year!

J.W. was not quite satisfied. The days of his wanderings must soon be
over, but before he left India he wanted to see the missionary in actual
contact with the immemorial paganism of the villages, for he had
discovered that the village is India. How was the Christian message
meeting all the dreary emptinesses and limitations of village life?

Once more he appealed to his missionary guide; this latest one, the last
of the five men to whom Pastor Drury had written before J.W. had set out
on his travels. Could he show his visitor a little of missionary work in
village environment?

"Surely. Nothing easier," the district superintendent said. "We'll jump
into my Ford--great thing for India, the Ford; and still greater for us
missionaries--and we'll go a-villaging."

The village of their quest once reached, the Ford drew up before a neat
brick house built around three sides of a courtyard, with verandas on
the court side. This was no usual mud hut, but a house, and a parsonage
withal. Here lived the Indian village preacher and his family. The
preacher's wife was neatly dressed and capable; the children clean and
well-mannered. The room had its table, and on the table books. That
meant nothing to J.W., but the superintendent gave him to understand
that a table with books in an Indian village house was comparable in its
rarity to a small-town American home with a pipe organ and a butler!

The lunch of native food seemed delicious, if it was "hot," to J.W.'s
healthy appetite, and if he had not seen over how tiny a fire it had
been prepared he would have credited the smiling housewife with a
lavishly equipped kitchen.

People began to drop in. It was somewhat disconcerting to the visitor,
to see these callers squatting on their heels, talking one to another,
but watching him continually out of the corners of their eyes. One of
them, the chaudrie, headman of the village, being introduced to J.W.,
told him, the superintendent acting as interpreter, how the boys' school
flourished, and how he and other Christians had gone yesterday on an
evangelizing visit to another village, not yet Christian, but sure to
ask for a teacher soon.

The preacher, in a rather precise, clipped English, asked J.W. if he
cared to walk about the village. "We could go to the _mohulla_ [ward],
where most of our Christians live. They will be most glad to welcome
you."

The way led through dirty, narrow streets, or, rather, let us say,
through