"Ma," he went on, "we confess that this quarrel is the fault of one of our foolish men, and it is a shame to bring evil on the whole town for one. We beg you to make peace."
Ma's heart thrilled with joy, and soon she had a number of men from each side talking over the matter. Often it seemed as if war must come after all, and it needed all her patience to make them agree, but at last it was decided that a fine should be imposed. To her horror this was paid at once in gin, and every one began to drink. She knew they would soon get violent and fight after all, and was almost in despair.
But taking off nearly all her clothes, she spread them over the boxes and bottles and dared any one to touch them. Only one glass would she give to each of the head men. So disappointed were the others that they surged round her in anger, but some of the older and wiser men obtained whips and made themselves into a bodyguard to protect her.
"If all of you go to your homes and don't fight," she said, "I'll promise to send the stuff after you."
They believed her, and trooped away like children.
It was night again when, worn out in body and mind, she tramped back through the dark and lonely forest, with crickets whistling and frogs croaking around her, and the little lamps of the fireflies pulsing in and out like the flashes of a lighthouse. But there was a light in her own face that even the fireflies could not outshine.
Two years passed, two years of toil and hardship and strain. In the heat and rain, by day and night, Ma was never idle. If she was not tramping through the forest and putting down the customs of the people, she was busy with work about her own door, helping the women to sew and cook, teaching the children in school, preaching on week-days and Sundays, and doctoring all who were ill. It was a marvel she kept at it so long. Perhaps it was because she had such a happy spirit, saw the funny side of things, and laughed at her troubles. She was always ready with a joke, even when lying ill in bed, and missionaries who went to see her usually found her as lively as a girl.
At this time she lived in a way that would have killed any other white person. She did not wear a hat or boots or stockings; she went about thinly clad; she ate the coarse food of the natives; and although she was careful about the water she drank she did not filter or boil it, as all white people have to do in the Tropics. It made life simpler and easier, she said, not to bother about such things. How she did it no one knew; the secret lay between her and God.
Even she, however, gave in at last. She became so ill that she was taken to Duke Town a wreck and carried on board the steamer and sent home. Janie again went with her, a woolly-headed lassie with velvet skin, and eyes that were always ready to laugh. She was beginning now to think that it would be a fine thing to be a white girl. One night, in a house in Glasgow when she was being bathed, she took the sponge and began to scrub the soles of her feet, which were whiter than the rest of her body. "Why are you doing that, Janie?" she was asked. "Oh, because the white place is getting bigger, and if I scrub perhaps I'll be all white some day!"
At this time Ma was dreaming another of her dreams. She wanted to see a place in Calabar where black boys could learn to use their hands as well as their heads, and so be able to become good workmen and teachers, and help to build up their country and make it rich and prosperous. She wrote a long letter to the Church magazine telling about her idea, and it was thought to be so good that the Church did what she asked it to do, and started a school which has grown into the great Hope-Waddell Training Institution, where boys are being taught all sorts of things.