only win these men for Christ— that would be the best reward for their kindness." Next day they sent her a Christmas card on a huge sheet of surveying-paper, with their names in the centre.
Miss Wright, along with Miss Amess, a new colleague, arrived on the 80th on a visit, and three of the Public Works officials spent the evening with them. Mary began to talk as if it were the last night of the year. "Oh," said one of the men, "we have another day in which to repent, Ma." "Have we?" she replied. "I thought it was the last night— and I've been confessing my sins of the past year! I'll have to do it all over again." These officials asked the ladies to dine with them on New Year's night, the form of invitation being—
"The Disgraces three desire the company of the Graces three to dinner this evening at seven o'clock. Lanterns and hammocks at 10 P.M. R.S.V.P."
In reply "Ma" wrote some humorous verses. The dinner was given in the same native shed as before. As the table-boy passed the soup, one of the men made as if to begin. "Ma," who was sitting beside him, put her hand on his and said, "No, you don't, my boy, until the blessing is asked," and then she said grace. After dinner the bairns, who had been sitting at the door in the light of a big fire, were brought in, and prayers were conducted by Mary. On that occasion, when Miss Amess was bidding her "Good-bye," she said to her, "Lassie, keep up your pluck."
These men were very much afraid of the least appearance of cant, but they would do anything for "Ma"; and when, a few days later, in order to give an object-lesson to the natives, she proposed an English service, they agreed, and one of them read the lessons, and another led the singing. A short time before white men were unknown to the district.
X. MUTINOUS
She was, under official ruling, to return to Akpap in April 1906, and she was now reminded of the fact. She was in great distress, and inclined to be mutinous. "There is an impelling power behind me, and I dare not look backward," she said. "Even if it cost me my connection with the Church of my heart's love, I feel I must go forward." And again, "I am not enthusiastic over Church methods. I would not mind cutting the rope and going adrift with my bairns, and I can earn our bite and something more." She had thoughts of taking a post under Government, or, with the help of her girls, opening a store. In a letter to the Rev. William Stevenson, the Secretary of the Women's Foreign Mission Committee, she pointed out how her settlement at Itu had justified itself, and referred to the rapid development of the country:—
In all this how plainly God has been leading me. I had not a thought of such things in my lifetime, nor, indeed, in the next generation, and yet my steps have been led, apart from any plan of mine, right to the line of God's planning for the country. First Itu, then the Creek, then back from Aro, where I had set my heart, to a solitary wilderness of the most forbidding description, where the silence of the bush had never been broken, and here before three months are past there are miles of road, and miles and miles more all surveyed and being worked upon by gangs of men from everywhere, and free labour is being created and accepted as quickly as even a novelist could imagine. And the minutes says "I am to return to Akpap in April!" Okoyong and its people are very dear to me. No place on earth now is quite as dear, but to leave these hordes of untamed, unwashed, unlovely savages and withdraw the little sunlight that has begun to flicker out over its darkness! I dare not think of it. Whether the Church permits it or not, I feel I must stay here and even go on farther as the roads are made. I cannot walk now, nor dare I do anything to trifle with my health, which is very queer now and then, but if the roads are all the easy gradient of those already made I can get four wheels made and set a box on them, and the children can draw me about…. With such facts pressing on me at every point you will understand my saying I dare not go back. I shall rather take the risk of finding my own chop if the Mission do not see their way to go on. But if they see their way to meet the new needs and requirements, I shall do all in my power to further them without extra expense to the Church.
"This," she characteristically added, "is not for publication; it is for digestion."