gged hard for the lad's life. When she returned she
found that Edem was getting ready to fight, and she prayed earnestly
that the heart of the cruel chief might be softened. It was softened,
for news came that the prisoner had been sent home, and so there was
peace and not war.

Ma began to wonder how long she would be able to live in the midst of
such sin and dirt. She had hung a door at the opening of her mud-room,
and made a hole in the wall for a window and curtained it with pieces of
cloth, but the place was so small that at night she had to lift her
boxes outside in order to give herself and the children room to sleep.
It was overrun with rats and lizards and beetles and all sorts of biting
insects. She could not get away from the squabbling and bad language and
rioting of the wives and slaves, and was often tired and ill. It was the
thought of Jesus that gave her patience and courage. She remembered how
He had left His home above the stars and dwelt on earth amongst men who
were unlovely and wicked and cruel, and how He never grumbled or gave
in, though life to Him was often bitter and hard. "Shall I not follow my
Master," she said, "because my way is not easy and not nice? Yes, I will
be His true disciple and be strong and brave."

She was longing to be alone sometimes to read her Bible and think and
pray in quiet, and one day she started to build a little hut of her own
some distance away from the others. First she fixed stout tree-trunks in
the ground, and on the tops of these, cross-wise, she laid other pieces.
Sticks were then placed between the uprights, and strips of bamboo,
beaten until soft, were fastened in and out, just as the threads had
been woven in the loom of the Dundee factory. This was the skeleton of
the hut, and when Ma looked at it she clapped her hands with delight.

"It's like playing a game," she said to the children.

The walls were next made by throwing in large lumps of red clay between
the sticks. When the clay was dry the surface was rubbed smooth, and
then mats of palm leaves were laid on the top and tied down to form the
roof.

"Now for the furniture," she said. With kneaded lumps of clay she built
up a fireplace, and moulded a seat beside it where the cook could sit,
then made a sideboard, in which holes were scooped out for cups and
bowls and plates, and a long couch, which she meant for herself. All
these were beaten hard and polished and darkened with a native dye.

The fl