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CHILD OF THE SEA

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CHILD OF THE SEA

Jl Chronicle of 'Porto Iftco

BY

JANIE PRICHARD DUGGAN

Author of

"A Mexican Ranch," "An Isle of Eden,"

" Little Cuba Libre." etc

PHILADELPHIA

THE JUDSON PRESS

BOSTON CHICAGO ST. LOUIS NEW YORK

LOS ANGELES KANSAS CITY SEATTLE TORONTO

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Copyright, 1920, by
GILBERT N. BRINK, Secretary

Published August, 1920

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SEP 25 1920
©CU597544

TO
THE MEMORY OF

Bisttt

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INTRODUCTORY NOTE

IF in this chronicle of Porto Rico more space is given by the
writer to her experiences in the remoter parts of the Island,
it is partly because her notes touching those periods of more
solitary life are fuller of detail than are those written in the
teeming city of the coastland where the work centered. Then,
as the beginnings and development of certain by-products of
any central work often hold a peculiar value of their own, so
the out-of-the-way missions of the Porto Rican mountains are
even today of special interest to the serious student.

There were in the whole Island unusual problems to be
encountered in the first years of upheaval of certain customs and
of disturbance of public opinion which attended the change of
government from the Spanish to the American — every-day
problems, involving the foreigner as well as the native, and
touching more than the money standard and party nomenclature
— even the very thought and language of the people. And the
more isolated parts were slower to conform to these changes
than were the coast cities, which from the first were in close
contact with the Army of Occupation, and later on with the
hurried influx of Americans bent upon all manner of enterprise.
Therefore, selections from the letters and journals written dur-
ing the twelve years of the writer's association with the work
of the mission (1899-1911) include only such extracts con-
cerning life in the cities as seem necessary to the continuity of
the narrative.

*' Them women be the best man for the TPorf," said the old
African chief, in naive appreciation of wonderful Mary Slessor
of the Calabar Coast Mission. Whether the dictum of the

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

chief is to be accepted as a universal truth or as simply a tribute
to that eminent woman, does not matter. A germ of truth
universal is contained in the verdict: there is a part which
women alone can take in the mission enterprise, and the old
savage of Africa may have recognized that truth.

A different kind of history would have given more atten-
tion to statistics, along with due reference to the work of those
in charge of the initiation, the organization, and the financing
of the various missions. Such details, however, will be found
easy of access in the records of all the Mission Boards con-
cerned.

Perhaps no apology is needed for the pervasive personal
note, inseparable from the true story of an eye-witness.

The statistics contained in the Postscript concerning ad-
vance in the Americanization of Borinquen, are taken from
the review of the twenty years — 1899-1919 — incorporated in
the Annual Report for 1 9 1 9 of the present governor, Mr. Ar-
thur Yager.

Grateful acknowledgement is due to Dr. Charles L. White,
of the Home Mission Society of New York City, and to Miss
Mary O. Lake, of Ponce, P. R., for important items in the
resume of missionary data given in the Postscript, and to Rev.
H. P. McCormick, of Baltimore, Md., for his courteous aid
at many points of difficulty in the editing of these journals.

Janie Prichard Duggan.

Chicago, III., January 26, 1920.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

Into the Cocoanut Grove -Frontispiece

Map Showing Line to Porto Rico 4

Map of Ponce to 1910 16

Under the Palm at La Playa Chapel :. 20

Trunk of Ceiba Tree, Where N Was Saved, Ponce 20

Dona Clara, Dona Lola, and Anita 40

Dona Clara s House in Ad juntas 40

Off to the Giant's Head 46

Sleeping Giant and Ad juntas 46

A Waif of the Hurricane 72

Flowery Plaza in Ad juntas 72

Tree-ferns on the Military Road. 1 00

The Baptist Church at Ponce 120

Group of Children in Coamo..... _ 126

A Lane in Barranquitas 1 40

The Sick Mans House in Barros 1 40

Vidal- — Faithful Cook and Sister in the Faith, Ponce 158

" Old Speckle M at the Side Door of the Church, Ponce... 158

The Road, Areciho to Ponce 1 68

Interior of Corral Viejo Chapel on Day of Dedication 2 1 6

Coamo Springs Hotel 2 1 6

Outline Map of Porto Rico 236

HYMN OF BORINQUEN

La tierra de Borinquen donde he nacido yo

Es un jardm florido de magico primor;

Un cielo siempre nitido

Se sirve de dosel,

Y dan arrullo placido las olas a sus pies.

Cuando a sus playas vino Colon,

Exclamo lleno de admiracion,

" ! Oh! Oh! esta es la linda tierra que busco yo,

Es Borinquen, la hija, la hija del mar y el sol,

Del mar y el sol,

Del mar y el sol! "

(Version in English of the above, by Rev. Hugh P. Mc-
Cormick.)

Fair Island of Borinquen,

Dear Island of my birth,

Thou art the flowery Eden

Of all this beauteous earth.

Above thee shines our sunlit sky,

A gorgeous golden canopy,

While murmuring waves about thy feet,

Chant placid lullabies and sweet.

When these thy shores he first descried,
Much marveling, Columbus cried:

"Oh! Oh! Oh!
Here, here I've found the magic strand
The loveliest far of every land!
My yearning eyes at last have seen
Borinquen, radiant, fearless queen,
Queen-child of sea and sun,
Child-queen of sun and sea —

Of sun and sea."

Child of the Sea

Beautiful island! then, it only seemed
A lovely stranger — it has grown a friend.

— Bryant.

Aboard of S. S. Caracas, Red D Line,
Atlantic Ocean, October 8, 1899.

THE third day out from New York; a purple-and-silver
sea, and a strong south wind blowing in our faces as we
steam against it. The ship rolls lazily from side to side
as she pushes her nose through the gleaming water. As I
write, the sailors are rolling up the canvas which all the hot
afternoon has shaded the starboard deck from the sun glare,
and we have before our eyes a glorious pageant of gilded
sunset clouds.

The afternoon of leaving port, October 6, was a melancholy
time of fog, chilling drizzle, tumultuous seas, and seasickness
for everybody. It was blustering outside on the streaming
deck, all stuffy inside, and nobody went down to dinner. Even
the burly old captain confessed to there being " a nasty sea
on." In the early evening there was just one glimpse of the
new moon through a rifted cloud and then — blackness of
lonely darkness. . .

The last hurried fortnight ashore seems like a dream — a
very nice one — as I sit in my deck-chair at this quiet hour.
Every day was full, both in Newton with my cousins, and in
Boston with the women who cherish such high hopes of their
new enterprise in Porto Rico. The glittering new subway of

[2] Child of the Sea

Boston impressed me profoundly, as the train bore me with
miraculous swiftness underground to the foot of stairs ushering
our jam of people above ground, conducting me almost to the
doors of Tremont Temple and the Mission offices.

I shall not soon forget the faces about the wide polished
table in the Board room. The President 1 of the Board and
the Corresponding Secretary 2 were personally, as well as offi-
cially, most cordial, and I came away with a distinct heart-
warming

Captain Woodrick stopped at my chair, a while ago, to
chaff and chat. " Where are we now? " I asked him.
" That is exactly what I want to know," he answered. Poor
captains of ships! "We are about midway of the Florida
coast," I ventured, for there is no chart shown of the ship's
progress, only a memorandum of the daily runs. " Yes, about
the latitude of Cape Florida," he returned, applauding my
guess.

He is a kindly, queer old gentleman, fond of his pipe and
of a huge chair in which he sits at his cabin-door on our
deck — sometimes in his shirt-sleeves at the day's end. To-
day, he rushed out upon a group of little folks playing un-
der his cabin window with " Here! stop that screechin'!
I'm goin' to bed. Go aft! " But I can see him now* tell-
ing a story to a small passenger at his knee and chuckling
with the youngster.

Atlantic Ocean,
October 10, 1899.

It is interesting and curious to hear the various opinions my
shipmates advance as to Porto Rico, some distinctly pro, others
altogether con. Mrs. K , who has lived five years al-

1 Mrs. George B. Coleman.
"Mrs. A. E. Reynolds.

Child of the Sea ^

ready in San Juan, the capita], says that very soon I shall
remembering be what she, " de German ladee," tells of the
horrid fleas and changas and other animales to be encountered
even in every-day life, in one's own nice, clean house — that
one may not lay a crumb of sweets down for an instant with-
out a swarm of *' beasts " attacking it! As if one could ex-
pect the charms of a tropic isle without knowing that there
must be some rifts in its perfections! As the Cuban passenger,
Doctor Arango, says, we must wait to see and judge for our-
selves. He and his sweet wife tell me of a cousin of theirs
married to a Spanish planter away up in the mountains about
Ponce. Shall I ever meet them?

Atlantic Ocean,

October 11, 1899, 9.30 A. M.

Porto Rico lies like a pale low-hung blue cloud along the
horizon straight ahead in the south. We have left the
patches of orange-colored seaweed behind, and foamless wave-
lets of deep ultramarine blue sparkle and dance about the ship.
I have had other ocean voyages, but this has been the most
notable of all, in the balminess of the winds, after the first,
and the radiant tints of the water

We shall land today at noon.

At Rio Piedras, P. R., from
October 12 to November 3, 1899.

Creeping in at last toward the green water of our anchorage
in San Juan harbor was for our eyes like turning the leaves
of a picture-book in colors ; the walls of the old yellow fortress,
El Morro, stood out sharply from the green shores, the white
surf broke over the sunny brown rocks below, a few scraggy
cocoanut palms lifted their fronds against the hot blue sky

[4] Child of the Sea

alongshore, and the pilot's little sailboat came teetering out to
meet us as the ship barely moved at last. A great gray-and-
white bird went flapping close by my head at the deck rail,
and the rope ladder was thrown over the ship's side for the
pilot. I '* snapped " the Island, and then had to rush down to
our belated breakfast and so lost the further coming in to port.
The negro pilot brought us to our anchorage in the picturesque
harbor in the heat of high noon. So we arrived, safe and
very well, over the lonesome sea. In all the thirteen hundred
and eighty miles from New York, we saw but three distant
sails, and the smoke of one steamship miles and miles away.

As I looked down from the deck upon the rowboats crowd-
ing and slopping about the foot of our lowered gangway steps,
the dusky oarsmen clamoring for passengers for shore, a pleas-
ant voice greeted me in English, and I turned to find a lands-
man at my side, clothed in cool, white duck from helmet to
shoes. He was not the expected Mr. McCormick, but intro-
duced himself as Mr. Z. C. Collins, Y. M. C. A. Secretary
of the Army and Navy, U. S. A. He said that there was
illness in the family of our missionary, and that he had been
deputed by him to meet me in his stead.

On landing I went at once to a boarding-house, for the
afternoon and night, as the intense heat set my head to reeling,
while the cobblestones of the noisy streets heaved under my
feet! But Miss Ida Hayes soon appeared with a welcome
from Rio Piedras, where she lives in the home of the McCor-
mick family. They have all been ill with dengue (breakbone
fever) and she herself was barely able to be out even in the
cool of the day, as I could very well see. The next day, Mr.
McCormick brought me here to his cottage home. How much
trouble a " beginning-missionary " seems to herself to be giving
everybody! But my welcome could not have been more
hearty.

NEWYORKJ
PENNSYLVANIA

PHILADELPHIA „ -, , v- a>

BALTIMORE <^A^J \
WASHINGTON qlm?!W* V|l

VIRGINIA ~'- ,/ >\

CHESAPEAKE BAY Y^

CAROLINA ^ %

NlP1 ,'**&&§iMl HATTER4S \o

|PE LOOKOUT

, CAROLINA 10EFEAB

^CHARLESTON «-*K^ R°^

SAVANNAH*'

Child of the Sea [5]

Rio Pedras is a town of two thousand inhabitants, about
seven miles inland from San Juan, the capital and chief port
of entrance. We traveled by a rattling, little dummy train
over a narrow-gauge railway which ends with the seven miles.
I was enchanted with the wayside cottages of the suburbs,
their dooryards and gardens hung with brilliant flowering
vines and shaded by strange, heavy-foliaged trees, and with
the myriads of palms, standing singly, in groups, in stately
avenue rows.

Rev. H. P. McCormick is the representative, on the north
side of the Island, of our Home Mission Board, of New York,
with Miss Hayes as associate in the work. He was the first
arrival of " Ours " in the Island, last February, initiating
Protestant endeavor, in Spanish, for the Islanders. He was
very quickly followed by Rev. A. B. Rudd, of the same
Society, who now works on the south side.

The McCormick home is a small frame cottage exactly
like thousands of others in the Island, I am told. A narrow
piazza, entered at one end by steps from the street, reaches
quite across the front. The sitting-room opens directly from
the piazza. All doors and windows have slatted shutters, and
there are no glazed sashes in the windows and no hangings of
any kind to keep out the breezes. There is a little garden-
court beyond the row of sleeping-rooms, and long, ragged
leaves of bananas and of palms droop over the high wall from
some neighbor's garden behind. Three-year-old Charlie, a lit-
tle flower-lover, brought me in the other day a curled-up,
scented leaf of the bay, from which bay rum is made, saying
in his shy, pretty way, " Here's a f'ower for you, Auntie Dug-
gan, what's got 'logne on it! "

The Porto Rican church, organized in this little town, by
Mr. McCormick, three months ago, on July 9, has the honor
of being the first Protestant Church in the Island for Spanish-

[61 Child of the Sea

speaking people, and already numbers about fifty members.
The church-house is a long, one-story, frame cottage, with
many doors and windows opening upon a piazza running its
full length; it is painted a cool green and white, and stands on
a large lot with cocoanut palms, the property of the mission.
Several other stations in the country roundabout are maintained
from this center. No church has been organized in San Juan
yet, but a Sunday School and regular preaching services are
held there. So much for statistics!

These people in the mission cottage are simply consumed
with interest in " the Work.'* They eat it, drink it, talk it,
and dream it, as it were, day and night. Already it is getting
hold of me — this all-absorbing side of Island life for us, who
are ourselves " foreigners " to the natives.

One day, with many others, I went to a baptismal service in
a fine plantation grove near by. It had rained early in the
day — it rains in lovely, misting showers at any hour, every day,
at this season — and trees, vines, and knee-high grasses were
drenched with wet. The sun blazed hotly overhead and the
earth steamed, as the little band of " members " stood round
about the baptismal pool set deep in a ferny hollow, and sang
with all the mighty joy of their hearts. Two white tents
served the baptized for the changing of raiment, and everybody
was happy!

But, an hour afterward — we had walked quietly home by
the highway which is adorned, but not shaded, by tall royal
palms — I was attacked by the breakbone aching. The rest of
the family was hardly upon its feet, and here was I groaning
with pain upon my little iron bedstead! Happily for me, ex-
perience had taught the others what might help to alleviate such
suffering. All were angels of kindness to me and, having just
passed by the same road of pain, they understood the extreme
depression, as well as the racking agony, caused by the dengue.

Child of the Sea [7]

I had meant to leave for Ponce, my final destination, on
October 25, but could not lift my head from the pillow on that
day. Am better as I write.

Ponce, P. R.,
November 18, 1899.

It was pouring rain on the evening of the 3rd when some
of the kind Rio Piedras people brought me to the waterfront
in San Juan, where the " Longfellow," a wee coastwise
steamer, lay rocking gently in utter darkness, except for a faint
light here and there from lanterns. It was dreary indeed in
the slop and chill of the little deck, and my cubby-hole of a
stateroom below was ventilated only by a port-hole scarcely
larger than a saucer. But I did not smother, as I thought I
surely must, before the boat slipped away at 2 a. m. over the
gurgling black water, and in spite of the ** misery " in my
bones and the heartache at setting out to sea with no com-
panion more friendly than the mosquitoes which attended me in
swarms, I went to sleep at last.

On deck early the next morning, I found all the world alight
and asparkle, while the lovely mountainous shores of the west-
ern coast of the Island seemed almost within reach of my fingers,
as we slowly glided past. We had stopped in the dawning
at Arecibo, still on the north coast, to unload and load freight ;
then turning the corner of the Island southward, we came after
hours of slow steaming to Aguadilla and to Mayagiiez. Such
picturesque little towns they are, crowded to the water's edge
by the mountains behind them, with palm-fringed shore drives,
thatched huts, warmly tinted houses, quiet harbors.

The sun set gloriously as we lay anchored for an hour or

two off Mayagiiez, and I saw the electric lights spring into life

around the harbor's edge, with the sounding of the sunset gun

ashore.

B

[8] Child of the Sea

At 6 o'clock the next morning, Sunday, November 5, I
waked to find the little " Longfellow " anchored off the shores
of La Playa, Ponce's seaport on the southern coast. The sun
rose behind two stranded ships, and there was still another
farther around in the roadstead, relics of the terrible hurricane
of last August. A bit of quiet, green harbor water showed
close beneath my port-hole. Rev. A. B. Rudd came aboard
the steamer for me at breakfasttime, and very soon we were
rowed ashore. Then in a hired carriage we came flying along
two miles of the Military Road to Ponce. For the present, I
am domiciled in the missionary home, where I was received
by Mrs. Rudd with welcoming kindness.

A notable event took place that very afternoon, November
5, when the first Porto Rican converts of the mission in the
south were baptized in the river. Though still weak and giddy
from the fever, I was piloted by little Courtney through the
streets to our mission hall, where the others had gathered for a
culto, an hour before. (Culto is the accepted name for a
mission service, and, since the hour at the pool in the wood, at
Rio Pedras, I can see that the word holds all its original mean-
ing of worship.)

There were the dear sisters-to-be and the brethren waiting,
with their respective changes of clothing in neat packets in their
hands. Mr. R. had engaged one or two of the rickety, little
public carriages to bear us to a point on the river a mile or so
away, beyond the town's edge. So we were off, the women
in the carriages with us, the men and a following crowd on
foot behind. We clattered through a desolate section of the
city, a motley, chattering, and ever-growing procession, over a
road strewn with loose rocks washed out of the Portugues river-
bed, in the flood of last August.

Two white tents stood on the river-bank, which was low and
flat on that side, but rose to a steep cliff directly across on the

Child of the Sea W

other side. Around us were the foothills ; beyond, the moun-
tains, and over all the soft, late afternoon light.

At first there was a disposition to mirth, as the minister led
the men into the water, for a fringe of bare-legged boys
topped the cliff over the way, ready for a cheer at the least
slip in the proceeding. And who could have blamed them?
Never before in their lives had they seen the useful Portugues
river put to such service! But all subsided into a wondering
silence, after the first thrills, for the missionary's words cap-
tured the attention of both sides of the river. And the singing
of " Happy Day " in Spanish sounded very sweet to me. As
I stood at the women's tent, a strange woman lifted an ab-
sorbed face to mine, with a sigh: "Ah! I like it! It is
Ven; beautiful," 3 she whispered.

I have often wondered how it would affect me to see people
really " hungering and thirsting " for the gospel. Can this be
that hunger and thirst — this crowding eagerness to come to the
mission hall for the enjoyment everybody seems to find there?
After the baptisms on Sunday, we held cultos every night, to
clinch the impression made then, I, suppose, and the little red
hall on Comercio Street had to be enlarged by the removal of a
partition. This hall was once the Sala de la Audiencia
(court-room) and is still called so. Men, women, and actu-
ally children, sit quietly through the longest sermon, listening
with rapt attention. White and black they sit, men on one
side, women on the other, poring over the black books — Bibles
— singing from the little red ones, their faces beaming as they
try to sing all together.

But, most of all, they like to hear the reading of la Palabra
de Dios, as they call it. Some say, innocently, that they did
not know there was a word of God, and how then could they
Jaiow " the Truth " ! Others tell us that what they hear is just

3 Oh ! me gu?t$ ffiucho ! Es mu\) Undo.

[10] Child of the Sea

what they have been wanting all these years. Others, still, find
in it an echo of a memory of the oral teaching of some re-
ligious forefather. There are but four priests in Ponce, and
there is only one Roman Catholic church, and the people seem,
here as all over the Island, to be as sheep without a shepherd.
Even I, with little experience of conditions here, can see that
missionaries must be wary in receiving for baptism some of those
who seek it. • Though there is none of the fanaticism of Mexico
to dishearten, this really does not make the problem easier. For
some do not seem to understand that rice and beans and cod-
fish and shoes are not a part of the " new religion " the ameri-
canos have brought from the far North! Hundreds are left
destitute since the terrible hurricane and flood of last August.
If the missionary had been anxious to quote numbers alone, I
do not doubt that we might have by now a church of a hun-
dred members, instead of a very little-one-to-be of a dozen
or so!

My bicycle is going to be a treasure. Ponce is a wide-
spread city, and the suburbs, where the poorer people live in
their curious little shacks, stretch to the foothills and even run
up the slopes. Already I am finding the homes of " our
people,*' and everywhere meet with a warm welcome. And
pretty, dark-eyed, Venj scantily clothed children (the only
clothing of some being the dust of earth and the sunshine of
heaven) hail the americana from the four points of the com-
pass. Always, every day, there are more openings for house-
to-house work in Ponce than can be well followed up.

In the smallest house (not to be a doll-house) I have ever
seen, and painted a bright blue, lives a pleasant-faced woman
named Juana Rodriguez. She keeps a " dame-school " of
the old-time sort, and is now having the wee ones learn to sing
the mission hymns by heart. Though she has not yet received
baptism she appears every Sunday morning at Bible School

Child of the Sea [TU

with a string of small boys and girls in her wake, washed and
combed and eager for picture-cards, bless 'em!

My arrangement for boarding with the missionary's family,
at first, seems the best I can make, although I had other plans
which may be carried out later. It is certainly very good of
Mrs. R. to take me in. The advent of Americans in the
Island is still too new and sensational a matter for us to adopt
any but very conservative ways of life, and an American lady
could not very well live alone in Ponce, in one of its fascinat-
ing, wee cottages, even with a very highly respectable servant
woman as companion.

I am delighted with the climate, although there is perpetual
summer here, the mercury registering 85° to 88° every day,
now in mid-November. White frocks are indispensable —
more than I brought with me, alas! — yet one must guard
against chilling from excessive perspiration, after even slight
exercise, combined with the almost unavoidable exposure to
strong breezes and sudden draughts in the shade.

The rainy season is ending, they say, and there is a balmi-
ness in the air from the near-by southern Sea.

If we could forget the suffering and the sorrow of the people
with whom we deal mostly, we would seem to live in a paradise
of guarding green mountains and lovely valleys, refreshed by
the daily " trades " blowing in softly from the flowing Sea.
But we do not wish to forget, and often we find fortitude and
patience among our people in unsuspected places, which touch
our hearts to the quick.

I am glad to be able to speak the language of the Island.
If the Mexican years had given me no more than this, I should
be grateful to Mexico!

[12] Child of the Sea

II

And I will kiss

The rugged cheek of Earth, with thankful tears

For every throb of every human heart

That welcomes me to share the general law,

And bear the mutual burden.

— Bayard Taylor.

Ponce, P. R.,
November 21, 1899.

THE Ponce church was formally organized tonight by
Mr. R., with fourteen baptized members. A novel and
solemn service for those eager-eyed, earnest souls, both
*' organized " and outsiders.

• ••••••

On my wheel I have been going into all parts of the city.
Among the multitude of huts it is very difficult to find the
homes even of those who have given us the names of their
streets, as the houses in the outskirts of the town have no num-
bers, and there are few names of streets posted. Along some
streets, there are rows upon rows of patched-up shacks, piteous
reminders of the recent hurricane, ranged two or three deep be-
hind the more sightly cottages directly upon the street, and I
wind in and out among them, even losing my way before I can
find my family of Martinez or Perez or Gomez, or — the way
out again! But everybody is willing to help the americana.

'* Can you tell me where a sefiora named Juana Romero
lives? " I ask a smiling woman in a doorway.

' Juana Romero '? Who can that be? Ricardo, there!
Do you know a sefiora named Juana Romero?

Child of the Sea \m_

A man saunters up, carrying a naked baby-boy in his arms:
" La Senora Juana Romero? Quien sabe? "

" But she told me she lived behind number 1 1 8 on this
street, in a house roofed with tin of oil-cans, and this house
looks like the one she described. She said she lived with a
senora named Rosa."

" I am Rosa," the smiling woman says, taking the baby
from the man, " but Juana Romero "

" The americana means our Juanita, perhaps," the man sug-
gests to the woman.

*' Juanita! but of course! Come in, Senora. Juanita has
gone to the corner to fetch water. She'll be back in a few
moments. To think that you meant my sister-in-law Juanita,
after all! "

And so it goes. The fact that an americana should come
nosing around among their houses which stand as thick as peas
in a pod, wanting to see some member of their families, seems
to stupify some and excite the suspicion of others. And very
naturally, it seems to me. What can the foreign woman want
with their sisters-in-law, and their little daughters? Ah! but
one thing indeed, can she want !

Yet, many need bread and milk, or a doctor and medicine
as well as the gospel. The state of things now, just after the
hurricane, is appalling. Those who work among the poor for
their relief say that many are slowly starving to death — not
simply as a direct result of the hurricane, but from long op-
pression and neglect as well. However, something is being
done to help them, and things will gradually improve.

But there are many happy little homes, where chubby dark-
eyed babies behave beautifully as the missionary reads to
mama from the little black book she carries. And sometimes
papa sits in the doorway and listens, or asks questions about
tjhs book

[14] Child of the Sea

December 1, 1899.

It seems almost unbelievable, after my experiences in fanati- v
cal Mexico, that people should come hurrying along the street
to the mission, as I saw them tonight. We were crowded to
the limit in our narrow quarters on Comercio Street. After
the benediction everybody crowded around as usual to shake
hands with us — I believe they think this an important part of
the service — or to give us their names, and the names of their .
streets, if they can. Their faces beam with appreciation of a
friendly word. My little name-book is filling with names of
women who ask for a visit and for reading. Their ignorance
of the Bible and of the practises of evangelical Christianity is
easily understood, but it is so fundamental that, even though
some seem to be understanding the new life and to be happy in
it, it is necessary to give rudimentary instruction all along, in
many things. The old " dead " works, the superstitious cus-
toms of the religious faith they have known, must be changed
to a real hope, not merely for the dying moment but for daily
living. A young girl, recently baptized and now " a mem-
ber," lost a cousin last week, by death. "It is the custom
here " (an unanswerable phrase used constantly in explanation
of what to the foreign mind seems unusual) when one is in
mourning not to go outside of the house for at least nine days
after the death, except to the cemetery. I went to see Antonia
during her nine days, and asked her how she occupied her time
indoors just now, when not ironing. " We have been praying
for my cousin's soul," she replied calmly. Now, this cousin
was not a " believer," so why not pray for her soul? It might
not be too late!

• • • , • • • •

Mosquitoes are a pest. A dozen bloodthirsty creatures are c
at this moment attacking me, and my ankles in low shoes are

Child of the Sea [15^

atingle. Now, at 4 p. m., the mercury registers 88°. Is
Christmas near? Maybe so, but it seems midsummer.

How thirsty one is in this humid heat! On account of the
ruin in the mountains of banana patches and fruit trees, all
fruit is scarce now. Oranges are coming in slowly, and are
sweet and juicy, though perfectly green. They cost less than
half a cent apiece; and how can one wait for the ripe ones to
become available?

Yesterday, in an impromptu gathering of several women in
a house I was visiting, we talked a little about prayer to Mary.
A girl asked me if I knew what were the words the preacher
said at the mission, " when everybody bows the head and closes
the eyes! " I prayed then in Spanish, and the girl had her
first lesson in " talking with God " in one's own words.

December 3, 1899.

Today, Sunday-School was larger than ever. There were
thirty or thirty-five women in my class, and our own offering
was sixty centavos. Over a hundred scholars in school, and
not room for them. Mrs. R.'s class of children was over-
flowing. We must have a church building as soon as possible.
Mr. R. has found a good lot, which may be secured for the
purpose.

There is no map of the city anywhere to be found, so I
have drawn one of the streets about the center. It is of course
imperfect, as I am no surveyor, and my instruments have been
my eyes, my fingers, memory and a pencil. It has been inter-
esting to explore the streets, their crooks and crannies, on the
bicycle, and then to come home to jot down the crossings and
endings, and so my little map of the Ponce streets and plazas
has grown. One street, passing the lot selected for a church,
runs short up against a block of double length, and ends there

[16] Child of the Sea

instead of passing through and continuing beyond.1 This is
Calle Bertoli, just a block from the market plaza.

December 9, 1899.

Today is election day, here in Ponce, and the two political
parties of the Island, Republican and Federal, are taking
things very seriously indeed. The Island is not yet to have
her own full and independent government, but the leaders of
the two parties are getting municipal affairs into shape so far
as they may. Some excitement had been expected, but all is
pacific, so far. The stores are closed today and neither ox-
carts nor carriages pass as usual.

December 16, 1889.

At last they are numbering the houses all about, naming un-
named streets and changing the names of others.

This a. m. I rode along La Playa road toward the Port,
having an errand with the quarantine officer and marine
surgeon there. The sun was hot, but the air blew in soft and
sweet from the sea ahead. The blue mountains behind me
seemed like a mighty wall touching the sky, and shutting off our
strip of seacoast from all the northern world. The road was
busy with processions of ox-carts, loaded with hogsheads of
sugar and molasses on the way to the shipping warehouses at
the Port. Huge army wagons, little public carriages, street
vendors calling their wares in strident tones, strings of pack-
mules bearing huge bundles of dried codfish from the ware-
houses at the Port up toward the hills, all raised the fine dust
in clouds, and filled the air witta clamor. But I liked it all,

1 Marked 3 on the map; the site of the large, substantial church built in
1,902, dedicated November 28 of that year.

,\\>

\l

JUL

GDDD

JEST.

DDD

ZEE

zon

HO DDL,

lencona

afflnnnnn

am

z

R±]dt

MAP OF PONCE
TO 1910

KEY TO MAP=

A- MAIN PLAZA

B- MARKET PLAZA

C -OUR FIRST MISSION HALL

D - SECOND

E-OUR CHURCH

F -C0TTAGE0N IABEL ST.

©-COTTAGE ON CRIST1NA ST.

Child of the Sea tm

and though I was often crowded out of the road on to the
narrow side-paths, the pedestrians were always good-natured
enough to give my wheel right of way. I hurried in order
to return before the watering-carts should spill seas of water
over the road and reduce the dust to a slippery slime, as I
have had more than one skidding spill on deluged streets.

I have been visiting once a week one of Dr. L 's pa-
tients at the Asilo de Damas, a small hospital in town, under
the auspices of the wealthy Roman Catholic ladies of the city.
Sarah, a Protestant colored woman, was taken to the hospital

by Dr. L , half dead with typhoid fever. When he

found that the '* nursing Sisters " and the priests were worrying
her about " confession," he asked if some of us at the mission
would not look after her a little. Since the first visit, in
company with Mrs. R., I have been going alone, each time
reading the English Bible, for Sarah is a Christian and
wanted to hear it. I went a few days ago, as usual, and for
the first time was received ungraciously by an attendant, a
stranger to me, short, fat, eager-eyed, a Spanish nun, as they
all are. " How many books you bring! " she exclaimed, as I
sat down by Sarah's bed in the ward. " Yes," I replied, *' I
have just been to the bank, and have my little pass-book, and
this is a note-book, and this the New Testament — a part of the
Bible." "Ah! let me see that in my hands. It is a very
bad book you bring! " She became angrily vociferous at
once, and some one must have called the Mother Superior, for
she came into the ward, and sent the fierce little Sister away.
Then she talked with me a while, and there was something
admirable about her supercalm. After hearing that another
nurse, Sor Milagros, had given me permission to read to Sarah
in Spanish the last time, the Mother Superior agreed that I
had not been '* to blame," but I must not do so again nor must
I talk to the other patients in the ward in Spanish ! I told her

[18] Child of the Sea

that I had read to Sarah in Spanish that day, out of courtesy
to the " Sister " who did not know English, and who had
sat down on Sarah's bed to hear the reading, and had even
put in a word of explanation to Sarah about the Psalm verse
I was reading.

The next time I returned to the hospital with a new bed-
sack I had made for Sarah, who was getting better, the fierce
little nun was on guard at the entrance, and would on no
account let me enter — but she accepted the sack for Sarah.
I did not wish to injure the feeble, sick woman inside by over-
persistence, and came away rather indignant, for I was not
even allowed to step inside the corridor.

Therefore I went today to speak with Dr. L and ask

his advice, as poor Sarah has become pathetically dependent
on these visits. I left my wheel in a dark, little room of the

custom-house near the beach and climbed to Doctor L 's

office on the second floor. He wished I had told him the
week before of the encounter, but I thought it was just as well
I had not done so when I saw the flash of his eyes! How-
ever, he said that as Sarah would be leaving the hospital in a
few days, he would not act in the matter only, perhaps, with
the result of bringing unpleasantness upon the sick woman's
head. And so it ends. He will let me know when she goes
back to her little room, somewhere, and I shall do what I can
for her comfort.

December 17, 1919.

Yesterday, I found a roomful of listeners in a house in the
Cantera. Men and women usually gather about the door-
ways, sit on the floor — anywhere — on the occasion of visits
from the americanos. This time I talked and read steadily
for half-an-hour, their solemn brown eyes fixed upon my face.
How much did they understand of what it was all about?

Child of the Sea U^

At least they knew that the person sitting on the soap-box
with the little black book in her hand and reading from it
in their own language, with a queer pronunciation, was very
much in earnest about something new to their thoughts! And
then I sang to them from the little red book. Sometimes one
finds that some one has had a Bible at home without realizing
what the book really was. A day or two ago, an old white-
haired woman began to tell of her Biblia, carried away last
summer by the river-flood. She stood before us as she talked
and recced dramatically in her own words the incident of the
woman taken before Jesus by the Pharisees, which she said
she had read in her book. I found the chapter in my Testa-
ment and showed it to her, and she at once plumped herself
down on the trunk beside me and read it delightedly. " Why,
it is the very same book! " she exclaimed, clasping her hands
with joy.

The Cantera was devastated by that awful flood. It hap-
pened two months before I came, but I hear many stories told
of the impoverishment and death it caused. The Portugues,
the same river which flowed so peacefully at our feet on the
afternoon of the first baptisms, swept through this district, and
the frail shacks of homes crumbled into the muddy current like
sand-houses on the beach at high tide and, broken to bits,
were swept out into the sea two miles away. The frightful
cloudbursts of rain in the mountains swelled every foot-trail
into blood-red rushing torrents and the torrents into little rivers,
and all swept down the passes into the roaring rivers of
the coastlands. It is said that two thousand drowned bodies
lay in heaps in the streets of Ponce and La Playa the day
after the worst of the flood, many of them unidentified dead
from the hills above. A woman tells me of seeing a cart
swept past her cabin-door — the cabin was on posts and resisted
the current. The stream was wide, and there were seven

[20] Child of the Sea

little children in the cart, who stretched out their arms, scream-
ing vainly for help as they were carried off. They were never
heard of afterward. This woman herself lost her sister, and
spent days looking for her body. When she was at last found,
at the river's mouth two miles away where the sea and river
met in a furious " backwater," the poor thing held a strange
little dead baby clasped in her own dead arms.

My health is as good as possible. The weather is a little
cooler — 74° tonight.

December 18, 1899.

My first women's meeting this afternoon in the home of Don
Juan Jose Diaz, at the far eastern end of Cristina Street.

Don Juan is an aged man who attends the mission, but his
wife is too infirm for this and besides is still wedded to her
*' saints " which line the wall above her bed. Several women
and a few little girls came to meeting. First things are often
interesting, but this " thing " is meant to be more than a first
one, God willing!

December 21, 1899.

Sarah Romney has left the hospital, well enough, at last, to
return to her rented room. She is as thin and hungry-looking
as a " famine sufferer," but has been well cared for, after all,
by the '* Sisters."

Today, I rode to the Cantera, leaving my bicycle in Don
Hermogenes' house on reaching the impossible street-ends where
steep trails lead up the hill. On my way, a shrieking, drunken
woman rushed up to me and embraced me so tightly that I had
to force her away.

" Oh! how I love you! " she screamed.

l* Then, why do you treat me so? " I returned indignantly,
as I tore myself from her arms. Her ravings sounded behind

Under the Palm at La Playa Chapel

Trunk of Ceiba Tree, where
Ponce

Saved

Child of the Sea [2U

me as I hurried on, men guying her from the doors of the
cantina.

I was in search of two women living in the neighborhood,
but after going as far as the quarry beyond the aqueduct
failed to find them, after all. A wasted afternoon?

Christmas Eve, 1899.

The baptisms, this afternoon, were at a curve in the river
much nearer town than before. There were nine women and
one man in the group baptized, and a few ** brethren and sis-
ters " accompanied us, with several washerwomen from the
rocky banks who had never been to a culto and had not the
faintest idea of what we were about. The singing was very

sweet in the quiet place. N , one of the women, told me

after all was over, that as she went into the water, she saw,
almost overhead, the huge old ceiba tree in which she was
caught as the flood washed her down the river, last August.
Her house went to pieces away up in the Cantera, and the
family was carried down the current. No one was drowned,
but one son was caught in sagging telegraph-wires and badly
cut before he was rescued. "Saved twice right here!"

N said she had said to herself as she entered the water

this afternoon. Dear women, it is hard for some of them to
realize that baptism is not a life-saver, as they have been taught
even of the " cristianizing " of their babies.

Christmas Day, 1899.

We had a fine, fat turkey for dinner. Hot sunshine, per-
fect air, wide-open doors and windows, and thin white dresses
today.

It was the day for the second meeting of the women at Don

[22] Child of the Sea

Juan Jose's house. All had learned the first two verses of
Psalm 23, and to sing our hymn.

December 26, 1899.

Tonight, in the little red mission hall on Comercio Street,
Mr. R. administered the Lord's Supper for the first time.
Twenty-four out of the twenty-eight newly baptized were pres-
ent— a touching service. Most of these poor people have
never even taken the wafer at the Roman Catholic church, so
little interest has been taken in them by the priests. It may
have seemed a queer performance to those crowding about the
doors and windows outside, as first the china plate with the
broken bread was passed to each of us, and then one of Mrs.
Rudd's glass goblets filled with wine and water for a sip all
around. Never had they seen anything like that before! Yet
the order was perfect, and those on the sidewalk scarcely
stirred from beginning to end of the culto. I should like to
know just what their thoughts were. Nothing could have sur-
passed the serious enjoyment of those favored ones inside who
shared the " Supper."

December 28, 1899.

The afternoon was occupied with the business of trying to
get old Paula into the Tricoche — the city hospital. Her own
family's faltering consent is not the least obstacle in the way.

December 29, 1899.

A. M. To the alcaldia (city hall) ; to the hospital; to
charity official ; to hospital again ; alcaldia.

P. M. Alcaldia, for litter and bearers (there is no am-
bulance) ; Cantera to fetch Paula in the litter ; hospital with
her. pedaling alongside the litter borne by two men.

Child of the Sea [23]

December 31, 1899.

The young mission in Adjuntas needs more attention than
the missionary of this whole district can give it, so I am to go
there, up in the mountains, to stay for a while and do what
may be done, particularly for women and children.

Yesterday, I returned to the Tricoche Hospital to see how
old Paula Martinez was doing in her airy corner in a clean
bed. The sunny corner of the ward was empty! A pic-
turesque, rosy-cheeked " nursing Sister " informed me that
Paula's relations had come for her and carried her back to
their house, in a hammock. They were " ashamed " of what
people were saying of their letting their aunt go to the hospital.
Poor, sick, unkempt old Paula, you will soon die unless the
" relations " take better care of you! [She died three days
later.]

Such a contrast there is between the far-off edges of the
city, and the pleasant streets about the plaza, where the well-
to-do live! The only sky-scraper in town has three stories, a
few of the older houses have two, but most have only one.
These last are pleasant frame or stuccoed cottages, unadorned
by frippery of any kind except in their coloring of blue, yellow,
pink, green, brown, and even red.

The oldest houses, built about the main plaza, are of brick
and plaster and are very substantial-looking, with iron balconies
at the up-stairs windows, the owners or tenants living in the
upper stories, while offices or even stores occupy the ground
floors, directly on the street.

The plaza is an open square, not beautiful now, as the river

flooded it at the time of the hurricane, and the flower-beds

and walks have not yet recuperated, for only a few scraggy

plumbago plants are blooming. There are two little fountains,

and in the center of the plaza stands a Moorish ki°*k<>* where
c

[24] Child of the Sea

children play in and out under the little globular domes and
arches, and the beggars rest their bones. The wide sidewalk
surrounding the plaza is planted with flamboydn trees, of the
acacia family, which, I am told, bear wonderful flowers in
their season, of flaming scarlet among the feathery foliage.
The yellow-washed Roman Catholic church, with its jangling
bells, stands on one side of the plaza^ in the central location in
which we usually find such churches.

Child of the Sea [25]

HI

All seems beautiful to me,

I can repeat over to men and women, You have done

Such good to me, I would do the same to you.

— Walt Whitman.

Ponce, P. R.,
January 4, 1900.

LAST night was disturbing, with pistol-shots ringing out
close by, and the noise of much talking outside in the
street. It seems strange to be obliged, even with men in
the house, to close all the solid storm-shutters at night, for safety
from thieves. But everybody does it in these frail cottages, or
the thief arrives, walks in at any window, and steals. Many
Americans* homes have been entered lately, but nothing seems
to be done about arresting any one. We have heard stealthy
hands feeling at our shutters more than once from the pave-
ment outside, and a man standing on the ground might easily
step inside if agile enough, and if the sashless windows were
open!

Rats and mice are responsible for many noises at night, in
these old, old houses. Cockroaches are a nuisance also —
great, brown creatures that scuttle up and down the walls,
rattling the papering as they go, or make sudden flights, falling
with heavy thuds to the floor or lighting uncannily on one's
mosquito-bar. The hot, little loft of our cottage, under the
zinc roof, is infested with bats, which flutter and flap and
squeak above the ceilings all night long. Sometimes a spider,
which could not be covered by a teacup without a drawing up
of hairy legs, creeps out of a crack in my room — but all of

[26] Child of the Sea

these are perfectly harmless, as are the small brown lizards
that run over the rugs and in and out of the books on the
shelves, hunting flies and cockroaches. Wonderful to tell,
flies are few and we need no screens in the windows. Mos-
quitoes, however, make ravaging amends for the harmlessness
of the other "animals," as my German friend on the ship
called them, and ants are an unmitigated nuisance when food
is about. One night, I set a plate of cookies on a wall-
bracket in the bedroom, thinking that the ants would not find
it there. In the dark, later on, I took down the plate and bit
off a mouthful of a cake and of — ants! For a second, my
mouth was alive, and a nasty, bitter taste of ants taught me a
wholesome lesson. There is a dangerous black centipede in
the Island, but it is not common, and in my three months on
the Island I have seen but two. They were clinging to the
stem of a coffee-shrub in the garden of the Governor's summer
palace in Rio Piedras.

Mr. R. is in Adjuntas on his bimonthly trip, and has
rented a room in a warehouse, for mission services. Hitherto,
there have been occasional cultos there, held in private houses
of '* believers," but this is to be a real beginning. Mrs.
R. and the little folks spent part of last summer in Ad-
juntas, and she gathered the children on Sundays into their
tiny house for teaching, and whenever the missionary himself
could be there, preaching services were arranged. Already a
few are asking for baptism and for a chapel. So " the Work "
begins, here and there!

The Roman Catholic priest is said to be a disreputable old
person, gambling in public, and whisking into his gown when
needed in the church. This does not seem to me laughable. I
think of the people who have no better guide.

There is an American cavalry troop stationed in the little
mountain town.

Child of the Sea [£]_

Ad juntas, P. R.,

1 700 feet above the sea,

January 13, 1900.

At 8 o'clock this morning, Mr. T and I left Ponce, in

a strong hired carriage, with a good coachman driving the pair
of plump, cream-colored horses. For two hours or so, the
drive was beautiful, northwestward along the Spanish Road as
far as it has ever been finished. But this fine highway ends
abruptly at a point called the Empalme, the Junction; so after
the hours of comfortable progress, there came a long, hard
pull upward, together with the dash downward at the end, of
three hours of mountain road. From the summit of the Pass
the views were very fine, of valleys and slopes, with triangular
glimpses of the blue sea far down behind us. Along the way,
there were cocoa and royal palms at first, then farther on beau-
tiful tree ferns, wild cannas in vivid, bloom, dense plantain
growth about wee huts, and coffee plantations climbed with us,
and after a while descended with us on the far side of the Pass
quite into the high Adjuntas valley.

At 1 o'clock we reached the little inn and " breakfast."
I have a room in the inn, on the edge of the flowery plaza,
in the very heart of the little mountain town. Almost in
sight down the street, is the warehouse, formerly the military
hospital, where we have a rented room for cu/fos.

Sunday, January 14, 1900.

A superb day, shining clear, with the mercury at 59° at
7 a. m. A mixed assemblage awaited us in the mission hall
this morning, mostly of children, eager, sociable, noisy. Mr.
T — — held an afternoon service at the mission for the Ameri-
can soldiers in barracks, on this street. Only three of the
whole troop accepted his invitation, but he talked to those three

[28] Child of the Sea

as if there had been a hundred present, and we sang and sang,
with no " instrument " to help our tired voices. Young Den-
nis H is not yet seventeen, and has a good, sweet face.

He said this was the first religious service he had attended since
leaving New York, nine months ago. . . Some of us will be glad
when our United States troops are called home from the Island.

A multitude flocked to the warehouse room tonight, mostly
of plainly dressed men and women with intent, sober faces.

How seriously they take the cultos! Mr. T speaks

Spanish well, and we had a good meeting, with rather inhar-
monious singing, as few know anything about the hymn music,
yet all try to sing — especially the blessed children.

Mr. T returns to Ponce tomorrow, and I shall be left

to paddle my own canoe in this strange place, where we have
not a single *' member," and the cultos are not much more than
a novel entertainment as yet. But the guarding mountains
stand round about, and the river goes singing by, and in all
these little homes, and in the thatched huts tucked away among
the plantains and the bananas, there are souls to be shown the
Way, the Truth, and the Life! And always, there is God.

January 18, 1900.

" Ain't you lost? " An amazed American soldier stood
still in the river path outside of town, to greet me, and then
declared that it seemed " mighty curious " to be seeing an
American lady up there in the wilds.

Las Vacas — The Cows — is a picturesque little river, low
and noisy now in the dry season. It reminds me of the Lima
at Cutigliano, Italy, with rounded boulders in its bed, the
noisy dashing water fussing about them, and with quiet brown
pools under the banks. But, instead of chestnut woods cov-
ering the steep mountainsides rising from the river road, we

Child of the Sea [29]_

have guama and pumarosa and mango trees shading the
coffee-shrubs planted on all these mountain slopes.

January 26, 1900.

More than fifty children come to afternoon class, three
times a week, in the smelly old warehouse, sit in the tipsy
folding chairs, sing happy songs, and hear the old, old stories
of the Bible. There is much sickness and sorrow in this dis-
trict of the Island, for the hurricane did its worst in these
mountains. The people are friendly, and some are wonder-
ing if the Bible may not be a good, safe book after all !

Last night, the missionary was up from Ponce for a
preaching service. A seething mass of children filled the back-
less benches — the chairs are left for grown folks on meeting-
nights — eager to sing for Mr. Rudd the hymns we have been
learning. The dear things never tire of the longest service,
and rarely fall asleep, unless they are mere babies.

The worm-eaten benches, topply chairs, a pine table for the
lamp and Bible, and a chair for the preacher are the furnish-
ings of our chapel, and the big, dingy hall is dimly lighted by
one or two lamps, and by candles set on brackets against the
wall. The " brackets " are two bits of wood nailed together
so Jjyj , and fastened to the wall.

Yesterday, I had a long, and perhaps unprofitable talk

with Don J , about his creed and ours. He is a rabid

espiritista, spiritualist, denies the human, material form of
Jesus on earth, denies the shedding of real blood on the cross,
believes in reincarnation after death, denies eternal punishment,
and- — declares that our beliefs are the same except for unim-
portant differences about minor points! Several of his children
attend the mission class, and his wife is a nice little woman,

[30] Child of the Sea

There is a tiny Roman Catholic church here, a barnlike
place, having no more look of church or chapel than has our
hall, except that there is a little cross atop the gable, and a bell
hangs on a frame close beside the entrance. Two wide doors
open outward like those of a carriage-house, showing the altar
at the far end, an image of Mary at one side, and a few seats
here and there. But they know how to arrange brave little
functions inside, with lights and music, for the}) have a small
organ! No doubt the tawdry finery about the altar, of images,
of altar-cloth and gay paper flowers and lighted candles, is at-
tractive to the simple country people. The plaster image of
Mary is dressed in her own colors of white or blue, or in mourn-
ing according to the church season, and the wife of a prominent
townsman has the keeping of the wardrobe of the " Mother of
God," her robes and veils and jewels. I can never laugh at
these superstitions and useless rites but my heart rejoices in the
hope that there is in the future something better for these Ad-
juntas people. One day, recently, I stopped to look inside, as
I had already done by night. There was a paper or two fast-
ened on the inside of one half of the door, which stands open
all day directly upon the road passing by. As it was evidently
meant for the public eye, I read it and, standing there outside,
began to copy a part of it. It was the tarifa, or tariff, of
charges for baptism, marriage, and burial functions by the priest.

I had nearly finished copying the items I was interested in,
when the fat, red-faced priest came down the road, bare-
headed, hurried, and with no pleasant expression on his face
as he brushed past me through the doorway. After a few
moments, I found a long, black arm stretching across my
writing-pad as the priest drew the door to, with a Permilamc,
Senora, and I was left outside in front of the closed doors!
Now, why did he not wish me to copy that public list of his
parishioners' religious expenses?

Child of the Sea [31]

^BMMMM I !■ Mlllll iiiuhmu uimTMCT»«rJi.iL,i».iMiMBn^MCTJML IM1H— HTT TIM I II ITT— — Tl IIIII1IIMIII

Dona Paula tells me that the price for baptism has been
fixed at one dollar because, State support having been taken
from the Church and the priests, on the Island's passing from
Spain's hands to ours, they must raise their own salaries by the
tarifa, or depend on free-will offerings from their parishoners.
Another has told me that she has subscribed forty centavos a
month to the cura, but she told the soliciting committee that if
she heard of his gambling, she would stop giving even that.

Here are some of the items of the tarifa which I noted :

1. Burial mass sung, for an adult 3.00 pesos1

2. The same for a child „ _ . 2.00

3. Full burial mass sung _ 5.00 "

4. The same, with procession from the house

to the church _ 10.00 "

And so it runs, up to 31.00 pesos with perhaps the procession
from house to church, the function in the church, the proces-
sion to the cemetery, or " pauses " on the way for chanting
(each of these stoppages 6.00 pesos) the burial office, and so
on. Solemn memorial masses, with organ and music, cost
16.25 pesos. Solemn masses for the dead with deacons, in-
cense, responses, are 5.87 pesos.

Then baptisms of infants or of adults cost 1 .00 peso.

I had come finally to " Matrimony [marriage] at the or-
dinary hour, that is from six a. m. until nine of the same . . ."
when the long black arm drew the door to, and I could not
learn how much is charged, today, for a marriage! But, a
young carpenter here tells me that he " bought " his good wife,
some years ago (not from this priest) , for sixty-five pesos. He
tells it as a joke, and knows that she was worth more than any
money he could have paid the Roman Catholic Church for its

1 One Spanish peso equals sixty cents in U. S. currency.

[32] Child of the Sea

blessing. It is a fact that thousands of couples in the Island
are not married at all, and too many of these have desired bet-
ter things without being able to pay the price. It is not strange
that missionaries are now being beset to marry couples. Even
grandparents, who have been faithful to each other " without
benefit of clergy," now " stand up " before the minister and go
smilingly away afterward !

Almost every day, often many times a day, I see the dead
brought in from the country for burial. It matters not how far
away on the mountainsides they may die, they must be taken to
the nearest town for burial. Some cannot afford to provide a
regular coffin made by a carpenter, and their dead must take
their last journey down the steep trails, in open frames borne on
the shoulders of friends or hired peons, a cloth spread over the
body, which is usually dressed in its best. I have seen such an
open box on the floor just inside of the church door, waiting for
the priest to come and say a Latin prayer, with a sprinkling of
holy water, before the journey is again taken up to end in a
hole in the cemetery. The country people are dying fast of
the starvation, exposure, wounds, and disease resulting from
the hurricane. Day before yesterday, I saw, from the little
porch of the inn, a corpse wrapped in a sheet and borne past in
the usual way. I followed the carriers to the cemetery, to see,
for once, how these desolate ones from the mountain ways are
buried. Several American soldiers stood about the gaping
graves opened on all sides, and we talked together, while
watching the men at their gruesome tasks. There were six
bodies lying on the ground awaiting their turn.

We saw the men lift the body of a lady from the open
plank frame, saw the pale, dead face shrouded in a black lace
mantilla, but I gasped when they put her down into the shal-
low grave just as she was, without a coffin or even the sheet
wrapping. A little box full of roses and jessamines lay on the

Child of the Sea [33]

ground close by. " It is nothing but flowers,'* one of the sol-
dier lads said to me consolingly, as I shuddered when one of
the men picked it up and swept his hand through the flowers.
I had so dreaded to see — what I did see next, a tiny little,
waxen face among the roses and rvee folded hands. But I
looked away while the man turned over the pasteboard box,
and literally dumped the dead baby, with its flowers, out of it
and down into the hole where the poor lady lay. I came
away sick at heart. Miles away in the hills there were those
who were sorrowing for those two, and for the others lying
near, and I could not know who they were — nobody about
knew. At least, there was none of the brutal laughter I had
heard of as accompanying these scenes, although the men were
rough, hired peons. After each burial one of them went off
with the empty frame to store it for future use. A cloud set-
tled over my spirits for the rest of the day.

I enjoy my little sheep in the warehouse fold. They are
learning to sing easy hymns, which they must be taught by
memory, line upon line, and simple lessons about God's work
in the world about us. They nearly smothered me with flow-
ers on the day they brought to the class " samples " of the
third period of creation, for any one may gather the lovely
roses and the splendid hibiscus flowers and the white jessamine
from the plaza — a perfect garden of plants and little flowering
trees. When we learned about the knowledge of sin awaken-
ing in men's hearts when they first began to know God and his
good laws, I was rejoiced to begin telling my children, also,
how we may grow away from sin, through Jesus our Saviour.
May this be my story for every sin-stricken heart!

Jesus! He is little more than a name here, so far as any
experience of him as Life and Light is concerned. And his
name is on every lip as one of the most common expletives.

[34] Child of the Sea

January 27, 1900.

I have moved to a small room in a private house, across the
plaza from the inn where I am still to take my meals. Dona
Clara's was once one of the best houses in Adjuntas, but it is
out of repair, and the cloudbursts of rain did their part toward
destruction. The canvas ceiling of my room is stained and
bulging, from the water that poured in when the cyclone
stripped off the sheets of zinc roofing. Blue roses climb over
the bilious-yellow wall-paper, and the floor is worm-eaten, but
they are making all as clean as possible, and the narrow iron
bedstead is spread with elaborate white. Dear old Dona
Clara has not the means to repair the house, and she is frail
and aged, cared for by a very energetic Dona Lola, who
promises to be as solicitous for my welfare as she is for that of
all under this roof. For Dona Clara is housing many rela-,
tives, penniless refugees from the hills, feeding and clothing
them as well.

Yesterday, I went to see P 's baby, which had not

then many more hours to suffer with brain fever — poor, pretty
little thing! For, today, the father came early to say that it
was dead. With white flowers from the plaza I went at once

to P 's house. The little creature looked like a pale wax

doll in its white shroud. As the candle-light flickered over
the sweet lips they seemed once to move in a baby smile, and
my heart beat hard with the curious awe one feels in the pres-
ence of death, even in an infant! Now, there is one less hun-
gry mouth to feed in the family of many children — and no

work for P , but the mother wails, " Me hace falta mi

nlhitaV* Of course she " misses " her baby-girl. Both par-
ents come to the mission, and P pores over his New Tes-
tament in patient study. After a while they will know that a
little dead nvha does not need candles to light her way!

Child of the Sea [35]

The weather is perfect, with cold nights, bright, dewy
mornings, hot noons, and then the cooling decline of the day.
Today, a misting rain falls now and then, with brilliant sun-
shine at intervals. Just now, a white rain veils the Sleeping
Giant's profile lifted high against the sky. A panorama of
green hills and dark mountain slopes unrolls before my eyes as
I sit in my doorway, looking across the little plaza -gay with
flowers and sparkling with raindrops. . . Now, as it still rains,
I must finish my letter to ** Echoes," for the next mail down the
mountain to the ship.

Later: Dona Paula and Paulita came by for me, for our
long-planned walk up the river to the plantation of Don

C . The family are the relatives of the dear Cuban

couple of my voyage from New York, and Mrs. Arango had

urged me to visit them. Don C is of Aragon, Spain.

I found a spacious country house, full of kindliness. There
are several daughters and sons, besides the hospitable heads of

the house. Don C lost the shade-trees so necessary to the

well-being of the coffee, and his plantation is a wreck since
the hurricane. The tiers of immense open trays for drying the
coffee-berry were pushed away empty and useless on their
frames under the house. This was a first call of ceremony,
and I hope to go again, and alone, that we may come closer
together and talk of the things most near my heart. For the
planter in his home may need my message as much as the poor
peons on his estate, to give courage and hope.

January 30, 1900.

A poor mother has just brought me two children, a girl and
a boy, immaculately clean, for this afternoon's class. Her
anxiety that they should be with me, and her distress at learn-
ing that I may not be here much longer, were touching. What

[36] Child of the Sea

shall I do? Ought I to leave these people who place such
winning confidence in me, who seem to hope so much, at least
for their children, from my being here? The constant problem
of the missionary needed in many places at once!

Roman Catholic M says to me: "It is the novelty of

it, Senora. You will see that though they crowd to your cultos,
they will not hold on after the newness wears off." Doubtless
M is right about some who come to us. There are never-
theless some who of their own free will will " hold on."

After the class, I went to see the old negress, whose cabin

is being repaired by means of the dollar sent me ** to

help some poor person." I hope the palm thatching will be on
before the rains begin in earnest. There are scarcely any ne-
groes up here in the mountains, but there is a famous colored
cook at the little inn

Eight or ten women is all I have been able to gather for
their class, on one afternoon in each week. It is easier
to meet them in their homes, along the river-bank and up the
steep trails.

Child of the Sea [37]

IV

Then let us pray that come it may.

As come it will, for a' that;
That sense and worth o'er a' the earth
May bear the gree and a' that.
For a' that and a' that,

It's coming yet for a' that,
That man to man the warld o'er,

Shall brothers be for a' that. — Burns.

Ad juntas, P. R.,
February 2, 1900.

PORTO RICANS may know nothing about the ground-
hog's shadow, but there will be bonfires, candelas, on the
mountains tonight whether the sun shines today or not.
It is the fiesta of Candelaria, or Candlemas, and the town is full
of peasants from the hills about, and the little Roman Catholic
chapel is crowded with men and women in clean clothes,
patched, and much stained with the indelible plantain juice.
As I sat quietly in my room, after a peep into the crowded
chapel at mass time, a neighbor came in, to discuss her belief
and mine. Rather a trying talk. I never seek those useless dis-
cussions in which there is no desire shown for learning the truth,
when a loud-voiced torrent of language and endless repetitions
of tradition drown one's own speech. Very little is ever gained
by such discussions, yet one cannot quite hold one's peace!
Such was the talk, also, at the house of Don Carlos, a day or
so ago. He himself believes nothing, he says, but fears losing
caste among the higher folk, if he sends his children to the

mission. He says that the C s and the S s, et al., do

not attend our cultos, and that he was attacked on all sides

[38] Child of the Sea

for allowing his children to attend Mrs. R.'s class last summer.
Bless the children!

After the class, this afternoon, I rested in the plaza at saber-
drill time. Our soldiers show off best in their drills, fine, up-
standing men. It is not their fault that the barracks are
merely a long warehouse standing flush with the street, whose
doors open directly upon the sidewalk, so that even legitimate
lounging must be in the face of every passer-by. The little
boys admire them immensely, and are even catching up the
faulty Spanish some of them indulge in, besides not a few
dubious English expletives. I was '* damned " in English a
day or so ago by a soft-eyed cherub who evidently thought he
was telling the americana an innocent '* Howdy."

One needs more fruit and green things to eat than can be
found here, for it will be long before these mountain patches
of gardens and farms recover from the blasting hurricane
enough to bear as before. One can scarcely buy an orange
or a plain lettuce leaf.

February 5, 1900.

Ugly, little, fat Ramona, servant-maid to our neighbor,
Dona Adela, sat on the floor of our porch tonight, in the
moonlight. We were listening to the village band playing plain-
tive airs in the plaza opposite. Said Ramona with a sigh,
" The dead cannot hear the music! " Some one explained
that she was thinking of her father, who died last week. " Per-
haps he does hear the music," I said softly; " I do not know
certainly about it, but he may be hearing even more beautiful
music as the angels sing songs of praise to God." (What
really better way have we of expressing in words the inex-
pressible joys of the future life than the sacred writers them-
selves used?) Ramona's father should have the benefit of all
uncertainties for the child's sake!

Child of the Sea [39]

" And he may be dressed all in white! " the little girl
added. Then in her queer, peasant speech, she told me of her
father, of how he had loved her, the youngest, and how the
last time he had come down the mountain into Adjuntas, he
had kissed her, and blessed her, and promised to come again
the next Sunday. " I kept some coffee and bread for him "
(her own portion doubtless), " but he did not come. If they
had told me he was sick, I would have gone to him. I
dreamed about him, last night."

** So you loved him very much? "

" A$l Smora! And now, who will keep account of my
years? He always did it."

She says she will be twelve in April, and I told her to
keep account of her own years now, to be a faithful little
maid, and to ask God to take care of her, because he loved
her and was her Father. l* They say I shall forget my fa-
ther, after a while, but I know I shall not," was said with
such conviction that I told her it had been twenty-six years,
that very day, since my mother died, and that I had never
forgotten her, and the child seemed comforted.

February 10, 1900.

Mr. T came up yesterday, from Ponce, and with him

I have had my first horseback trip over the mountains. Mr.
R., the missionary-in-charge, or some one else, comes every
fortnight for preaching on Sunday in our mission hall, and these
are red-letter days for us all. I very much covet teaching
additional to my own, for these people. We were

bound for Don Bernadino S 's house, over beyond the

Giant's head. It was a steep climb along the Mala de pldlanos
trail, and a rough experience for me. But I held on to the
pommel of the saddle, and after an hour's steady climb we

D

[40] Child of the Sea

reached the breezy upland over the mountain line which I have
so often gazed at from Dona Clara's porch. Don B.'s house
stands exposed to the strong north wind, which blew all day,

but we received a warm welcome into open arms. Mr. T

held a short service with the elders of the interesting family,
and there were present also geese, dogs, chickens, and babies
promiscuous. They gave us a good " breakfast " at 1 p. m.,
consisting of roast chicken, eggs, a salad, and a sweet, with
coffee.

Don B. is a *' candidate " for baptism, having heard Mr.
R. preach in town, on some of his own trips down to Adjuntas
to market the produce of his little farm. He is a fine old
man, nearly eighty years of age, tall and gray, with wife and
sons and daughters, as well as " in-laws " — quite a patriarch.

We left early for the downward trip. From one of the ex-
posed cliffs on our trail, we saw Adjuntas lying far below,
looking, with its many corrugated zinc roofs catching the sun-
light, like a mere shaet of tin lying in a hollow of the hills.

Looking up now, from our porch, to the Giant's head, it
seems to me impossible that we could have crawled over toward
his other cheek today!

We have had the evening chapel service; and Dona Lola's
kind hands have rubbed down my aching muscles with alco-
holado!

February 14, 1900.

It is a wonderful experience to see the sun rise over these
mountains. Long before it touches the sweet little plaza with
its flower-hedged paths, the Giant lies bathed in light high
above the valley, on the opposite side from the sun. It seems,
sometimes, as if the Giant must be about to stir and lift his

beautiful head! I took early coffee with Mr. T on

Monday morning, before he started down to Ponce, and sud-

Dona Clara, Dona Lola and Anita

Dona Clara's House in Adjuntas

Child of the Sea HH

denly the dining-room of the little inn filled with strong light,
as when an electric light is turned on, and beyond the doorway
we saw our whole valley flooded with glory all in a minute, by
the rising sun.

I am well and must make the most of the two weeks re-
maining to me in this poor, dear, haunted-by-the-poor, hos-
pitable, needy little town. Today, I found Francisco's little
sister with a badly infected sore on her shin, caused by ignorant
treatment of a wound from a sharp rock, and directed them to
the Porto Rican " poor doctor," lately appointed. Next, in
Canas, I visited Concha, a woman married to a soldier. She
showed me her marriage lines, and they seem to be legal,
though she says people tell her she is married " only for a
time." Absurd! The man expects to go to "the States"

soon, with Troop ordered home, and he is planning to

leave her here, and encinta. He is said to be not a bad fel-
low, half Mexican and half Irish (How many combinations
of nationalities may go to make an "American" soldier!),
and he promises to support her. " We have been married
many months now," she says, *' and I cannot say he has treated
me any way but well." Rather a negative goodness with
which to satisfy a wife. Poor little Conchita!

Don , in the next house in the long, long street called

Canas, had his swollen foot in a chair. It was badly hurt by
a kick from an American mule. Never until the United
States army arrived had these people conceived of such im-
mense horses, such enormous mules! They are in wholesome
awe of the huge hoofs which have caused many serious acci-
dents to the unwary. The small Island horses are patience
and docility personified in horse-flesh, and submit themselves
only too meekly to the lack of mercy in many a driver.

Don 's wife and grown daughters sat by while I at

first explained, at their suggestion, why the name Protestant has

[42] Child of the Sea

been given us, naming some of the points in the creed of Rome
which brought about the early protests. Again I read the
parable of the Prodigal as I had done to Concha, and as the

story of the bad son went on, tears filled Dona E 's eyes,

and presently rolled down her cheeks. There was no doubt
in her mind as to the father's forgiving reception of the repen-
tant wanderer. The gray-haired husband listened, with bright
eyes gleaming in his dark face, glad, at least, of the distraction
of a visit from la americana, and perhaps also glad to be re-
minded that there is room for repentance in every man's life,
and a Father to receive the penitent. So the dingy shop did
not seem dingy to me, though a fine mist was falling on the
stony road outside and the day was very dark for a while. I

left a tract, '* The Three Crosses," with Don , who

received it eagerly, and then I came away for one more visit.

Don P 's house was a bit farther along. It was here

the pretty baby died a fortnight ago. Both he and his wife

wish to be baptized. Only Dona H was at home, with

her three sick children, all with whooping-cough and fever.
One boy has dysentery besides, and the little girl is much
afflicted with sores over her hot little body.

As simply as to a little child, I told H of our mode

of baptism. '* To be wet all over in the river in baptism —
even the hair! " seemed to her an incredible thing. Very care-
fully I explained the mode of baptism of John and of Christ's
apostles, and the idea presently touched her imagination, as
I described the afternoons by the Portugues river in Ponce.
But the change of heart — of the will — to precede the act of
obedience was a more subtle matter for her understanding. I

marked verses in P 's Testament for them to read together

at prayer times.

Though there is certainly *' much water " here in Ad juntas,
few men and women can as yet be considered ready for bap-

Child of the Sea [43]

ii a ■■■ mill ■ ■«■ i n in mum— ■mm i»hmi mini m m i wiwi i nt mumiiiii— m ii ihi^m — iim

tism and church-membership. . . It was twelve o'clock when I
crossed the flowery plaza on my way home. Every hibiscus
bell was drooping with its burden of rain-drops. One does
not know how beautiful mere rain can be until it is seen misting
down as a silvery veil over the hills, and watering every little
thirsting root and leaf and bud! But it is curious with what
icy coldness the gentlest rain falls upon the hands or face here.
The evaporation is powerful in this heat and the country folks
say that the llovisna, or drizzle, is more dangerous for a wetting
than the downpour of an aguacero, or heavy shower! I sup-
pose this is really due to the fact that one is more apt to change
wet than merely damp clothing for dry things.

After the heavy shower passed, this afternoon, I went to the
thatched hut where our sexton lives, in the corral back of the
mission. Juana, his wife, and the week-old baby were quietly
resting in the small back room. . . The tiny baby has been
named Julita, and is a plump, pretty little thing. In Gabriel
she will have a good brother, bless his pretty brown eyes !
Already he begs Julita to hurry and grow, so that she may
go to " Doiia Juanita's " Bible class with him. Another visit
was to the family of a widow, whose name ranks with " the
best " in this little town. Merely social calls here, during
which serious subjects may be more or less tabu, are usually
rather a bore. Everywhere, however, there is an eagerness to
hear about the United States, and even if they are not directly
interested in religion, all are ready to listen politely to what
the missionary may find it expedient to say about the study of
God's .Word, and the blessings attending it everywhere in the

world. The Sefiorita M is studying English, and spoke

it a little, to the great admiration of her old, dark-faced,
wrinkled mother, if not to my clear understanding. They own
the cottage in which they live. The ubiquitous crocheted tidy
covered every chair, back and arm, and even the center-table,

[44] Child of the Sea

and these particular tidies were of a dull purple color, which
with the black of the " Austrian " furniture gave the little sola

the look of being in second mourning! M says that her

father used to speak of the Giant's profile, lifted high along
the sky. Besides him, I have heard of no one here, who has
ever seemed to notice the wonderful outline of the mountain
ridge. Said Dona Adela to me one night, on our porch:
" Think of it! You have come all this way to show us what
has been before our eyes, always! * The Giant lies very still,
not dead, but sleeping, stretched for many leagues high above
Adjuntas, from massive head and arms folded upon his breast,
to toes upturned to the changing sky in the west. I know he
only sleeps, because the expression of his face changes as if he
dreamed. Shade, sunlight, and cloud have a strange effect
in altering the aspect of the perfect profile of the face. But
after all I believe the hoary old Sleepyhead is more alive to
me than to any one else!

I am not able to make so many visits every day as today.
Sometimes heavy showers keep one in all day, now that the
rainy season is advancing in the mountains, ahead of coast
time for it. Sometimes, one visit occupies the whole morning
or afternoon, or even all day if the house is off in the country.
Sometimes visitors detain one at home. On other days, there
are classes, mission letters must be written, business attended to.
Thus, it seems to me that little value can be attached to numeri-
cal statistics given in reports to Boards, as to a missionary's
daily work. No one day can be like another, and figures can-
not estimate with justice the worth of service, or of the distribu-
tion of tracts, many or few.

February 15, 1900.

At bedtime last night, I stood outside my window-door on
the porch, watching the curious cloud effects at moonrise.

Child of the Sea [45]

ii. in ■iiii mil mil ■■ iiimi ■ i ■ mi I II ■ ■IIBMi Ifi IIUM— — ■■■

Long shreds of silvered vapor streamed and waved in the wind
across the black mountains. The Giant lay tucked snugly
under a blanket of billowy vapor at one instant; the next, the
wind uncovering him, he lay stark and black against the clear
night sky; then again, the swiftly rolling mists hid him utterly
from view. The plaza at my feet was full of perfume from
Cape jessamines, roses, lilies, and the delicate lilac bloom of
the lila tree with its peculiarly delicious fragrance. Adjuntas
was very still, under the shifting panorama of cloud, and the
long, deep breaths of the mild, sweet wind. I came inside,
barred my shutters, and went to sleep.

Conchita, wife of the " American " soldier, bought a Bible
today.

February 16, 1900.

Sunshine on the hills, this morning.

A woman has just left who wants to give me one of her
little girls. Many offer me children, and one cannot wonder,
when they are so plentiful, and food and clothing so scarce.
Yesterday, I asked a proud little mother — jestingly — if she
would not give me the lovely infant in her arms. Such a look
as I received of mingled doubt as to my intentions, and of
outraged mother-love and refusal, as the woman clasped the
baby to her bosom ! " O ! I cannot see how a mother could
part with the very youngest of all! " she said.

This afternoon forty children were in the class. In the
plaza for half an hour before supper, playing with little ones

who decked me with flowers, Ramoncito M among the

children, a splendid great boy with magnificent, flashing dark
eyes. Tonight the little plaza is again like an enchanted gar-
den in the moonlight. All the beggars have hidden themselves
somewhere out of sight, and little Filiberto has gone home at
last, with, I hope, his pocket full of centavos. At least his
weak quavering cry of

[46] Child of the Sea

— — — 1 B— — — — ■— — ■■■!—— ——II IIMMIH ■■^^^■^— ■^■^■^■^■^^M

Peanuts, peanuts, hot and . roasted,
Neither raw nor overtoasted,

no longer sounds past my door. And the mountains are like
a dream of beauty in the light and great silence.

A happy morning spent in talking with an old man, who is
a " candidate " for baptism, and with others. Later, I
climbed the Vejia, and on the way scolded the careless people
who had not gone for the doctor after I had sent him a note
explaining the need. Bound up little Adelina's foot, which

is almost well. F de J replied, " jComo no?f*

" Of course," to everything I said, in a way most paralyzing.

February 19, 1900.

As I came from breakfast, yesterday, a poor woman headed
me off among the plaza paths with a sick baby in her arms. I
thought she wanted to give the poor wee one to me, but no!
what she wished was that I should " cristianize," baptize it.
Instead, I gave her sugar and bread and a cup of hot coffee,
with a little good advice. . . To the public school this morning

to see about entering Maria G , whose little skirts and

frock I have made ready for the great day of entering school.
The schoolrooms have fine charts of large letters and syllables
and short English words. '* Uncle Sam " is determined that
his little Islanders shall learn his language from the first grade
up. It is a constant marvel to me to see what good public
schools are already in action, in even rural districts.

** Why did you not come to us long ago? " Dona Lola
asks, as we talk of the stars and of other wonderful works of
God for the children of men. What missionary has not heard
that cry I

Off to the Giant's Head

Sleeping Giant and Adjuntas

Child of the Sea [47]_

Again I have been to see the family of the espiritisla, Don

J , to talk with the little wife about her expressed desire to

be baptized. (She is in no sense prepared for it, so far as an un-
derstanding of what more is meant than the actual rite in the lit-
tle river, which she says "must be beautiful.") The husband,
standing by the counter of their small shop, called out as we two
chatted together, that they did not agree with me on that subject,
and would not be baptized. Afterward, calmed down and seated
in his rocking-chair, he explained his idea of the spiritual signifi-
cance of the ordinance — that it may be done away with now —
and forthwith he flew off on one of his tangents eccentric, and
I ceased to listen. The sleeping Giant's noble head, showing
peacefully against the blue sky, was in full view from the door-
way of the little wayside shop, and as I looked up I longed to
show poor Don J something of a peace which no argu-
ment can give or take away. Spiritism permeates Adjuntas,
the whole Island in fact, and is more unreasonable than any
degree of Romanism that I have encountered. It seems to
have " appeared " in the Island when there was felt a need of
something more than the established Church was giving some
of the people — No! the need of something better has always
existed in some seeking souls, whether there have come means
to satisfy it or not. And spiritism cannot satisfy. Oh that
the gospel in its pure truth had ertered first!

February 21, 1900.

When just about to start up the river road this afternoon I
saw a little group of men coming slowly into town from the
workings of the new highway just beyond us. They brought
on a litter the body of a man just killed at his work there. I
saw the poor black head as the litter passed me on the shoulders
of two men, but the face and body were covered with a

[48] Child of the Sea

blanket. They were taking him straight to the cemetery, they
said. On my way later, I talked with a workman who had
been close to the other when the rock crashed down from the
bank above, and pinned the man's body over upon his sharp
pick, driving the tool quite through his body. The long
machete carried in his belt also cut him horribly, and his death
was instantaneous, it seems. His little son had brought him his
dinner from home, and stopped to watch his father begin work
again after eating — only to see the whole dreadful thing.

It is a stupendous effort, completing the road over these
mountains, begun from the Ponce end by the Spaniards and
left unfinished. When it is completed Arecibo on the north
coast will be in direct communication by the splendid highway
with Ponce in the south. Many laborers have been desper-
ately injured in the past months since our Government took up
the unfinished work in order, especially, to give employment to
the poor in the towns and country. Some have lost their lives
as did the man a while ago; often it is through the personal
carelessness, which inertia and ignorance and lack of skill breed
in an undeveloped people. But there is also real danger for
even the skilled and wide-awake workman, on these mountain
precipices.

I watched the men prepare a blast today and then saw the
explosion from a safe distance. Yesterday, a workman was
badly burned by a premature explosion of blasting powder.

And now, a woman has come begging me for a papeliio, a
little note, for the military doctor stationed here, asking him to
go to see her son injured on the road, last week. He has be-
gun spitting blood, she says. They think there is a certain
charm connected with an American's papelito, as intermediary,
and perhaps there is, sometimes, in these early stages of Ameri-
can influence. Dr. McC is untiring in his ministrations

among the poor up here in these mountains, even without

Child of the Sea [49]_

papelitos, but he is not yet entirely conversant with Spanish, so
the " little papers " help.

February 25, 1900.

Mr. R. has come up for the fortnightly preaching-service.
No one seems really prepared for baptism and its sequence of
church-membership, and it seems best to have all the aspirants
wait a while for fuller understanding of the Christian life. I
hope to return before summer for a longer stay, for my heart
aches over the many in the out-of-the-way places who are hear-
ing God's word for the first time in their lives. Off here in
the mountains, there is a seriousness and a sadness not so notice-
able in the coast towns — a desolation of spirit, a desiccation
rather, which one longs to replace with life and growth and joy.

Tomorrow, I must return to Ponce.

[50] Child of the Sea

To linger by the laborer's side;
With words of sympathy or song
To cheer the dreary march along
Of the great army of the poor,

Nor to thyself the task shall be
Without reward; for thou shalt learn
The wisdom early to discern
True beauty in utility.

— Longfellow.

Ponce, P. R.,
March 9, 1910.

CAPTAIN ANDRUS and the Fifth Cavalry Troop I
are to be transferred from Ponce to Adjuntas at once,
to take the place of the other troop returning to the
United States. Both the captain and his wife are earnest
Christians, of the Episcopal Church, and their presence in
Adjuntas will be a boon to the townspeople.

Yauco, P. R.,

March 14, 1900.

Another beginning of things! Today, we came by the
short " French railway " to this substantial little city among
the cane-plantations, an hour and a half west from Ponce.
Southward from the town, the level, pale-green cane-fields
extend almost to the sea. But, northward, the hills rise
abruptly from the street ends, and a section of the ridge above
the town is covered with little houses set as close together as
houses may be. This shack-covered hillside is the first view

Child of the Sea [51]

one has of Yauco as the little train rattles in among the cane-
fields. Yauco used to be one of the wealthiest towns of the
Island, with planters' homes furnished with the luxuries of
Spain, of Corsica and France, and with warehouses bulging
with coffee and sugar and molasses adjoining the family dwell-
ings. Everybody is said to be " poor " in Porto Rico now,
yet one finds cheer and patience everywhere. But even now,
there is here in Yauco nothing like the abject want of the
mountain districts, and I have not seen so cheerful a place since
coming to the Island. Of course, we have come to see about
beginning mission work here, where nothing has as yet been
done, beyond a previous visit of discovery by the missionary in
charge of these parts.

We have small rooms in the hotel " American Victory," for
the night or two of our stay. The little Rudds were immensely
happy over the ride on the train, as their parents brought them
along, too, for the change of air.

March 15, 1900.

We drove to Guanica this morning, but three-quarters of an
hour from Yauco, along a rough country road. Guanica Bay
reaches a long arm bland from the Caribbean. The ugly little
town squats on the sandy shore and extends back by one long
dismal street to the road by which we had come. But it was
here that General Miles landed the first American troops, al-
most two years ago now, so if an unlovely town, it is at least
historic.

Back to Yauco again, in the afternoon. It is usually a mis-
sionary's plan on a pioneer trip to hold an informal first service
in a private home or public hall which may be offered by some
friendly person. But, no preparation having been made here
as yet, we sallied in different directions after lunch to see what
the town was like and what of promise there might be for hold-

[52] Child of the Sea

ing an informal service somewhere and somehow this very night.
After walking through many streets and being stared at, with
not quite the benignity of the dear mountaineers, I found a
woman standing in the door of her little shop who smilingly
greeted me as I was passing. I stopped to return her greeting
and presently told her of the misionero's desire to talk that very
evening, with any who might like to listen, of God and the
Bible. Would she, perhaps, like to have us come to her house
for this, and would she invite a friend or two to join her? It
was a poor place enough, with nothing visible inside except
empty shelves and a few small bananas for sale on a counter.
But there was room for a few chairs, and the door where we
stood opened directly upon the sidewalk. Almost to my sur-
prise, she agreed to the proposal, and we chatted a while,
before I returned to the hotel. As nothing more propitious

had offered itself, it was decided to go to Dona M 's shop,

after six-o'clock dinner.

I have come very near to first things in Ponce and in
Adjuntas, but never quite so near as here tonight! There Was
a real thrill at first in sitting in the dim little shop, with
Mrs. R. to sing, and Mr. R. to read the Bible and Dona

M to listen. For the woman, a shy child or two and I

myself formed the congregation inside. Outside, the sidewalk
was soon thronged with a noisy, jostling crowd which stretched
out in the darkness half-way across the street, passers-by
stopping to see and hear what the americanos were about. It
was a rather nerve-racking hour, it must be confessed, but, at
last, we shook hands with our hostess and came away. Of
course there had been a brief explanation to the crowd of
what it was all about and, after the first, there was some atten-
tion paid by those nearest the shop door. So a beginning of
the work has now been made in prosperous, conservative little
Yauco!

Child of the Sea [53]

March 16, 1900.

There are famine sufferers even here. This afternoon in
my stroll about town, I found a homeless, starving, sick boy
gasping in the deep, cobwebby doorway of a closed warehouse.
I got milk and bread and fed him a little, and then hurried
to the small hospital on the town's edge. Fortunately, I was
met at the door by a sweet-faced " Sister " whom I had known
in the big city hospital in Ponce, and she welcomed and intro-
duced me to another, as una amiga, a friend. (She is the one
who, on learning that I was a Protestant, had clasped her
hands in despair and cried, *' O what a pity that such a sweet
lady must go to the infierno, because of being outside of the
Holy Church! ") They agreed to admit the boy, although
they were crowded to the limit already, if I would get a police-
man to see him and secure a signed application from the mayor.
Back to town I went and found as by a miracle a policeman
who complaisantly promised to attend to the whole matter. A
little later, as I sat on the high upper balcony of the hotel, he
passed in the street below with two men carrying a closed litter.
" I've got the boy," he called, looking up to the balcony, " he
had fallen down in the street! " So they carried the poor
child to the perfectly inadequate little hospital, but a cot under
a roof will be better than the street.

Tonight, Mr. R. held a fine service in the dining-room of
this hotel by arrangement with the proprietor, and there has
been time today for inviting people of a different class to the
culto. There were lights and plenty of seats, and doubtless
some curiosity was plentifully satisfied in the breasts of those
who came to hear " some new thing." The balustrades of the
windows were lined with men and women standing outside on
the sidewalk and a few United States soldiers sat inside along
with the elite of the town. It is well to have touched the peo-

[54] Child of the Sea

pie at two distinct points of contact, yet we who are always
learning something more of the gospel's way with hearts, can
already divine which class of Yauco's townsmen will more
readily respond to its call.

We return to Ponce by a very early train, tomorrow.

Ponce, P. R., April 15, 1900.

A young American school-teacher died yesterday of per-
nicious fever. Infinitely pathetic are desperate illness and soli-
tary death in a foreign land, although acquaintances of a brief
time may give their best help. A transport ship will take her
dead body back to New York and her parents, as it brought
her away alive and merry, in January.

'Tis little, but it looks in truth
As if the quiet bones were blest
Among familiar names to rest

And in the places of his [her] youth.

I am a mighty poor politician, and find it hard to know just
how this Island does stand politically with relation to the
United States, her new mother in the north, but I know that
little Porto Rico has been the bandy-ball of political parties in
Washington for many months, and that the people at large
have been indignant that Congress failed, for so long a time,
to do "the right thing " by us. / do not have the clue to the
labyrinth, but know that much of the strain has been relieved,
both here and there, since the news was published that the tariff
bill had passed both Houses, and that Porto Rico is to have
the fifteen per cent of the Dingley tariff. The law is to go into
effect on May 1. Also, on that date, the Hon. Chas. H.
Allen, the new and first civil governor, is to be inaugurated in

Child of the Sea [55]^

San Juan, whereupon the military governorship of General
Davis will end.1

May 4, 1900.

Sarah Romney, who was so ill in the hospital, Asilo de
Damas, has just come to bring me three little sour oranges, of
which 1 am supposed to make a tea, to cure my cold! La
grippe is epidemic among our people.

The cattle on the brown hills sniff at the parched ground
and find nothing to eat. Milk has risen in price just when the
sick poor need it most, and the farmers cannot plant in the sun-
baked soil — and many of them have no money for seed. But
showers, now and then, give hope of the rainy season already
overdue..

The Moorish kiosko in the plaza is still full of homeless ones
lying on the floor, night and day, sleeping or ill. The " wolf "
has driven them in from the countrysides, and there is nowhere
here to keep them, as the hospitals are all full. Few of these
forlorn ones have learned to beg, as yet, and they sit around,
hopeless and torpid. When Porto Rican women ask me about
my family, and hear that I have none of my very own, they
usually say: " What a good thing! What peace! "

Very soon United States currency will replace Spanish
money in the Island, saving us daily and vexing calculations.
The Spanish peso, or silver dollar, is to be considered as worth
sixty cents *' gold." If only there might be some system of
loans inaugurated for the planters on their coffee estates ruined

1 After the official retirement of Spain from the Island, on October 18,
1898, "Major General J. R. Brooke, United States Army, was at once
appointed military governor. He was succeeded two months later by
Major General Guy V. Henry. General George W. Davis took General
Henry's place the following May." — J. B. Seabury, in his School History
of Porto Rico, 1903.
E

[56] Child of the Sea

by the hurricane, to set them upon their feet again with the
purchase of tools and the hiring of labor for clearing the
plantations, there would be real financial hope ahead, and more
cheer for the little Island.

Ad juntas, P. R.,
May 12, 1900.

We found El Saltillo, on the outskirts of Adjuntas, alive
with the road builders, as we drove up the mountain. When
all is finished — boulders ground to powder, mountainsides
carved away, gorges crossed by strong bridges, beds of moun-
tain streams altered, precipices buttressed with masonry, etc.,
this carretera will be a mighty work accomplished, uniting the
north coast directly with the south by a splendid road, barely
half as long as the fine old diagonal highway between Ponce
and San Juan — " a highway for our God "?

The faded blue roses are still climbing the sickly yellow
walls of my room at Dona Clara's, an old lace curtain drapes
the iron canopy above the narrow bedstead to keep the dust
from sifting down upon my pillow, flowers brought by the
children as soon as I was well out of the carriage, adorn the
little table, already heaped with my books and writing things,
and I hope that strong essence of pennyroyal will drive away
ants, fleas, spiders perhaps, and mosquitoes from my pillow.
All is as spick and span as ever in the bit of a room, and a
warm welcome made me feel as if I were come back home.

All the world here is sick. God help me to give his message
to the people before they die! Yet, I wish to be calm and
reasonable in order to cope with the bitter misery on all sides,
else I myself shall flag, under the sense of their apathy and
want. Often I do not know what to say when there is nothing
to do. Livingstone once wrote, " Food for the mind has but
little savor for starving stomachs." Little Anita, Dona Clara's

Child of the Sea [57]

■ l ■■ — ■mi ■ mi ■■«iii i iumMninmniMmwuii— !■■— ■iiiiiwim iiwimrrnr <fn^^— — tt—imi i iiiiiniiiin

grandniece, is dying in the house, by the slow degrees anemia
poisoning takes. Her complexion changes from ghastly white

to green. Doctor McC , the army surgeon stationed here,

had me listen to her heart-beats this morning, and on laying
my ear against her breast, I heard a whirring and rushing inside
like that of a machine fan, while I could detect no countable
beatings of her heart. That organ must overwork in order to
supply the scanty red blood to the tissues demanding it. I
have bought the digitalis and other medicines Doctor

McC prescribes, but only with the hope of making her

days easier. Her father also is in this house — all the family
being hurricane refugees from the hills — and he is in the last
stages of anemia, with tuberculosis of the lungs also, I think.

A pouring rain falls, and my old friend, the Sleeping Giant,
lies grim and still against the sad-colored sky, a gossamer veil
of rain swathing his highness. Big banana leaves make pretty
good umbrellas for some of the passing folk, and others wear
coffee-sacks as cowl and cape over their heads and shoulders.
One does not see real umbrellas very often. And the down-
pour has driven off of the streets the scores of helpless, homeless
creatures, straying about the town — driven them whither?

Sunday, May 13, 1900.

A lovely day of summer. Mr. R. baptized five men

today, in a little pool under the river-bank, P among

them and dear old B. from over the Giant's head. Of
these five the church was *' organized " tonight, in the old
warehouse hall. Afterward there was a marriage. At last
we have a nucleus about which to build in this mountain dis-
trict. Some of the women are very promising in intelligent
experience, but few of these can read, and it is wiser for them
to wait.

[58] Child of the Sea

I am glad we have missionaries who are more intent on see-
ing men and women intelligently and heartily beginning the
Christian life, than on counting mere baptisms and churches
for reports to a Mission Board and the public. Mr. R.'s
words, addressed to the church of five, tonight, were spoken as
to little children, but were of no weak stuff.

During the past week I have tried to find out the truth of
some of the tales the destitute tell me, and to help, not with
money many ask for, but with medicine provided by Doctor

McC , and with milk and other food. Mrs. Andrus, the

good captain's wife, is a neighbor, as they are quartered in a
large frame house near Dona Clara's. Both the captain and
his wife are strong arms of support, as they have true hearts
of sympathy for this suffering people. Mrs. A. has helped
me to provide a mattress — stuffed with clean excelsior — for a
poor, sick stranger who, drifting down a mountain trail, has
been taken in by a woman on the hillside road above town. I
found her lying on the bare palm-strips forming the slatted floor
of the shack, with nothing between her scantily clothed body
and the open floor. My brother would hardly think the shack
fit for housing his Rhode Island Reds! Certainly not for his
cow! Yet, True-hearted Hospitality shares his scanty food
and room with the dying woman. " She could not get any
farther down the trail, so, of course, we took her in! " Of
course they did — I know no one here who would not have
done it! I have sent medicine and sugar and rice. It is per-
haps better to do for a few, really, and so help some to get
well, than to deal out centavos at every turn. It would cer-
tainly be easier, on begging-days — Saturdays — to provide a
boxful of crackers on the porch, as storekeepers do on their
counters, for any beggar to help himself to a couple from it, or
to change a peso into centavos and give one each to a hundred
beggars, as Dona Clara says her husband used to do.

Child of the Sea [59]

May 19, 1900.

The sick woman on Las Vegas trail cannot live long, but
how she does enjoy her soft (?) bed on the slatted floor, and
other small comforts! She is learning to say the chorus of
** Pass me not, O gentle Saviour," for she has no breath for
singing. As the chorus in Spanish is a prayer and very short
and simple, and as she is very weak, it contains " the gospel "
I am trying to teach her. Her memory falters, but her passing
soul looks gravely and understandingly from her sunken dark
eyes into mine, as she says after me,

Cristo, Crislo,
Ope iu mi voz,
Salvador, tu gracia dame,
Oye mi clamor.

The children are being rounded up for beginning again our
classes together. Dear youngsters, always coming with their
little hot, short-stemmed offerings of flowers! I must insist
upon the use of scissors if the town fathers do not, else the
plaza garden will soon be a wreck.

Our aged brother B., one week after baptism, is to lead
a short service tomorrow morning, following the children's
Sunday School. Until now, I have had only the children's
school on the Sundays when there has been no preacher up
from Ponce, but it seems well to us to have these elderly
*' babes " begin to take hold now, helping with the work
among their own people. It will be hard for any of the five,
at first, as they have not yet even prayed in public, and I rather
dread tomorrow.

Mrs. Andrus has just brought a woman to me who has
become a chronic case of begging, asking me to interpret for
her and rid her of the nuisance. The ladies of the engineers'

[60] Child of the Sea

family say they cannot bear the strain of this poverty-stricken
town much longer, and one of them has become ill over it.
They do what they can to help, as do all the Ad juntas families.
We are hoping that Government rations will once again be dis-
tributed, as soon as a transport food-ship arrives. Now, comes
Mrs. Andrus' cook with a bowl of chicken broth for Anita.

Sunday, May 20, 1900.

I think the Lord must have looked pitifully and kindly on,
this morning, as the tall, old man from the mountains took
the minister's place, for the first time, in the dingy mission hall.
After the Bible class of thirty little folks and a few elders.
I kept them all instead of dismissing as usual, and Don B*
stood behind the table, and read several chapters in Luke
straight through, beginning with the first, genealogy and all.
Now and then, he paused for a remark. Then we sang, and
next he readf a prayer from the hymn-book, all of us kneeling,
but hardly knowing whether to close our eyes or not! The
children giggled a little at this new style of culto. After
another hymn the culto was over. It is a comfort to know
that the Lord knew what was in the old man's heart, and that
sitting in the heavens, he did not laugh.

In the evenings, I am reading aloud to the large household,
which always gathers in the sala and in the dining-room be-
hind, when the day is done. Most are ailing and tristes and
gladly listen. Tonight, we had come to the eleventh chapter
of " Pilgrim's Progress," in Spanish. They are eager to be
going on with the story," but listen intently to such of the argu-
ments as it seems wise to give to their anemic brains. Like the
Bible, this book seems to have been written for just such simple,
unspoiled, needy hearts.

Little Anita has improved somewhat under Doctor

Child of the Sea [6U

McC 's care, and has been to the children's class once or

twice, and is learning to sing some of their songs, breathless as
she is.

The poor lady in the hut up the trail has died! I was not
there at the moment, but the women, who always sat about
during my visits, tell me that to the last she kept whispering
over and over:

Cristo, Cristo!
Oi?e tu mi voz!

Can I doubt that He heard?

May 22, 1900.

The sick he tucked away in half-finished or unoccupied
houses, on the floor, anywhere. Until the very last days of
life, they manage to sit up and even drag themselves about the
streets. In many, the sickness is from starvation, and ills
resulting from exposure to rain and sun by turns. Naturally,
these conditions breed disease. The wanderers cannot be
driven out of town, as there is only devastation in the hills
from which most of them come. Yet the town itself is too
poor to care for all of them. Today I found a sick man on
the sidewalk and had to get him into the hospital — a place
poor enough, but rather better than the street when it rains.

Doctor Mc C called up a hospital attendant for me, and

a litter was sent at once, so inside of fifteen minutes I saw the
poor fellow in the hospital. Much else I saw — overcrowded
rooms, soiled cots and linen, unwashed patients, and one
woman to cook, ma\e the beds, and care for the patients. The
" attendant " is a sickly man himself. There seems to be little
food for these sick, as there has been some hitch about getting
supplies, and I am afraid that some of the Porto Rican men
of the town who might set matters right, are content to lounge

[62] Child of the Sea

over their tables in the alcaldia,2 and scribble and criticize the
United States Government over their cigars and — bottles! I
have seen and heard them at it in the inn.

But, happily, there are others among them of a different

stamp. Judge F , and Doctor C are always willing

to help, being citizens of influence and broad-mindedness, and
there are others un-self~seeking enough to be genuinely trou-
bled over the want and death around us.

2 Town hall.

Child of the Sea 163]

VI

Ah! to how many Faith has been
No evidence of things unseen,
But a dim shadow that recasts
The creed of the Phantasiasts,
For whom no Man of Sorrows died,
For whom the Tragedy Divine
Was but a symbol and a sign
And Christ a phantom crucified.

— Longfellow,

Adjuntas, P. R.,
Sunday, June 3, 1900.

THE past week has been a nightmare. Government sup-
plies came for the destitute, and all the barrios * of the
mountains emptied themselves into Adjuntas which had
seemed overflowing before. It took two days for the army
wagons to bring up from the Port and deposit their loads of
codfish, rice, bacon, beans, and calico Mother Hubbard wrap-
pers at the warehouse doors, and for all to be stored — in the
room adjoining our mission hall, although this charity has noth-
ing to do with the mission.

A swarming but feeble multitude filled the plaza and streets,
some deserving and very needy, others undeserving of the first
aid which is really all such help can compass.

It took many hours each day for the American orderlies to
attend to the heads of families presenting their boletas, the
precious bits of paper obtained in as nearly an orderly way as
possible through the commissary agent of each district,

1 Districts,

[64] Child of the Sea

Some poor souls had lost heart with the long waiting for the
food-ship, and the wagon-train, and had trailed back to the
plantations, without aid; some, in town, are too ill to wait in
line for attention; others are too unused to beggary to be agile
in petition.

When it was learned, in some way, that I had arranged
for some suffering families to be fed, the hordes precipitated
themselves upon me, on Tuesday and Wednesday, till I hardly
dared show myself outside. In the mornings they waited
patiently for me, sitting mutely on the porch-steps and the side-
walk until I was dressed and had had to open my window-door
for light and air. They haunted me in the streets, pattering
behind me on their poor, bare feet, by silent twos and threes,
or hailing me from the curb, where lines of them would sit with
empty sacks beside them, for hours at a time. Some were
pitiful, and in their ignorance pleaded for aid in securing their
tickets, some were boldly rude, demanding papelitos. But now
at last, things have settled down, and most have their tickets,
and know when to come again and be served.

Other matters have occupied me besides; arranging for the
whitewashing of our mission hall ; planning for the marriage of

A with J ; the first meeting of the sewing-class ; and

several visits, besides the children's classes. The wives of the
American engineers and the captain's wife are giving material
for stout underwear so grievously needed by some of the poor
women, and large girls who can sew are to come to the mission
for making chemises and skirts. The ladies are to do the cut-
ting out, while I direct the girls, as the former do not speak
Spanish.

This a. m. when Mrs. Andrus and I went to the mission for
Sunday School, Gabriel had not opened the hall, and the air
was unbreathable inside, with the stale odors of codfish and
bacon stored in the next room filling the warehouse.

Child of the Sea [65]_

After a lame beginning, things brightened up with the sun-
shine and breeze pouring in along with the swarming children.
From a wide back doorway, there is a most lovely view of the
mountain heights ranged against the sunny morning sky.

There were forty-five children at last in the Sunday School,
plus four out of the five ** brethren," and several women. Don
B. was more at ease in his service, offering a faltering but
audible prayer of his own, as did brother P also.

It is a novel business for me to be training these crude be-
lievers, but there is a strange pleasure in it. wore a

large, clean Turkish towel around his neck, this morning, and
his clothes were freshly laundered. He has a good, sensible
face and will be a leader some day.

Since dinner, I have been to V 's house, for the Bible

class with her neighbors. The red-clay hill road was wet and
slippery, though the rain was over. Afterward, I stepped
across the lane to see Primitiva, the bright-eyed little scholar
who is sick. I found her so dangerously ill, that I hurried

back to town for Doctor McC and took him to the house,

slipping and panting up and down the steep hill road. He
thinks the child has spinal meningitis and must die, but pre-
scribed for her. [She died very quickly.]

June 4, 1900.

Judge F came in a while ago with a countryman and

his wife, to ask if I would not " baptize " their little baby. It
was ill, and they could not pay the dollar to the priest, and

Judge F thought I would do as well. It was hard for

them to understand how I could refuse to do so simple a thing,
when nothing the missionaries do is ever charged for — preach-
ing, marrying, nursing, burying! I gave them some advice
about the baby and baptism, which to me at least seemed good.

m Child of the Sea

Bought a water-tight barrel at a store for the whitewash
mixture for the mission hall — cost twenty-six centavos.

June 8, 1900.

But for the thought of the stricken and drenched ones seek-
ing shelter, and perhaps finding none, and for the delay in the
coming of more provisions from the Port of Ponce, I should
enjoy the deluging torrents of rain that have fallen upon us
during these days, and the great, spectacular drive of the clouds
from one side of the valley to the other, swallowing whole
mountains as they pass. The rain falls upon the zinc roof
directly overhead with the noise of some solid substance dropped
from the sky. It hisses past our porch in driving, opaque
sheets. It streams from the ragged clouds like " little glass
rods " boring their way to the earth. Certainly, this is the
rainy season!

On class-day, no one could have expected children to come
to the mission, but I saw little faces crowding the open windows
of the warehouse looking up the road to Dona Clara's, at 4
o'clock on Tuesday, and in mackintosh and rubbers I went
gladly enough to honor the faithful — if mistaken — few.

The river is swollen, and the cottagers along the banks are
in a panic. On coming back into town, I found the rumor of
an Imminent hurricane everywhere, and people were nailing up
their shop-doors!

Poor little Manuel is one of my latest proteges. A fortnight
ago, he " appeared " to us. I was sitting in Dona Clara's
sola, with doors opened on the front porch, chatting with the
family as I often do after lunch, when a strange, little, ragged
boy, with shining eyes and whitest teeth, suddenly stood in the
doorway. He carried a wee baby in his arms, wrapped in a
clean, white cloth, and he was so tired that he plumped down,

Child of the Sea [67]^

at once, on the door-step. " I came to give away my little
sister. Her name is Carmelita," he said, with a grin.

He was so jolly-looking for all his ragged hat and shirt, and
the baby so clean, that we could not help taking the little
creature in our arms, and hearing all about it. But how could
1 take a baby to keep? Carmelita was but seven months old,
and very small and white, and the life I lead, with its upris-
ings and outgoings and no abiding-place of my own, makes it
impossible to me to undertake the care of an infant. Just as
little could Dona Lola think of keeping the little sad, dark-
eyed thing, with Dona Clara's houseful of invalids and orphans
on her hands.

" See, the child is a boba (defective or idiot)," she cried,
holding it on her lap presently. " When they hang their heads
forward like that, they have no sense, pobre criatura that she
is! " Little Carmen certainly had not life enough to hold up
her little black head, and there was almost no expression in
the baby eyes. It seemed to make no difference to her who
handled her, and she did not whimper as she lay quietly in
my arms at last.

Manuel told us of his sick father and mother, and the little
brothers and sister, at home in a grass-hut, and lying on the
ground with nothing to eat. Mama had no more milk in her
breast for the baby, so he had brought her down the mountain
to give her to some kind woman who would perhaps buy milk
for her. After feeding him, we had to let him go. We knew
some woman would take the baby-sister and I promised myself
to help care for the child. He came back, presently, to say
that a woman had taken Carmen, and I found her as soon as
possible. She seems kind and pitiful, and quite able to keep
the poor baby, though she has one of her own. She says Car-
melita needs no care except to be bathed and fed, as she lies
still on hejr cot, and gives n_Q trouble at all — poor baby-starve-

[68] Child of the Sea

ling. With my help she will take better care of the child
than I could, as the house is clean and cosy and she is always
at home.

Manuel has come back several times and always reports his
family as worse. One day, as he is a strong little fellow him-
self, I gave him work to do — the clearing of Dona Clara's
side-yard of weeds. Then, I despatched him to the river,
which was not yet swollen by the rains, for a good bath.
Meantime, I had begged some boy's clothes from good Mrs.
Andrus — her Clift is just Manuel's age — and when the child
came up from the river, brown and shining, I had him dress in
the clean blouse and trousers. His own were only fit for the
fire. He was a delighted boy when I next took him to the
store for a new hat, and then Dona Lola sheared his shaggy
black locks. I have two suits of little Clift's clothes for him,
and he is to change each time he comes to town. He is a
wonderfully bright little chap, always eager to run an errand
or do a job for me.

But the last time he brought sad news. On returning to the
hut, away over the mountain, he found the little sick brother
and sister both dead, lying on the ground where they died!
The mother is too ill to know any one. I would go to them,
but those who know say it would be quite impossible, with the
trails rushing torrents now. I hated to send the brave little
fellow off in the rain today — for he has come again — but he
carried food for several days.

June 10, 1900.

At last, the mission hall is whitewashed after four days'
work, for the ceiling and walls were begrimed past description.
Now the floor remains to be scrubbed, with water brought from
the river. Gabriel informs me that when Don Antonio had it
scrubbed for pur occupancy, months ago, one hundred and

Child of the Sea 169]

sixty bucketfuls from the river were needed. Well! there is
abundance of water now in Adjuntas, if scarcity of all else.

Last night, Justina and I walked out by the light of a
watery moon to see the river surging across the bottom of our
street with a deafening roar. One of the American engineers
and a companion had a narrow escape from drowning in the
river, close to town, today. They were riding big mules, and

at the ford Mr. A was swept off his mule, and had a

dangerous struggle for life, for a few seconds, but reached the
bank safely. The mule was swept far down the river, and
was almost exhausted on recovery. Fancy one of our big
American mules exhausted!

Sunday, June 17, 1900.

Again the huge army wagons have come creaking and
crawling up the road from Ponce, bringing food, but not
enough to satisfy the hungry horde which has sat brooding,
day by day along the road, waiting for the wagons. If only
the odors in the warehouse would vanish with the provisions, as
quickly and completely!

Manuel has grown thin and pale with his exhausting tramps
back and forth in sun and rainstorm, and has a little fever,
malarial doubtless.

This has not been a very profitable week for reporting
numerically to the Mission Board in Boston. Still, quiet talks

with V and M seem to have revealed the fact that

they are "ready " to be baptized. Our people have not yet
learned a gospel language, and it is difficult to read hearts.
But there is a light in the eyes of these two women, and their
earnest desire for knowledge of God's will for them speaks for
the new interest which has come to them both. I asked one of
them what reason she had for thinking herself *' converted,*'
and her reply was simple enough: ** Before I knew about these

[70] Child of the Sea

things, when I was washing the clothes in the river, and the
soap would slide off the wet rock into the water and be carried
away, I used to say bad words enough, feeling very angry in
my heart. Now, when that happens, I just laugh and say,
* Well, I must go back to the house for another piece of soap! '
I have a very bad temper, but the Lord is taking it away."

This morning it showered, but the children came dropping
— and dripping — into the mission hall. At 10 o'clock,
brother B. had not arrived for his service, although I knew

that he was already in town. So P and J came

up to the front of the room. I sent two or three mere infants
home after Sunday School, during a hold-up of the rain, and

then P read in the Bible, after we had sung a hymn.

Another hymn and some phrases of prayer followed from

P . and B. who had arrived meanwhile; then came the

doxology, and the benediction (pronounced by myself, as I
see that the men find it difficult to end a service and so send
the people away; perhaps it seems a rude thing to do!). So
the meeting concluded. No grown folks besides us were
present, except one old woman inclined to converse with the
nearest children.

After all was over, I was charmed to have P say to

me : " Next time, it will be different. I shall read a chapter
during this week, and think of some words to say as an intro-
duction to it, and explanation of it." That I had already
suggested this procedure to him, in a former talk, did not de-
tract from his satisfaction in feeling it to be his own thought
and plan. He read, this morning, in a good clear voice.

And Brother B. had wished to read his chapter, after all,
late as he had arrived, but the children were too tired to listen
to more. Besides, I want these men to realize their responsi-
bility. They must be helped to stand alone. Yet I wish to
be on my guard against too much " personal conduction."

Child of the Sea [71]

VII

O wild and wondrous midnight,
There is a might in thee

To make the charmed body
Almost like spirit be,

And give it some faint glimpsed
Of immortality!

— Lowell.

Adjuntas, P. R.,
June 29, 1900.

THE day after I wrote last, Manuel returned. I sat in
my doorway — also the only window in my room — just at
sunset, writing to Mrs. Reynolds in Boston some official
account of " the Work." The child appeared suddenly, as
usual — one moment he is not, the next he is ! He was very pale
and excited, yet told collectedly of his mother's burial that day.
As it was very late, I fed him and kept him all night. Dona
Clara is very kind to my little refugee and lets him lie on —
something, on the dining-room floor! The next day, I de-
spatched him with his sack supplied with provisions for the
family remaining, but he grew too ill to get beyond the edge
of town. He managed to crawl back to the store next door
to our house. From there, a woman brought him to me, and

here he has been ever since. Doctor C , the Spanish

physician here, is very good about coming to see the child

(Dr. McC having left Adjuntas) and says he has a fever

of some kind. He lies very quietly, by day, on a little mat-
tress we have made for him, stuffed with the sweet dry grass
of the fields. I have made sheets and a pillow, bought a cot-

[72] Child of the Sea

ton blanket, and Mrs. Andrus has provided two suits of her
boys' pajamas. The mattress is thick, cool, and springy, and
occupies a corner of my tiny room, on the floor of course, as
there is no room for a cot. At bedtime, Dona Lola and I
draw the mattress with the patient into the sala, just outside of
my door, for the night. From my own bed, I can hear every
movement on the pallet-bed, and am up and down all night.
Today, his fever is running very high, and the little sun-
browned body is scorching hot. But Manuel's smile is always
ready, and he says' he is un poquito mejor — a little bit better.

I should be going down to Ponce now, but cannot leave
Manuel. He was brought into poor Dona Clara's house, be-
cause the woman who found him had seen the little fellow with
me, and now he is too ill to be moved, if there were anywhere
to move him to.

Last week, Mr. R. was up from Ponce, and there
were many cultos. On Sunday, the twenty-fourth, the women,

M ■ and V , were baptized, and also the youth

R , as the morning sunshine sparkled over the river. I

sang myself hoarse with the insatiable children afterward, and

at V *s house later, and a vocal cord seems to have

snapped.

At last, Gabriel and I had gotten our big dingy meeting-
hall into beautiful (?) order, for the fortnightly service. A
part of the river had been sluiced and swept over the floor ; the
whitewashed walls gleamed in the light of all the lamps, filled
and scrubbed ; a new text in large letters of blue blotting-paper
was on the white wall; a new table-cover of the new kind of
cloth called khaki decked the old table, and lovely roses
decked the table-cover. So, we were quite fine for this week's
services. . . I do not see how I can leave this little town
alone, and go down to big, hot Ponce with its many workers.

I am reading some volumes of Bayard Taylor's " Travels."

^^^ ■ '■*

_ ; V., :4S;

•

Era^

. »-,

: 4 m

^

1

1

*-^J-

A Waif of the Hurricane

l*| ;-2^

Flowery Plaza in Adjuntas

Child of the Sea [73

Antiquated? Perhaps so, but he saw, as it seems to me few
travel-writers of this day let themselves see. I think that, as
Maria Mitchell says of her own joumeying-eye, Taylor gave
most attention to what he found in foreign parts superior,
rather than inferior, to our own civilization — a wholesome
process. His '* Egypt " and " Norway " and " Sweden "
are refreshing reading.

Government supplies for the starving come but fitfully, and
the nightmare of poverty increases, as the people grow from
impatient to bold, and from worn-out to despairing. I have
been grieved and tormented in turn by their insistent demands
upon my time.

Sunday, July 1. 1900.

The night after I wrote last, Manuel was taken with profuse
hemorrhages from the bowels. His fever raged and there were
other grave symptoms, until toward morning he was on the
verge of collapse. The good doctor came across the street to
us in the night, and Dona Lola " stood by " all the next day,
or I should hardly have gotten through after the night of stress-
ful nursing. I napped, now and then, as Manuel's fever
lowered toward afternoon after another hemorrhage at noon.
The poor little fellow's only complaint all day was, '* The day
seems very long!" Today has been restful, since Manuel's
bath. Dona Lola stayed with him while I was at the mission.
All was quiet and solemn inside the mission hall. In or out of
the Island there could not have been found thirty better-be-
haved children than ours today. Dear Mrs. Andrus came to
sing with them, to rest my broken '* cord," and afterward

P led the morning worship well. It poured rain outside,

so there was no lounging in the doorways. The blessed chil-
dren remembered my request and only helped instead of hin-
dering with giggling whispers, evefl when P- pleaded over

[74] Child of the Sea

and over with one of the * 'brethren " to make a prayer — in
vain !

Then came the bath! Esmerigildo had already filled a tin

bathtub borrowed of Doctor C , and set it beside poor

Manuel's pallet. Hot water was added when I came home
from the mission, and four of us proceeded to wash the child
as gently and swiftly as possible, with soap and cloths. His
little hot body was covered with a crust of dirt and dry skin,
which none of my frequent spongings had availed to remove,
and the doctor says he must sweat the fever out! I was only
too glad to have the cleansing bath at last permitted, although
Manuel has looked a very well-regulated little patient without
it. Since noon, however, his fever has kept at its height —
scorching — and I am not sure that the bath was not too strenu-
ous an affair in his feeble state.

At last, the baby Carmelita is dying, apparently of pure
inanition. The woman has taken good care of her.

[She died that day.]

July 3, 1900.

Manuel's fever baffles the doctor. He grunts today, as he
sleeps heavily and yet says, when roused, that nothing hurts

him. Doctor C comes three or four times a day to see

my little waif.

July 5, 1900.

Yesterday was a dismal day enough, for everybody. I
had had an indescribable night with Manuel. The " grunts "
of day before yesterday meant congested lungs and the doctor
is fighting pneumonia and the fever, which seems to be typhus.
We know now that it was a malignant fever of some kind that
carried off Manuel's mother and the little brother and sister.
I have never touched so scorching hot a human body, in a good

Child of the Sea [75]

deal of experience of nursing. There is no ice, only cold
well-water for spongings, and the cloths from his body heat it

at once in the little basin. Doctor C uses no clinical

thermometer, and I keep no chart, but I am sure the tempera-
ture has reached 1 05 ° more than once.

I was just trying to catch a moment of sleep, after a last
sponging, yesterday morning at dawn, when a cannon-shot or
two was fired in salute of the day — the Great and Glorious.
The diana, or reveille, was being played by a guard at every
street corner in turn, to rouse the town to holiday-making when,
suddenly, every sound ceased! And we learned later in the
day, that an American soldier had died at 3 a. m. in the hos-
pital, and the person having the program of the day in charge,
not being notified of the death in time, had of course not
withdrawn the order for the diana until too late. Every plan
for racketing was called off, and instead of the patriotic parade
of townsmen and soldiers, the Fifth Calvary Troop I, in
mourning, turned out to escort the body of their comrade in
the ambulance, part of the way down to Ponce. The day
was bereft of all merrymaking, which better suited me and my
sick boy than any one else in town. Poor soldier lad !

July 15, 1900.

Not much doing in all the past week but holding on to the
feeble life of the little sick boy, prolonging it, saving it perhaps,
for what? Yesterday Manuel went into a fainting-fit, and the
sweat stood in great, clear drops over his body. From every
pore of his face and breast a sweat-drop exuded, giving the
queerest appearance, as if the little body were dew-laden ! We
thought the end near as his little brown hands and chilling
limbs and even his closed eyelids quivered curiously. The
doctor was at hand stimulating him, and had me dust starch-

[76] Child of the Sea

■mi^— — a— in i ii i ii w— i— — — — — — — t— — ^^— —

powder and cinnamon continuously over the sweating skin to
close the pores.

For the first time, we "sat up " with him all night long,
Dona Lola giving me three hours good sleep until half-past 2
this morning. Then M. slept quietly, and I had only to
watch his pulse, giving a little brandy with the milk now and
then, for his fever was almost gone, and there were no repeated
spongings as usual.^ I read by lamplight dear " Little Dorrit."

I kept the porch-door of the sala where M. lay, wide
open to the sky all night, and once I heard some one on the
sidewalk below call, " Dona Juanita! " and a policeman stood
outside in the dark, asking if anything had happened. No one
here, except rash Americans, ever sleeps with windows or doors
open! I explained, and the man went off assuring me that he
would be within call if anything should be needed. I suppose
" all the world " knows about Manuel. It was a comfort to
think of somebody awake and alert, near by.

At 4 o'clock, I made a cup of cocoa on the little oil-stove in
my bedroom, and stood on the porch drinking it, to watch the
summer-day break over the mountains. A billowing marvel
of silver mist rolled low in the valley about us, the moonlit
mountains high against the pale sky beyond. Later, the slopes
grew green in the coming light, as the moon went down in the
west, and after a while the sun came up quickly in the east
behind the mountaintops, the sky turning from pink to gold.

The street and plaza, empty all night, except for my guard-
ing sereno on his beat, were unnaturally beautiful in the silence
and the moonlight of dawn, before the bedraggled poor began
to come out of their crannies and trail up and down in the
dawning. The first one of all to stir in our street was a little
boy, about Manuel's age, ragged, dirty, hungry of course.
By the time the sun touched the hibiscus blooms in the plaza,
dishevelled women and hollow-eyed men were well abroad.

Child of the Sea [77]_

A little nap, a bath and hurried dressing, coffee and bread,
and a dash to the butcher's shop for a bit of good meat for
Manuel's broth, brought me finally to 9 o'clock and Sunday
School again.

All day, M. has seemed better, with no fever so far as
I can see, for he is a little below normal in temperature, and
must be stimulated, now and then. Yesterday's startling crisis
must have been the turning-point in this dreadful fever, and I
suppose that the sudden drop in temperature would have been
fatal if M. had not been such a hardy youngster. Doctor

C 's treatment has seemed to be very sane, away off here

where we have had no " appliances." All the medicines, dis-
infectants, even port wine and other stimulants, he has pro-
vided from the hospital stores, and he will not allow me to
speak of remuneration for his assiduous care.

Perhaps it will be possible, some day, for me to look back
upon these shut-in weeks in the teeming Porto Rican cottage, as
time not lost or wasted, though what to do with this child after
he recovers, I know not.

July 19, 1900.

This morning, I threw open the screen guarding the open
doorway so that Manuel might have a glimpse of the sky and
mountains from his lowly bed on the floor. He was still look-
ing up, his eyes as bright as brown beads, when the doctor
came in, as pleased as could be to see his patient so well. '* I
am looking at the sky," said Manuel. " Pero, hace pocos
dias estabas tu mas cerca del cielo que ahora! " '* But, a few
days ago, thou wast nearer heaven than now! " the doctor
replied. Manuel has asked for the little sister Carmelita, and
knows now that she has gone away, to suffer no more. He
did not seem to grieve when I told him, but lay very quiet, and
then said, " It seems as if all my family were dying! "

[78] Child of the Sea

What days of loveliness we are having! It is as if the
best of Junes and Octobers were welded together to produce
perfection of temperature. The air is so breathable up here
in the hills that I wish all the tired missionaries on the hot
coast might have strong wings to bring them up here without
fatigue, to breathe it.

Sunday, July 23, 1900.

Manuel has no more fever, but I found him crying bitterly,
his head under the sheet, this morning, because he knows now
that I must be going down to Ponce very soon.

A large class of children was waiting for me in the old
warehouse, this morning, and tve read together, for many have
books now, the four accounts of Jesus' resurrection. Many
men and women grouped about the doors entered to hear a
short after-talk intended for them.

Alack ! alack ! Captain Andrus and his troop are ordered to
leave the Island in a few days, en route for Fort Myer, near
Washington, D. C. I should like to know how many of our
troops being withdrawn from Porto Rico in these days, have
had such a commander. He has been as much interested in
the poor as Mrs. Andrus has been. They have kept open
house for the men of their troop on Sunday afternoons and
evenings, singing with them at the piano, and helping all who
come to them to realize their manhood and their responsibilities
here in our new bit of earth.

July 26, 1900.

The troop is on the march today, for San Juan, where it
will embark on a transport for New York. The captain has
just been in to say good-by, and now the .double file of splen-
did horses mounted by our fine, blond men, with the captain
at their head, has just wound out of sight along the road to the

Child of the Sea [79]

ford. I stood on the porch, and " the boys " saluted as they
passed, leaving a real ache in my heart. Mrs. A. and the
children will go down in the big ambulance after a day or two.

It is a still, hot day, with a touch of seacoast softness in the
air. Adjuntas seems very empty!

Tomorrow, Manuel is to sit up for fifteen minutes in a rock-
ing-chair, arrayed in a blue serge sailor-suit bequeathed to him
by Clift Andrus.

There will be no Americans here now, except the two lieu-
tenants of two little bands of native soldiers — a dozen each of
cavalry and infantry, which have taken the place of Troop I —
two or three engineers and myself. The new military doctor
is a Scotchman. I shall miss the long line of fine horses trotting
by from their river bath every day, and their fair-skinned riders
in blue chambray shirts, khaki trousers, leggings, and broad-
brimmed, gray felt hats. But it is right to bring the Porto
Ricans into service, and there is no need for large bodies of
United States soldiers in the Island now.

August 1, 1900.

Today, two years after our " invasion," and accompanied
by much trepidation of spirit in the Island, the change of cur-
rency from Spanish to that of the United States comes into
general effect. This change has had to be initiated with
" courtesy and patience " on the part of the commission in
charge. Yesterday, I realized fully the truth of the saying
that money is worth only what it will buy! There was very
little United States currency in town, almost no cents — and
daily dealing is largely in cents' worth of things — and Spanish
currency was refused in the shops. A few people really had
nothing to eat, as they buy only in daily quantities, coffee,
sugar, bread, an egg or two, milk! Some articles are soaring

[80] Child of the Sea

in price already — for example, a box of matches costs one
centavo Spanish, and two cents " gold " are worth three
centavos now. Therefore, for two cents one should get three
little boxes of matches, no? But one gets only two, a whole
cent apiece! Now, what becomes of that other centavo?
thinks dear old Dona Clara, breaking her head today as she
** makes the accounts " with the boy from market, the bread-
man, the milkboy, etc.

Said the priest to some one when Captain Andrus went
away, " Cracias a Dios que se vaya, y gracias si la otra tarn-
bien se fuera! Thank God that he goes, and thanks if the
other [Dona Juanita] would go too! " He complains that
the protestanies are taking all the marriages away from him!

Recently, he told my friend Dona Angela from South

America that her little girl was large enough now to prepare
for her first communion. The mother's declining was spirited
enough, and when she has been criticized for sending her five
lovely little ones to the mission classes, she has said : " I send
them where they are taught to love God above all things. If
that were taught in the Roman Catholic Church I would send
them there. I would go there myself in that case. As it is,
if there were no Protestant service here, I would keep them at
home, and teach them myself." She has a Bible and reads it.

Ponce, P. R.,
August 12, 1900.

Finally, as Doctor C and his nephew, having business

in Ponce, agreed to share a carriage with me, which I could
not well afford alone, I left Adjuntas and Manuel on the
eighth, the anniversary of the fateful hurricane of one year
ago. M.'s feelings were beyond control as I got into the car-
riage at our door, and he lifted up his voice and wept aloud.

Child of the Sea Wl

laying his little cropped head down on the porch-railing. But
he is getting well now, and can walk across the floor without
staggering, and Dona Clara will let him stay until my plans
are made for him. If I lived alone I should keep him with
me, of course. Mr. Rudd tells of a Christian couple — a
Spaniard married to an American lady — who are about to
open an Industrial Home for orphan children near Ponce, and
it is possible that they will take Manuel, whose father has van-
ished completely.

I am just home from Sunday School, and with a wilted
collar and exhausted breath. I thought I fully appreciated the
fine quality of the air in Adjuntas while actually breathing it.
We were still miles away from Ponce, but nearing sea-level as
we came galloping down the mountain, when the languor and

heaviness touched our breasts. Yet, Doctor C told me,

on our way down, that one hundred persons had died in
Adjuntas and the vicinity between the first and seventh of the
month.

It is good to be here again, with the missionary family, and
in my pleasant little room. Mission history has been writing
itself in capitals and italics during these months, and I cannot
seem to catch up with the details. The church over in San
Juan was " organized " early in this year. The McC.'s and
Miss Hayes are just as absorbed there in the north of the
Island as we are here in the south. Perhaps " there will come
a reaction," as some say, in the interest of Porto Ricans in
the Bible and the study of God in his world. Perhaps there
will be revived an indifference — if indifference can be revived
— to any deeper and purer religious ideas than they have been
accustomed to. Already, as a whole, they are growing used
to Americans, and some criticize our ways and our government,
forgetting former adversities, and turning, as it were, to the
flesh-pots of less strenuous ambitions.

[82] Child of the Sea

It is difficult for a tropics-born and hitherto unprogressive
people (necessarily unprogressive from conditions submerging
them) to acquire the view-point of an alien northern nation
suddenly projected among them; and, for myself, I do not
wonder that there should be obstacles in the way of the Porto
Ricans keeping step with, and even of accepting, American
ideas. They have certainly experienced some disillusions along
this line. Even gospel teaching keeps those of them who are
earnestly trying to learn, at a white-hot pitch of strain, if not
exactly of struggle! Of course, some will find the new
Christian life too strenuous for mortal Islander to live. But
many, gracias a Dios, are proving its power and beauty, even
if they sometimes stumble in the going. . .

Monserrat, with her one blind, bulging eye, and rough, bare
head, stood at a window on the sidewalk one night, outside the
mission, with her " old man " who was not yet properly her
old man at all, and she liked the singing and the praying and
the hand-shaking — especially the post-culto hand-shaking, I am
sure — going on inside. So, one night she came in with her
old man, and she has never gone out, so to speak. She has
been " married by the culto" as they say, and neither one of
the old couple ever misses a service. Indeed, it would seem
that nobody ever tires of listening to a sermon in the mission
hall.

August 14, 1900.

Washerwomen, cooks, bakers have been on a strike as a con-
sequence of the change of currency. And Just at first, it is
easy for the more ignorant to rebel at receiving now fewer cents
for labor than centavos formerly, when a cent does not seem
to have any more purchasing value than a centavo! A woman
who now receives fifteen cents for washing a dozen articles looks
back with indignant longing to the twenty-five centavos of last

Child of the Sea [83]_

month for the same work, as fifteen cents does not seem to
go any further in the stores than fifteen centavos did ! All this
will soon be arranged, of course, and the centavo and peso for-
gotten, but indeed our little United States cent does look very
insignificant beside the big, heavy centavo piece, which is of
about the size and weight of that one-cent " copper " once in
circulation in America.

Now that we have our afternoon Bible School at La Playa,
the Port of Ponce, two miles away, I must spin thither on my
wheel at half past three every Sunday, and I find the tires are
giving way after their long rest. The road is dusty, sunny,
and hot, but there are a few tamarind trees, a flamboydn or
two, and clumps of bamboo, or a towering cocoanut-palm, now
and then, along the way. I need a horse and some kind of
carriage for the miles out of Ponce. Already there is talk of
a future trolley-line for Ponce and the Port. . . There is such
a mixture of blood in the coast towns, that one meets every pos-
sible shade of the human complexion. The law against naked-
ness of young children in public is not doing much, as yet, to
cure that useless evil. A rather amusing species of eye-service
is in vogue, such as hustling a naked baby out of sight on the
approach of an American, or calling to an urchin enjoying a
dust-bath in the street to run for his life into a bit of shirt
waved from a doorway! Sometimes a laughing mother will
say to a little brown rogue clasping my knees, in a Cantera
shack, " Go, get your camisa, or Dona Juanita will whip
you! " " It is you who should have the whipping," I have
retorted more than once, and not laughing at all. But this
evil will pass with others, as self-respect and altruism develop
in the Island. Of course, the heat of the coast towns en-
courages this bad custom, for in the mountains one rarely sees
a naked child,

[84] Child of the Sea

September IT, 1900.

While I sat in my room studying, a week ago, there came a
knock at the door, and outside stood Manuel, plump and rosy!
The doctor's wife and daughters had brought him down to me.
The little fellow was as happy as possible and kissed both my
hands, and all through his six days' stay at the R.'s home
followed me about like a loving little dog. His naive delight
over his first experience of a big city's doings were very amus-
ing. Yesterday the Spaniard, Don M , sent a man for

him and he went off sorrowfully, on horseback, perched be-
tween two full sacks of grain. Another small orphan, destined
for the same school, bestrode — as far as his short legs would
go — another horse with its pack. I know Manuel will be safe
now, and he is to work when strong enough, as well as to learn
to read and write. His beaming smile will win affection any-
where.

The children poured into Sunday School last Sunday, until
there was no room for more. As these have become my charge
now, I gave Carmen ten of the littlest ones to teach, for the
whole swarm in our bit of a side-room could not be taught
anything at all.

Child of the Sea [85]

VIII

Our little lives are kept in equipoise

By opposite attractions and desires:
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,

And the more noble instinct that aspires.

— Longfellow.

Adjuntas, P. R.,
September 29, 1900.

THE long-expected organ for Adjuntas, sent to us by
Mrs. Thomas of Newton, Mass., arrived at the Port
on this week's ship, so as I had rashly promised the peo-
ple to come up and help inaugurate it, when it should come, I
joined Mr. Rudd and Don Enrique and little C , yes-
terday, on the long carriage drive hither. On our way out of
Ponce we passed the big organ box, resting in the ox-cart under
a tree by the roadside, three oxen " outspanned " and lazily
chewing the cud close by. The fourth had sickened and had
had to be driven back to town! The organ had been sent
ahead of us the night before, and we were rather chagrined at
the delay, as it had to be in Adjuntas in time to be unpacked
today for Sunday — tomorrow. I had just blown out my can-
dle late last night, hours after we had arrived at Dona Clara's
house, when Gabriel came to my outer door announcing jubi-
lantly the arrival of the cart with the organ. So, today, it has
been unpacked and set up in the warehouse.

September 30, 1900.

My birthday. A fair, cool day. I went early to meet
the dear children, once again, in the mission hall, and we sang

[86] Child of the Sea

with the organ for half an hour before classtime, to their
ecstatic delight. Two were baptized in the river, this after-
noon, one of our boys and a middle-aged man. In the evening
after Don Enrique's sermon, the Lord's Supper was adminis-
tered to the little band of ten in the presence of a crowded and
very respectful congregation. Afterward, there was a mar-
riage. There generally is!

An absolutely full day, but it was hard to leave the porch
tonight and come to bed, at a late hour, with the mountain
moon glorifying the quiet night. Back to Ponce tomorrow.
And our people here must be left to their every-day concerns,
which have not materially changed in character, whatever
change may be coming to their outlook upon life. How much
does this new impulse mean to the real life of each of the ten
" members "? Is it to be only for Sundays and the other red-
letter days when some missionary can be with them? Truly,
I think not. We shall be glad when each little church can
have a native pastor, or " elder " to foster, and guide it along
ways of independence of us, for greater dependence on God
and themselves.

Ponce, October 28, 1900.

A beautiful, plain communion service has been sent to the
Ponce church, by a young ladies' society of Providence, R. I.
Now, with more dignity the Supper will be served tonight.
There are the silver flagon, two goblets, and two plates. We
use a red wine watered, and bread made in the house.

November 8, 1900.

I am planning a vacation of ten days. My old friend, the
S. S. Caracas, is due here tomorrow, and I shall make the
round trip with her to the Venezuelan coast, stopping at the

Child of the Sea [87]^

Dutch island of Curacoa on the way. The heat is excessive,
and the Island has grown a little too small to hold even me for
a while.

The terrible earthquake shocks of last week, which shattered
Caracas and other towns of Venezuela, make some shudder,
yet I have no fear of going there. The " brethren " prayed
touchingly, tonight, in the culto at La Playa, for " Dona
Juanita's " safety on her trip. How do they learn to pray so
faithfully, so earnestly? I do not pray half so self-forgetfully.
The drive home afterward, with Don Enrique, was enchanting
in the full, white moonlight and the freshness of the night — the
towering grace of the palms, and the quiet of the limitless cane-
fields on each side of the road seeming a vision of a different
world from that of the glaring, heated, racketing, noisy day
just past.

• ••••••

Ponce, November 20, 1900.

This morning, the mountains of our own Island seemed to
float among the clouds as our ship drew in, home from the far
South. The sea was shining blue and dancing for joy, after
yesterday's storm of wind and racking waves. It was just 8
o'clock when the rowboat brought me ashore, with my spoil of
travel, baskets, fruit, and trinkets from South America, and a
good will for work after ten strange and delightful days in
foreign ports — Curacao, La Guayra, and Puerto Cabello.

November 21, 1900.

Our church's first " anniversary " tonight. The meeting
was enthusiastic. Faces beamed, songs were sung with gusto,
there could not have been more reverent and absorbed atten-
tion to every word of prayer and teaching. Surely some of

[88] Child of the Sea

these are God's own. And with what unction at the end all
the people said, Amen! One year old.

November 25, 1900.

There were a hundred and fifteen in Bible School today.
It was good, after ten days away, to be in the crowded little
red hall again, not half so large as the Adjuntas warehouse
mission, and with the eager scholars. But, I am to go to
Yauco this week, where there is exacting need of work among
the women and girls. Since that first meeting there, in the little
fruit-shop, the missionary-in-charge has made regular trips
thither, and has just now opened a rented mission-room for
cultos.

Yauco, P. R.,
December 5, 1900.

I am staying in a small, clean room in the '* American Vic-
tory " hotel, on the second floor. Panchita, the little errand
girl of the hotel, went with me to the first service November 2 7,
and I found the street outside of the house full of women and
girls crowding the sidewalk up to the door, and listening to the
hymn, " Pass me not, O gentle Saviour," in rather noisy
fashion. Scarcely a woman was inside, but there was a crowd
of men and boys. In and out they came and went regardless,
but some returned and a few remained all the while. All
listened as they might in the slight confusion to Mr. R.'s
talk about " The Sower " ; open-eyed they heard the prayers,
and I doubt if they knew they were prayers! They tried to
sing a hymn or two, some highly diverted, others serious. It
was a novel experience, even in Porto Rico, to sit as I did and
look into the faces of business men, half-grown youths, beggar-
men, boys, infant stragglers — who ought to have been at home

Child of the Sea [89]

and abed — all of the less gentle sex listening with curiosity to
the ** new thing." They heard only an old story, but told in
a way to which they are little accustomed. A notice was
given to the women and girls and children, that ** Dona
Juanita " would have a class for them the next day.

The next morning was spent in visiting several families, and
in getting an idea of the streets, so that I easily made a map
of the little town by noon. The afternoon class I had rather
dreaded, as not all first things are easiest things, in mission
fields. Yauco, compact and conservative, is very different
from depressed, appealing Adjuntas, and big, easy-going
Ponce. There are quicksilver and electricity here, and I did
not know but that I might find, instead of a handful of women
and girls in the mission, a horde of mocking street-boys, white
and black, and perhaps gibing young men as my congregation.

The actual result of the invitation was twenty-five school
children, mostly boys of course, and some of them big boys,
five women, and two gentlemen. The last were my best
listeners, by the way, and the order was very good, after I
had invited several rough, disorderly fellows to leave the room.
As I quietly waited until they were ready to go and obeyed,
there was no confusion, and the two men entered as the boys
left. Those two listened with scarcely a movement, until the
end. I wonder what they got out of it, that simple lesson for
the children.

The slim, little black-robed priest is out every day, and I
have a genuine curiosity to learn what he is telling the people
about the Protestant invaders, but can make a pretty good
guess at it. I see his long, black skirt whisking in and out of
by-streets as I make my own way, here and there, and though
he does not appear to do so, I do not doubt that he sees the

[90] Child of the Sea

whisking of mine — sometimes ahead of his own! In Ponce
we have had, or known of, no opposition from priests, except
in their sermons. They have little to do with " the masses.**

I notice that many of the boys in the mission class are fine,
public-school youths of enlightened families, and have found
that these children are well grounded in Bible history and
Roman Catholic tradition. (Not in ** evangelical '* truth,
however.)

Hot sunny weather. I sat on a bench in the plaza and
talked with " nice '* little girls, prettily dressed and as merry
as grigs — but they do not come to the mission.

December 7, 1900.

There are two priests here now, and in their sermons and
visits they are actively stirring the people against our teaching.
I hope the younger one, whom I see every day, is teaching his
friends not to hate us but to seek and love the truth. Yet,
can I hope it? He has an advantage in knowing these people,
who are his own parishioners, more or less in sympathy with
his attitude from ** custom," if not from conviction, while I
am limited as yet to making acquaintances. Certainly from
the others* view-point I am an intruder, a meddler, a proselyter.
But I will not, either as lady or missionary, force myself into
any house or my arguments upon any one. There are open
doors for truth almost anywhere, if one has seeing eyes to find
them.

Sometimes a pretty baby on a doorstep smiles up into my
face — or it may be that he screams with terror — and I stop
to caress him and mama comes hurrying out to speak to the
americana. Yesterday, I saw a lady making lace by hand in
a room opening on the sidewalk, and stepped in to order a few
yards of the pretty stuff, which I really wanted. This morn-

Child of the Sea [91]

ing, I found the family more than willing to have me tell
the meaning of our mission to Yauco, and a sweet young girl
said, " Oh, mama, if we could only get one of those Bibles,
[a strange book to them] and read for ourselves the truth! "
I was glad to tell her she could!

December 8, 1900.

" Day of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.*'
In order that Jesus should have been conceived " without
sin," the Virgin mother must have been born without contami-
nation of original sin. So, in 1 854 Pius IX issued the dogma
of the Immaculate Conception (of Mary, not of Jesus as is
sometimes supposed) teaching that, in some mystical way, be-
fore she was born of " Joachin " and " Anna," the wonderful
miracle freeing her 'from sin took place within Anna's bosom !
It is one of the greatest of the feast-days of the modern
Roman Catholic Church, and thousands of little girls in the
world, born on December 8, are given the name of Concep-
cion in Spanish, with Concha and Conchita as pet names.
Therefore many birthdays are being celebrated today!

Sunday, December 9, 1900.

A new vision of God's great love to men, from reading Van
Dyke's " Gospel for a World of Sin " today.

The first Sunday School of Yauco today. Twenty-one at-
tended, ** the pick " of the week-day classes, and all went
quietly. Some curiosity is being satisfied, some interest has
lapsed, some remains. I hope the children learned something
of their new " Friend " today, from the lesson and from the
hymns they so dearly love to shout.

After hot milk and toast, in my room tonight, I talked in

[92] Child of the Sea

the little hotel parlor, until 9 o'clock, with Mr. D m from

Boston, a thoughtful, cultured American gentleman, who is
here about the immense sugar-mill enterprise being established
at Guanica near-by.

December 14, 1900.

Here is an advertisement of Ambrosiani wines which I read
in yesterday's paper, ** La Democracia " of Ponce — comment
unnecessary :

" Before the celebrated Ambrosiani appeared on the scene, 99y$ per
cent of the inhabitants of Porto Rico died poisoned by the brandies and
liquors which the makers made for us. But now Ambrosiani has come,
I. e., the Moses of Porto Rico, and as He who was born in Nazareth
saved the soul of humanity with his doctrines, so Ambrosiani has come
to save the soul of Porto Rico from certain death." (Translation.)

December 19, 1900.

Mr. R. has come from Ponce several times in these
days for an evening service and seems to be getting a good
grip on some earnest hearers. The days for me are busy from
" coffee " in the morning, until dinner at night, with an interim
for lunch and a siesta at midday.

Though Sunday was given over to " religiosity " by the
town, and little girls flitted to the big church in the plaza, wear-
ing white veils and ribbons of blue — Mary's color — for their
first communion, the second Sunday class was good. The
American public-school teacher accompanied me to the mission,
and it was amusing to see the waiting Sunday School rise to its
feet as one child as their young teacher entered the mission.
As she is a Roman Catholic, and known to be such, I was
glad to have her there, that she may testify to the fact that
Dona Juanita does not really desire to eat alive those who are
not of her doctrinal

Child of the Sea [93]

Afterward, we two encountered, or rather avoided, the
Virgin's procession of girls and women, singing through the

streets,

Ave Maria, Madre mia,
Mi consuelo en el cielo, etc.

We walked out into the country, skirting the vine-grown
aqueduct, and finding charming views of the green valley, with
the purple wing of evening folding in velvety softness over the
surrounding mountains — in restful contrast to the tawdry tur-
bulence of the streets behind us.

In the four months since Bishop Blenk (of the United
States) sent the priest Pasalagua here to Yauco, to take the
place of the aged incumbent who formerly served, this man has
brought the town from a dead religious state, as some one
here has told me, to its present vigor in churchly duty. Many
attend the neglected early mass and the every-night sermons,
while large numbers go to his boys' and girls' catechism classes
directly after school, my hour, in the afternoons. It may be
said that religion is on a boom just now in Yauco. If this
zealous priest would teach the truth of God, instead of raising
Mariolatry to the nth power among women and girls, how
gladly we would go somewhere else to teach. Very few little
girls dare to come to the mission, yet many make shyly sweet
overtures for acquaintance, and I am invited to the " best "
houses, chiefly out of curiosity to hear of the North, and of the
styles, customs, and what not, for Americans still have prestige
in the Island, and Yauco was the first town to receive the
United States army as it marched through from little Guanica-
on-the-Bay, inland. With hot coffee, and rose garlands, and
beaming smiles, the soldados americanos were greeted in these
streets two years ago. But missionaries from the great, little-
known North are something more than mere americanos, and
they must be taken with pounds of the salt of caution.

[94] Child of the Sea

This morning I came upon a choice spirit. Maria Rodri-
guez, in giving me her touching history, showed her real devo-
tion to Jesus Christ and to his mother. When I told her of
his own saying, *' All power is given unto me in heaven and in
earth," and that the apostle Peter had said that in no other
name is there salvation, she accepted my word as simply as
she had believed what I told her of the facts of my own life
which had seemed to interest her. '* I did not know that,"
she said thoughtfully. " My mother taught me many prayers
to Jesus, also to the Virgin. All my people believe as I have
done."

It costs these dear creyentes a pang to give up their idea of
Mary's power with her Son. Much less it costs to look with
disfavor upon confession to priests, and even to doubt the value
of the propitiation of saints. But the beautiful, tender, sor-
rowing " Mother of God " makes strong appeal to their hearts.
A lady in Adjuntas told me one day, that she knew that the
Bible as we teach it is true, but that no one could take from
her, and others like her, her veneration of the Blessed Holy
Mother. May this Maria find in the blessed Son of God all
that she needs, for all that the world needs is to be found in
him. It is remarkable that although we never attack this faith
in Mary, it is usually the first subject introduced when Roman
Catholic women talk with us. '* But you do not believe in
the Blessed Virgin! " is often their instant demur. " Oh, yes,
I do, though not just as you do, perhaps," I reply. " Let
me read you what la Palabra de Dios tells about her. More
than this we know nothing of her. But this is enough." And
often I am surprised to find how satisfied many are to see that
we do " believe in " her to some extent. It is never of much
use to argue such points, apart from the mere reading, as their
traditional beliefs slip away naturally, when God's Spirit really
reaches thejr hearts,

Child of the Sea [95]

January 18, 1901.

86° Fahrenheit!

Said Pedro, in the boys' club meeting last night: " The
other day I was in a house where everybody is strictly Catholic,
and one of the ladies asked me if I were one of the boys who
go to the cultos. I was afraid to say ' yes,' because they are
muy catolicasy and I said * no '!

His bright, black eyes fell as he spoke, but he looked up
bravely after I had reminded him of another Peter who was
afraid to say " Yes " once, long ago, when asked if he knew
Jesus. The dear boy says he will have mas valor next time
and say M Yes."

[96] Child of the Sea

IX

All fruits the trees of this fair garden bore,
Whose balmy fragrance lured the tongue to taste
Their flavors: there, bananas flung to waste
Their golden flagons with thick honey filled;
From splintered cups the ripe pomegranates spilled
A shower of rubies; oranges that glow
Like globes of fire, enclosed a heart of snow —

All flowers of precious odors made the day
Sweet as a morn of Paradise.

— Bayard Taylor.

Ponce, P. R.,
February 20, 1901.

AS usual, with a pang, I have again left one branch of
our work — Yauco — to take up another — Ponce.
Tonight, a colored man spoke in prayer-meeting in
a touching way. The subject of the study was ** Never man so

spake." S said that many had spoken with him in his

lifetime, but no words had ever so touched his heart as Jesus*
words. His old mother had often counseled him for the
right; friends had led him astray by their words. He had
gone after " strange women " — one of these had come with
him to the mission the first time of all. " She never returned/'
he said. " I have never left off coming, but no man has spoken
like Jesus to me. Now, though I am black, and my mother
was black, and the Senora" pointing to a missionary sitting
near, " is white, the words Jesus spoke are for all of us, white
and black. The same Father is the Father of white and

Child of the Sea [97]

black." This seemed to affect him very deeply, and his voice
broke several times as he spoke.

ADJUNTAS, P. R.,
March 13, 1901.

Just seven months since I was here! For the first days I
am in the little room where the blue roses creep up the livid
walls, at Dona Clara's, but I have taken half of the big, empty
house close by, where Captain Andrus lived, and shall try
housekeeping. There are a few bits of furniture there, and I
have a hammock, house linen, and a steamer-rug. The rooms
are large and sunny, with pretty papering, and there is the
supreme luxury of a slender piping of water into the kitchen.

Casa Grande, Ad juntas,
March 15, 1901.

Happy am I in this big house, so quiet, cool, and ample.
The scouring and spider-chasing have made it clean and sweet,
after having been unoccupied for months. I have, practically,
the whole house, as only the sunshine and the mountain breezes
occupy the empty half, not technically mine. There are two
small flower-gardens, one behind the long back veranda, the
other directly beneath my bedroom windows on the cool side of
the house. The Spaniard who built the house, three years ago,
died, and his family is in Spain. No one has occupied it but
the two American captains in their simple, camping-out style, so
it is still new and fresh. I feel like a queen in her palace.

Housekeeping could be a nuisance, but with good Luisa in
the kitchen, to do as much of the planning as she will, I shall
not think much about food, and with no bric-a-brac, carpets,
curtains, oiled floors, or spare furniture, housecleaning will be
reduced to its lowest terms. Here, I have space, air, silence,

[98] Child of the Sea

MM ■ ■ I II ■■■ ■ III ■■■■■ USUI ■111 I II I — — 1

finer pictures framed by window-frames than hang on any gal-
lery walls, and a back veranda fairly wreathed and garlanded
with a beauteous flowering vine, while rose-trees full of buds,
just now, reach upward toward my bedroom window.

Dear Dona Clara is as friendly and hospitable as ever, but
her house is overfull now of sicknesses lingering on to sad ends.

Fruit is ridiculously cheap and very plentiful this year; ten
or a dozen oranges cost one cent; the little bits of bananas,
good for frying, ten or fifteen for a cent; charcoal brings to
the charcoal-man from the country ten cents a barrel and kero-
sene is but six cents a quart, and milk four!

The young church has been constant, and there are now ten
men and three women baptized. They have been holding Bible
School on Sundays among themselves, and some one has ridden
up from Ponce every fortnight for preaching-services.

Saturday night, March 16, 1901.

Three of the " members " came to me tonight, by invitation,
to talk over tomorrow's services. Two of these are apt in fol-
lowing the methods, and even in copying the manner of those
who come to preach, and have learned to lead a culto very
well indeed. But they need help — as who does not? — in
studying what they are to pass on to others. I lent them

books, and we chatted, until R proposed leaving, at last.

Thereupon M , a bright youth, said, *' I could stay here

all night talking with Dona Juanita! "

Monday, March 18, 1901.

The crowding children were restless, dear hearts, at yester-
day's double service, but they sang splendidly, and M-

stood beside me at the organ and saved my cracked larynx

Child of the Sea [99]_

with his own strong voice leading. Afterward, he told me
that he might have to leave Adjuntas, seeking work elsewhere,
and added: " I do not wish to leave our little church here.
If I can help, I want to stay. There is nothing so good and
sweet to me in Adjuntas as the mission."

A really good evening service led by P . As my cook

was away, a band of little boys escorted me to and from the
mission. We came home in the pouring rain, and my big
house would have seemed dreary and lonely to one who minds
being alone. '

The stormy wind and rain were company enough for me so
long as I was inside and they out, and I sat cozily writing in
the patch of light thrown by my lamp in the big room, until
nearly midnight. Then I locked up and went to bed, for the
first time in my life alone in a house all night. The wind
rustled the banana leaves against my shutters, and I drew up
the heavy traveling-rug and slept till 8 o'clock this morning.

March 20, 1901.

Luisa has just come to ask if my worship likes her bit of
steak broiled half-raw or well browned. I like her old-fash-
ioned way of saying su merced, and mi Senora. The young
ones do not talk so ! Luisa was the cook at the inn, last year,
but was ill, and when I found her the other day, she was suf-
fering in her shanty, without work or money. She was glad
to come to work for me, and I am glad that she has agreed
to sleep in the house.

Tonight, I visited a family of very agreeable folks. They
tell me that spiritualism is taking a stronger hold here than
ever, and that many of the principal families here are attending
centros or seances, and that most of those who attend our ser-

[100] Child of the Sea

— i— i ■! im%*ymmiMj.juiMXB.tu!i*.mmiimiiuiirrm\ii^.iiuj*uuvuiimiiiim^iMi nmMnmngiiM ■ i—n ■— ■

vices are spiritualists, not Roman Catholics; that they call our
services " theirs! "

Now, this is what I see: that in a reaction from Romanism,
or in its utter negligence, many have taken up espiritismo as a
cult; it is in a very crude form, and in many, many cases it
has been for want of something better than the Roman Catho-
lic Church has offered them. The simplicity of the mission
services, without form or ritual, and conducted entirely in
their own language, has attracted some of these, along with the
many who have no faith in spiritualism. May the God of
truth teach them a better way!

Heavy, gold-hearted, fragrant roses are growing by the
handful on my garden trees. The night air is full of their
perfume, and is pure and cool. Country sounds and the mur-
mur of the river are the music of the night, and close under my
windows, the coquis, tiny, brown whistling frogs, serenade me
all night long. I am very happy to be here, living a simple
life among this simple-hearted people. The mountains loom
big and black by night, without the moon, and the beaming
stars seem so close that I might almost grasp them with my
hand.

I have a touch of malaria, however, and Luisa makes me
for a nightcap a sudorific tea of her own concoction. Last
night, it contained white touch-me-not blossoms (colored ones
will not serve), petals of the hundred-leaf rose, fennel, and
leaves of two other plants unknown to me.

Little Juanita from the country beyond came to the house
again yesterday, more ragged and unkempt than before, but so
brave, winsome, and merry that I kept her to talk with me a
little, before sending her off down the highway with a few
things in her sack.

Child of the Sea [101]

" What did you buy with the cents Dona Clara and I
gave you? " I asked her.

" With one cent, rice; with half the other cent, sugar; and
with the other half, a needle. But I lost the needle, so my
dress is not mended," with a grin, and displaying the ripped
gathers in her skirt.

I showed her her grimy face in the mirror, and she was
fascinated ! Also I told her that I never spit on the floor, nor
rest my soiled hands on the nice, clean wall-paper.

'* I shall bathe, and comb my hair, and wash my dress and
mend it, and then, in Holy Week, I shall come and visit you,"
she cried beaming. " I shall converse with you then. I think
my papa will die soon," she rattled on, " because there are
clouds of butterflies on all the hills, up our way — great butter-
flies everywhere. Once before, when they came like that, my
cousin died, and now it means that my papa will die. His
body is swollen — Oh! you should see him, but his arms are
nothing but bones. He was well till the ciclon came, and we
had a zinc roof on our house, but the wind carried the pieces
away over the mountains, and we never could find them. Now
the roof is of yagua [palm-tree bark at the leaf-steam] , and my
father is dying. My stepmother and I are working hard to
clear a bit of ground where we can plant things, so after my
papa dies, we can have something to live on. We have a
pound of beans," counting on her little brown fingers, *' and a
little rice, and two little potatoes, and a pound of corn for
seed."

And so on she chattered, teeth and eyes gleaming through a
tangle of sunburnt hair. Her " conversation " pleases me as
much as that of some senorltas who wash their faces and hands
every day! I gave the child a needle and thread and other
treasures, and she departed on light feet for the hut somewhere
up among the hills.

[102] Child of the Sea

A neighbor assures me that a black butterfly fluttering into
a house means the death of some inmate. So it lies between
Luisa and me now, as a velvety black beauty visited my room
today! Butterfly season has come. A poet would have been
inspired by the M cloud " of little blue and white ones drifting
along my path today!

Sunday, March 31, 1901.

p spoke to a large, attentive crowd tonight, in the mis-
sion hall on " If ye love me, keep my commandments." Out-
side in the road there was a little disorder among the crowd
gathered there, but no one inside paid attention to it. After a

hymn, and a long pause, P asked some other " brother "

to speak. No one would open his mouth. More hymns, two

prayers, then P talked again, from the first verse of the

chapter this time, " Let not your heart be troubled." It seems
that some townspeople are troubling the children who attend the
mission, and his warning was that those who do not care for
" the truth " themselves should not " trouble " the hearts of the
innocent children who come to us!

Thou, O Christ, who dost understand hearts, wilt not fail
to accept the spirit of devotion to thy cause of thy servants
who are learning of thee. Thy words were for the consolation

of troubled hearts; P 's tonight, for warning those who

would " trouble " the hearts of others, and for comforting the
little ones!

Homeward, with the little-boy escort, one child bearing the
day's accumulation of flowers — every yard in Adjuntas now
has its boxes and beds of flowers — another carrying the lamp,
another, my umbrella, still another, my books, still others com-
ing just for the fun of tagging along too. But, after they had
helped put the flowers into water, I turned them out to go to
their beds.

Child of the Sea [103]

April 3, 1901.

Two country girls from over the Giant's head, came to
see me today, early, before I had finished straightening up
the house. They brought loveliest flowers in profusion —
lilies, roses, Cape jessamines, tuberoses, *' do-not-marrys,"
" widows," scarlet sage, begonias, and many others. Also a
large handkerchief containing twenty-two ripe, sweet oranges
from good Don B.

Tonight, the church of thirteen meets here for the second
time, for their Bible study. Private reading at home is not
sufficient for them, as they are finding out for themselves, and
they are eager for study, with intelligent questions and answers.
It is a pleasure to have a place for receiving them, more cheer-
ful than the dim warehouse room. P promises to begin

teaching J to read. Two say their sight is too old and

dim for learning to read.

[104] Child of the Sea

Come to me, O ye children!

And whisper in my ear
What the birds and winds are singing

In your sunny atmosphere.

For what are all our contrivings

And the wisdom of our books
When compared with your caresses,

And the gladness of your looks?

— Longfellow.

Adjuntas, P. R.,

Easter Sunday, April 7, 1901.

ON such feast-days as " Holy Thursday," " Holy Fri-
day," and " Saturday of Glory," Roman Catholicism
rises — or descends — to scenic effects. I did not see
the procession, day before yesterday, Holy Friday, as I kept
quietly indoors until it should be over. So often I have seen
such that I feel only a sad distaste for them. I heard the little
band playing a funeral march at 3 p. m., and knew that an
image of Christ in a coffin was being taken from the church and
borne on men's shoulders through the streets, and that Mary's
doleful image dressed in black was carried behind it, and that
men, women, and children would be straggling along behind
their poor idols. Some one has told me since that the tre-
mendous downpour of rain came on just as they left the little
church. " Never mind," the priest said, ** it is the devil who
sends this water. It will give nobody a cold. Do not be
afraid. Even if the sick should walk in the procession they
would be made well"

Not a street-cry was allowed all that day. Even the poor

Child of the Sea [105]

sweets-sellers from the confectioner's were hushed, and no milk
was brought in from the country, in the afternoon. Guards
were posted to see that the stores were kept closed! For two
days, Thursday and Friday, even the bell was not rung at the
chapel door; instead, the hideous rattling of the metaca was
dinned into our ears at the required intervals for prayer. Lit-
tle F heard the priest tell the boy manipulating the huge

rattle to carry it to the americqnas house and rattle it outside
" to make her angry." A sad fact is that I did spring to my
feet, inside, racked in every nerve by the senseless din, but I
only peeped through the shutters, and kept as still as a mouse
on guard, until the horde of rude boys were tired and went
away. That was on Thursday.

A young farmer who sells me a pint of milk morning and
afternoon, was in town early that day, but learning that no
milk was allowed to be sold in town in the afternoon, he
climbed the mountain back to his little farm, and milked his
cow for me, and then plodded back with milk for my supper —
and for himself what was left of the church functions! Such
an anemic, tired-looking man he was. It makes me indignant
to hear Porto Ricans carelessly classed as " self-seeking " and
" shiftless."

Yesterday morning, Saturday, I was visiting in a house
when at 10 o'clock several pistol-shots were fired, ushering in
the " Gloria." The church-bell began to ring, and the gloom
was past.

'* But Jesus rose on the third day after the crucifixion, not
on Saturday the second," I remarked to the man of the house,
as we listened. He laughed, and in explanation could only
say that he supposed a good thing was doubtless made better
by being doubled in quantity and that, for that reason, Satur-
day is celebrated as well as Sunday, and so becomes a fore-
taste of the joys of resurrection day, AH the shops were

[106] Child of the Sea

thrown open at once, and I wondered — anyhow, I was able to
purchase some needed groceries!

April 11, 1901.

The United States mail which reached Adjuntas tonight
brings, among others, a letter from a lady in far-away Michi-
gan, asking for a missionary-letter by April 9, day before yes-
terday! Two from Ponce tell of the death of C , the

first of all the church there to die.

Sunday, April 14, 1901.

At 4 o'clock this afternoon, I walked down the long street
called Canas, leading out of town and down the river, to the
string of huts along the road. Here live many families of
anemic people, who have drifted in from the country and
mountain byways, since the hurricane. The men are out of
regular work, and one hardly sees how they live. I chatted
with a couple whose children were clean and neatly patched.
Others gathered, and right there in the road, I opened a Sunday
School! The men and women and little ones crouched on
the ground, on a palm-log, about me on the door-step, any-
where. Such denseness of ignorance as to the Way, the
Truth, and the Life I have never found anywhere in our dear
Island. But an awakening of interest showed in their intent
faces, and, before I left, several of my congregation had learned
the name of God's book, la Biblia, and to repeat, " Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners " — the faltering
tongues repeating the Spanish text after me. And the children
learned a verse of Aunque soy pequefiuelo, *' Although I am a
little child," usually the first hymn I teach children.

One woman, with a strong kind face held a very dirty,
shock-haired, naked little boy on her lap. When I wrote the
names of the children in my little book, which charmed them

Child of the Sea [107]

mightily, I told the mother that I was not going to ask her little
boy's name then; that next Sunday, I would come again, and
if her baby were bathed and had on a bit of a dress or shirt, I
would write down his name too in my book.

These poor people say they are too forlorn and poor to come
to the mission in town. At first, therefore, I must go to them.

Sunday, April 21, 1901.

I hied me through Canas this p. m. to the river and the new
Sunday School. The sun blazed. One of last week's boys
joined me on the way. He remembered the verse, Cristo Jesus
vino al mundo para salvar a los pecadores. He said he re-
membered ** the other thing too, the Piblia" I had tried to
teach them all the name we give — la Biblia — to the Scriptures,
and even some of the grown men had pronounced the strange,
unmeaning word with difficulty.

All were ready, waiting for me. Twenty or more sat in the
shade of the house as before, and behind me sitting in the door-
way a fire smoked and smouldered under a pot on a bank of
earth inside the hut. The men were all there, and a smiling
woman came forward leading a nice little boy by the hand.
A laugh went around — good to hear from those serious beings
— when I asked her for the other child of last Sunday. ** That
is he," men and all chorused with glee. Not only was he
bathed, barbered, and dressed, but he was so pretty and shyly
smiling that I had not recognized the grimy naked baby of the
week before. The mother also was combed and tidy and
beaming with triumph. The little one's dress, poor tot! was
made of a scrap of white, barred mosquito-netting, which
merely veiled the youngster's dusky nakedness, but it was a
dress and clean. At once his name, Juanito, went down in
my note-book to the universal gratification.

[108] Child of the Sea

What an hour followed there by the roadside, under the
bright blue sky! Every one knew the verse of last Sunday,
from rough men down to shy little Rosa. Then came the
lesson-story, to which the men listened as intently as the chil-
dren. Their deep voices, murmuring the children's hymn after-
ward— " Although I am a little child " — went to my heart
with a pathos that almost broke me down. The elders re-
ceived their picture-cards with as much eagerness as the chil-
dren did, and the one who can read promised to teach to the
others the verse pasted on all of the cards.

" Does she not sing beautifully? " Juanito's mother whis-
pered to another woman, as my poor weak voice quavered out
the ** Aunque " and she beamed upon me. How little one
really gives, to receive so much in return as these simple and
sincere mountain people offer, but they have my heart!

[The mother of Juanito and her husband were afterward
baptized, and several others were induced to attend the mission
in town.]

April 22, 1901.

Note: Apropos of last night's chapel music: How can I
teach these children of the mission to sing with spirit and yet
not bawl?

April 28, 1901.

Our dear old brother, Don B., from the Giant's left cheek,
was at the mission this morning for the first time for many
weeks. He is very infirm. His weakness appeals to my
sympathies, but the bad children giggled outright at his mum-
bled words of prayer. He says he loves God and that he
has not ceased to worship him, at home. [He died later on,
in Ponce, after long infirmity and at an advanced age.]

To the roadside class in the afternoon. Fifteen were wait-

Child of the Sea [109]

ing, each with his card cleanly wrapped in a bit of brown
paper. I talked of God's love, of Jesus' life and death, of
his seeking the lost — as Ignacia herself would seek the little
straying chicken from her brood over there; as Rosita would
look for a precious lost cent, and be glad on finding it.

Still malarial, and again dosed by Luisa. This particular
tea must be taken in the early mornings, after having been
exposed in an open pitcher to the dew, all night. The dew
is absolutely necessary to the draught's efficacy!

May 2, 1901.

The new month came in with tempestuous wind from the
south, which, the knowing say, means that the rains are at hand.
Late last night, I watched gigantic masses of snow-white vapor
driven by the south wind up from the sea, come pouring like
volumes of smoke over the mountaintops, and streaming across
our valley. I sat on my porch alone, wrapped in rugs, until
chilled to the bone, but warmed to the heart by the shining of
the heavens and earth by night.

May is the month of roses and also of Mary, la santisima
Madre de Dios, " the most holy Mother of God.'* So, there
are to be functions in her honor every night, in the roadside
chapel, her image now glittering with lights and finery.

Today, Manuela and I have been doing housecleaning in
the mission hall, a little more thoroughly than the boy-sexton
does it. A new text, in large letters of blue blotting-paper
adorning the whitewashed wall, exhorts us to make a ** joyful
noise unto God," in singing forth the glory of his name. How
our people do love to make joyful noises in singing forth!

A small hut of palm-bark stands on a ridge rising behind
the street of Canas. To reach it, this afternoon, I had to

[110] Child of the Sea

thread my way among huts like it, crowded together, and creep
through bushes and over beds of refuse plantain-skins, and then
climb the ridge to the foot of the royal palm tree. The hut
nestles in the sunshine close under the palm's plumy crest,

against its shapely gray stem. Our P , the carpenter,

now lives here with his bright-eyed family of pretty wife and
children. I entered the hut with the last level beams of the
sun. They were surprised when I cut off the light by stepping
in past the doorway, for they had not heard my knock.

P was reading aloud to H resting in the hammock,

as she is feeble just now. The small black book in P 's

hand was well worn with much reading. " Now that Dona
Juanita has come, ask her about the Sunday School chapter we
were studying. Read it again," the wife suggested.

So P — — turned to Matthew 24. He reads remarkably
well. Every now and then, as he read aloud, he lifted his
face and gave me a comprehending glance from his earnest
brown eyes. Two other times, he sighed with satisfaction.
Once, he exclaimed: "What a wonder of language! How
much the Lord says in these two or three words! "

I gave them a little help in understanding the interwoven

prophecies of the chapter, and P 's soul seemed fairly to

feed on the wonderful words. [Automatically, as it were,

P has come to be leader of the Sunday School and

teacher of the class of adults.]

I thought as I came away down the shabby street, that the
home of one such man or woman who searches the Scriptures,
must be a center of radiation for the true Light which lights the
world.

May 3, 1901.

The first downpour of the rainy season today. Everybody
rejoices, for while we do not have in the mountains the choking

Child of the Sea [111]

dust of the city streets, the hills have grown brown and gardens

have languished in spite of the dewy nights. Pretty P

called, just as the shower descended, looking like a picture-
girl, with her dark eyes and beautiful hair, and dressed in a
simple frock of pink gingham, instead of the usual finery of the
young ladies of Adjuntas when visiting. When I am with one
of these dainty girls of our Island, my heart longs to make her
see the beauty of a life devoted joyfully to Christ, of a religion
meaning more than a stepping inside of a church for prayer
before — if not actually to — a saint's image, and more than the
keeping of feast-days.

Afterward, a woman told me of having sent her five boys
out into the shower, as the first rain of May, ushering in the
welcome rainy season, is considered highly salutary. I have
no doubt it is when applied as a bath. The little boys were
shining clean afterward, and all wore clean shirts.

The new priest who has been sent to Adjuntas, is said to
be more devoto and active than the other. Certainly his slim,
cadaverous body and serious young face are very different from
the other's stout, red-faced coarseness. Is he for or against
the Christ as only Saviour? Does he know him? To what
purpose will his energy be spent?

Sunday, May 5, 1901.

Snow-white showers veiled the mountains at half past three
p. m., and then a strong, sweet-breathed wind brought them
down to us, and torrents of rain poured. The shower held up
for a little, and with rubbers, raincoat, and umbrella, I started
down the river road for the Sunday School. People stared
whimsically from doorways. Why should a lady be out in
the wet? And see, what great ugly feet and short skirts she
has!

[112] Child of the Sea

I found a roomful of men and women, with children sand-
wiched in between. From a low hammock of sacking, I
taught the lesson of the son's return to his father's house. In
another hammock sat a man whose face showed serious and
searching, through the gloom. Most were sitting on the floor,
and while the rain poured outside and the fire smoldered and
smoked on the floor, we were safe and dry within. They knew
their verses, and they are really learning to sing. We talked
of how one may speak with God from one's own heart, with-
out fine words of another's speech, and that that is prayer,
whether in church or in the cafetal (coffee-plantation) or at
home. Simple affectionate creatures they are, with a natural
courtesy one hardly finds in the same class of people of the far
North. They have " good manners " with all their uncon-
ventionally. If nothing else, these untaught roadside dwellers
are learning that there is a book called la Biblia, which gives
God's message to men, in human speech, and which tells us
truly what he is and how he loves. And they are learning bits
of the message.

One big boy wore, this afternoon, an old felt hat and a
man's long, woven undershirt — nothing else. This reaches to
his heels, and is getting more soiled and ragged as the days
pass, as he has worn it to our school for three Sundays already.
Others are in mere fringes of garments. How to clothe them
all!

The young Porto Rican came again from Ponce for last
night's and today's mission services, as he preaches very accept-
ably to his people. Some day every church will have its pas-
tor, as men may give themselves to such work. Tonight, little
Antonio was intent upon dissecting a bug — a changa, pestifer-
ous jumping beast — and a bat diverted all the boys, but there
was no disturbance that had to be reproved from behind the
organ.

Child of the Sea [113]

May 8, 1901.

I wish small beggars at my door were not quite so small,
and so many. All seem to be of about the same size! I
hear a rattling of the door-shutters, and then see long black
hair blowing in the wind and bright black eyes shining just at
the lowest slat outside! How can I refuse to give " A little
scrap of codfish, Senora," " una chispita" a wee spark " of
sugar, for the love of God and of his most holy Mother "?
Because these little ones are sometimes messengers of hearty
parents sent to impose on the very rich americana living in the
big house. Because I cannot give to all, or there would be
an unending stream of youngsters at my house-doors, and be-
cause I must give to some known to be destitute or dying.
Because some whine and persist, while others steal meekly
away.

May 9, 1901.

It is now late bedtime. I have been watching the cucubanos,
large " bugs " flying among the rose-trees, carrying two beauti-
ful, green searchlights, blazing in their heads. I brought one
inside and put it under a glass in my dark room, and it faintly
lighted the corner where it was. But the light paled, and I
set the little prisoner free. Then Juana, who has been cooking
for Luisa, sick for a few days, came tapping at my front
door to say that she had left two potatoes in the kitchen and
she was afraid a hungry rat might break the saucer they were
in, so she had come all the way back from her house to tell me.
What faithfulness in little!

£114] Child of the Sea

XI

Here, the free spirit of mankind, at length
Throws its last fetters off; ...

Far, like the comet's way through infinite space,
Stretches the long, untraveled path of light
Into the depths of ages: we may trace
Distant, the brightening glory of its light,
Till the receding rays are lost to human sight.

— Bryant.

Adjuntas, P. R.,
May 23, 1901.

LAST evening, ten of the " brethren " came for their
study of the last chapter of Luke in my sala. Now, we
shall begin the Acts, and, when I leave, they will go on
with it in their Sunday's study. To stay with them and the
eighty or ninety little souls, so faithful in the classes, would be
my choice, if there were no other side to the question of stay-
ing or going. There is another, however, the Ponce side, and
besides, it is good for the churches to walk alone now and
then.

Monday, May 27, 1901.

A box of gifts for the children has come from friends in
Massachusetts, and it was finally brought up to Adjuntas. So,
on Saturday morning, seventy-five children, with a few grown-
up friends, came to my Casa Grande for a little fiesta. No
one had an idea beforehand of the gift-giving, and we went

Child of the Sea [115]

through with our program of recitations and songs before the
lifting of the curtain which hid the table covered with the pret-
tiest of sewing-bags, dolls, tops, etc. Long, low sighs and little
giggles of laughter greeted the sight of the great Surprise.
More perfect behavior, such joy and satisfaction I never saw at
a gift-giving. Certainly these mission children are not yet
" pauperized." While it showered, I let them run and play in
the long porches, and was at last able to get them to be still
long enough to be photographed in a group, with the help of

Mr. W and Mr. M of the cigar-factory. The sun

came out at just the right instant for the picture. It would
have overjoyed the givers' hearts to have seen those happy ones
who have very little of childish joy in their every-day lives.

The aftermath for me was not joy-giving. All the after-
noon, in sunshine and shower, my front porch was besieged by
the infancy of the town coming by twos and threes to beg for
una cosita, a little something. Some were repenting young
backsliders, others I had never seen nor heard of, before. Still
others were brought new by the soft-hearted blessed receivers. . .
To all, I explained that the gifts were sent by Sunday School
children in the North to the Sunday School children in Ad-
juntas who had been studying " God's Word " so faithfully
in the mission classes. A small procession, nevertheless, fol-
lowed me beseeching, when I finally got out on the street.
Well I knew the purpose forming in those infant minds.

So, when I entered the warehouse the next day, yesterday
morning, for Sunday School, I was quite prepared to see, with
the sunshine streaming in at the open doors, streams of children
also entering. Along with forty or fifty new and " backslid-
ing," the old faithful ones were out in full force as usual — a
grand Sunday School ! It gratified me to see the little regulars
out in force, for, having their gifts in security, they might have
stayed away to witness the marriage of the Seriora C 's

[116] Child of the Sea

niece, to which the town has been looking forward for months.
The hour set for the bridal procession to the little Roman
Catholic church was 1 0 o'clock, just when we should all be in
our old warehouse culto. Happily, the hour was deferred,
and as we came away from the mission, virtue was rewarded,
for all had a glimpse of the pretty bride in white, returning
from the church, and a chance at the luck-pennies thrown from
the balcony into the street among the clamoring children, rich
and poor, young and old.

At night, young M drew a pretty lesson for the chil-
dren of the mission, from the seed I am leaving with some of
them; they are to plant and to have fresh seed for me by the
time I return to them, next year.

A child brought a posy of ** new " flowers, saying she found
them growing about the old military stables where our cavalry
horses were kept. Did I know the name of them? she asked.
What should they be but red-clover blooms, a ** flower " not
known in Porto Rico! Of course the seed had been among
the hay or grain fed to the horses of our men last year.

Today, I am cutting out a red-and-green plaid frock for
Juanita. She is like one of the sunbeams that shine into Dona
Clara's kitchen through the knot-holes, and slant across the
dense wood smoke — rather a dusty beam is she, but so full of
cheer that even in her dirt and rags she is positively charming.

May 31, 1901.

It rained heavily yesterday. I spent the morning making a
white cotton burial gown for poor Maria who was dying. I
had promised her she should have it. A neighbor helped me,
and it was soon finished.

Juanita was here for her dinner, and it rained so hard, and
the river roared so loud, that I did not want her to go home, as

Child of the Sea [117]

she has to ford the river down below the town. But nothing
short of physical force could have kept the eager child — with
her arms full of treasures, the new dress, a doll, scraps of cloth,
rice. The sun came out for a while, so leaving her armful of
wood, she flew off, promising to come back if the river would
not let her cross. She was hardly out of the house before I
realized that so young a child could not judge of danger when
home lay on the other side of a raging river, and Luisa men-
tioned casually to me that persons had been drowned at that
ford. At that, I hurried into raincoat, rubbers, and cap, and
flew after Juanita. Such a little sprite she is, that I did not
catch a glimpse of her the whole way, although by and by
meeting those who had seen her. Not until I had hurried more
than a mile down the river road did I learn that she had been
carried safely across in a man's arms.

The river tore by, noisy and turgid, as I toiled homeward
in the damp breeze which was chilling and sultry by turns.

Stopping in to see if Maria still lived, I found P

measuring her poor emaciated body for the coffin he was to
make of boxes given at a store. She was covered with rags
and an old sheet. At once, I sent home for the shroud we
had made, and then stayed till it was put on, and the bed
decently arranged. She was not professedly one of " us," and
I had known her but a short time. Though my heart sank at
the sight and the hearing of the roomful of idle, gossiping
women, I said a few words of warning to them, which I
could say in the presence of the poor, worn-out body of their
companion. It is a bad set that swarms there, and Maria is
well out of it, I hope — from her words a few days ago, and
from my knowledge of the Lord.

And, with all the rest of the things to do, I have packed
my trunk today to be ready to leave whenever a carriage comes
up from Ponce. A young native " brother " with his family

[118] Child of the Sea

is to come and live in Adjuntas, to be the mission pastor, so,
this time, they will not be left alone.

Ponce, P. R.,
August-October, 1901.

General Missionary Rev. A. B. Rudd took his family to
the States for their first vacation. The various missions were
carried on with the aid of native workers. These were anxious
times for me, with hurricanes in the neighboring islands and
seas, during one of the fiercest rain-stormy seasons Ponce has
ever known, with unusual sickness among our people, and sev-
eral deaths ; with the stirrings of unrest in the faith of some who
were beginning to react from their early, unquestioning confi-
dence in their teachers and in the Scriptures themselves. Tem-
perament, so to speak, was taking its place as a factor in the
Christian life of some of the older believers — of only two years'
standing even then! — but, on the whole, all went well. Bless
these dear babes in Christ! If one of them sees a brother
stumble or slip or fall, he thinks he must run fast, and set him
on his feet hard, jar him a little.

Mr. McCormick with his wife and Charlie came over from
San Juan, according to plan, and cheered with his counsel,
and fortified and sweetened the spirit of the little churches.
" The Work " has grown more complicated, with its extension
into neighboring towns and the country, during these two years.
A good brother praying in meeting one night for the loved and
absent missionaries, prayed also that she who was left in charge
might be made " more apt, more faithful, more strong in her
work." I like to have them to pray for me!

One of the three who died had not been baptized yet. Poor
little Rita at the Port had suffered much in this world and
needed hope and rest. A young widow, having lost all her

Child of the Sea [119]

little ones, a pitiful, sad little creature, she lived in a cousin's
house and supported herself sorting tobacco in a factory. The
tobacco-dust further injured her weakened lungs, so la grippe
easily ended in pneumonia, and her last illness was sharp and
short. But Rita's trust and peace were so beautiful that one
who was with her often, said to me, " If dying is like this, I
should like to die! " Once she said, ** I wish I might be
wrapped in a sheet and carried in a hammock to Ponce," for
she longed to be baptized, and wanted to be " laid in the
water," ill as she was. I think I satisfied her, for she left off
speaking of baptism and in a few days died, with unclouded
brain and spirit, singing up to the very last,

Voy al cielo, soy peregrino.1

No more visits to Adjuntas or Yauco in these busy months.

Notes

Ponce, P. R., 1902.

An example of one of the ways by which God seems to lead
people to himself, by ways not planned by the missionary: A
" sister " in the church at Ponce had begged me one day last
year to go to a relative's house among the hills near the city,
and hold a culto there, that the cousin might learn of the
M Word of God." So, hiring a carriage and filling it with
other " sisters," we drove thither, early one afternoon. About
two miles from town and just after we had made the third
crossing of the Portugues river, which curves twice thereabout,
a man came out of a house from among a small group of
buildings close to the river, to speak with us, as the driver
stopped to breathe his horses. He was a superior-looking,

1 Trans, of " I'm a Pilgrim and I'm a Stranger."
I

[120] Child of the Sea

elderly man, a storekeeper. He told of his many children and
said that his neighbors' houses also swarmed with boys and girls,
that there was no school for these, and was I not, by chance one
of the American school-teachers, who might have influence with
the school board and get them to open a rural school out there?
He was most earnest and eager. I explained to him my spe-
cial business in the Island, but assured him that I would do
what I could in the matter. [Somewhat later, his own store
was rented from him for a schoolhouse and the teacher pro-
vided by the school authorities.] At once, on hearing of our
mission, he declared that, if the book I carried was like the one
he had in his house, the gift of a soldier of the United States,
he would gladly accept my offer of coming and at least teach-
ing the children from that book. I went inside the house and
showed him that our Testaments were the same, and he was
delighted. I have rarely met anywhere a father more am-
bitious for his children's education in the best things than was
the Senor Perdomo. The mother of the dark-eyed brood of
eight was thin and pale, refined and cordial.

Our visit to the cousin's house farther up in the hills yielded
no results that I ever heard of, but on January 28 of this year,
1902, I held the first children's class, in Perdomo's house on
the river-bank. By that time, I had bought a horse — gift of
the Sunday School of the North Orange Baptist Church of
New Jersey — and a low phaeton, and the first regular use these
were put to was for driving out each week for the afternoon
class at Portugues in Perdomo's house. A baby-organ al-
ways went along, and a youth to drive over the rough, rocky
road and the river fords. Later on, a room was rented for the
mission, and for many years, in this very house.

[After awhile several of the country people who attended
the classes as punctually as the children close by, were so deeply
interested that a preacher was sent to them on Sundays for giv-

The Baptist Church at Ponce

Child of the Sea [121]

ing further instruction. Later, two or three families of these
joined the big church in town. The dear mother of the chil-
dren was happily brought to see more light than her rosary and
her cross had given her, and was baptized in Ponce some
months before her Christian death. After a few months of the
mission's work in the district it was said by a police official, as
was said in those days of other places as well, that, as certain
men in Portugues had changed their manner of living, under
the influence of the ** new doctrine," it was no longer necessary
to send out the rural police to the country store on Saturday
nights to preserve order!

Twelve years afterward, when the rented house had fallen
into disrepair, " ten or twelve members who live in that neigh-
borhood, out of their deep poverty gathered together $25." 1
The Ponce Church aided with $35, other collections brought
the sum to $165, with which a neat chapel was built at Por-
tugues. ]

November 28, 1902.

Our large, beautiful new church on Victoria and Bertoli
streets was dedicated tonight. Tomorrow, delegates from our
own twelve churches now existing in the north and the south of
the Island will meet here in Ponce, and the " Association of
Baptist Churches of Porto Rico " will be formed. Doctor
Hazlewood of Lynn, Mass., is here to represent the Home
Mission Society. He says: ** It is wonderful to see you peo-
ple. You are absolutely enthralled by this work you are at.
You can talk of nothing else, and I never saw such happy
folks! "

Now, the women's meetings for Bible Study will be changed
from the private house to the back room in the new church. I

*From "Missions," October, 1914, Rev. C. S. Detweiler,

[122] Child of the Sea

can see, already, that even that room is not going to hold my
children on Sundays, and I am tired of seeing the poor things
being actually stepped on for want of room and of the little
chairs children need. Perhaps it is a valuable by-product of
mission work, this constant looking forward to better equipment,
serving as a stimulus to — hope, at least.

Ponce, P. R., 1903.

Miss Hattie A. Greenlaw came to the Island to help with
the mission in Ponce. We took a cottage and kept house to-
gether for two pleasant years.

Ponce, P. R., 1904.

Dr. H. L. Morehouse, Secretary of the New York Board,
arrived on a tour of inspection of our Island missions, in Jan-
uary, and stopped for supper in our " little, brown house,"
after a trip among the villages. It was a happy experience for
me to drive him in the phaeton to the mission in Portugues.
The brethren out there had built a thatched shed with open
sides and stationary benches on a vacant lot, by that time, and
Doctor Morehouse photographed the Friday afternoon *' Sun-
day School " standing outside of the shed. He seemed to
enjoy the country folks and our rustic quarters, especially the
outdoors singing of the children.

The little chapel at Corral Viejo in the hills, a few miles
out from Ponce on the Adjuntas road, was dedicated during
the visit of Doctor Morehouse. Mrs. G. S. Harwood of
Newton, Mass., gave the money for this mountain chapel. It
is built on the outer edge of the road, with the mountain falling
away behind from the very floor into a ravine reaching down to
the river. The mountain people are very happy in their roomy
chapel, and come toiling down the trails to meeting, through sun

Child of the Sea [123]

and rain, day or night. This, our first mountain chapel, seems
a beacon-light in the midst of the rugged, monotonous life of
those dreary slopes and crevasses.2

2 Later the young ladies of the Newton Church gave a bell for the
chapel, a very welcome gift for the reminding of those who had neither
clock nor watch.

[124] Child of the Sea

XII

Where'er thy wildered crowd of brethren jostles,

Where'er there lingers but a shade of wrong,
There still is need of martyrs and apostles,
There still are texts for never-dying song.

— Lowell.

Coamo, P. R.,
February 23, 1904.

OLD Speckle, , my latest horse, brought Miss Green-
law and me the twenty miles to Coamo on Saturday.
There is no hotel in the town, so a *' brother in the
faith " found us a room in a lodging-house on the main street.
Inside, the house resembles an ancient barn, and one stares
straight up into the sloping zinc roof overhead. We stepped
directly off the sidewalk into the one huge room and found a
table set in the middle space, while sleeping-rooms were parti-
tioned off, on the side, by low stationary screens. Above, the
smoky, cobwebby, high-gabled roof stretches over the whole.
All night, we can hear gentle breathing around us, but not all
the breathing is gentle! We have tall canvas cots and a chair
apiece, the sheets are clean, and the toilet arrangements the
most primitive I have yet seen in the Island.

Old Speckle is stabled and pastured at a very small ranch,
on the edge of the town. Near the gate to this place, a poor
paralytic has a sleeping-place by the roadside — a mere roof of
palm-bark laid across four poles set in the ground, and just
large enough to cover his old hammock swung more like a
swing than a bed. A waif, without a home, his costume is a
Jong, white cotton nightshirt and a straw hat. Day and night,

Child of the Sea [125]

he sits near the roadside in his canvas swing or stands support-
ing himself by a staff, and begs of passing tourists in their
coaches. From me he earns a cent every day, thus: When
I go to carry Speckle his corn, or to order the phaeton, the old
cripple calls out to the people in the house to tie up their dog,
as the americana is coming, and he receives the cent gravely
and graciously. Poor, squalid fellow! Yet he seems to like
his life in the open, and I suppose he would scorn the more
civilized comforts of an indigents' home for instance, perhaps
with reason.

Sunday was a busy day in the rented warehouse, or store-
room (of course) , of the mission here. It seems a faithful little
church. Though I was here for a day or two at the time of
the first baptisms in the river, months ago, it has not been pos-
sible to come f or " a mission " among the women and children,
as Roman Catholic priests call their transient stays in visits to
far-away places for baptisms, confessions, and mass.

Miss G. returned to Ponce this a. m. in the posting-stage.
Ants swarming over my cot had kept me awake until after
midnight, and at four we were up, although it was half past
five before she was off, in the damp, sultry dark.

February 24, 1904.

"This new faith in Christ makes me feel young again,"
said Dona A to me, yesterday.

" When they give me nicknames because I am a Christian,
it seems to me a gracia [a grace], and I only laugh, without

minding," R says. And I think of counting it " all

joy " when trouble threatens, for His sake.

Mr. McCormick writes me that by March our long-needed
church newspaper will see the light. The name of the paper
is to be El Evangelista, and Mr. McC. is editor-in-chief. First

[126] Child of the Sea

things, whether converts, baptisms, churches, or newspapers are
of untold interest to — first missionaries !

February 27, 1904.

It is interesting to hear how these Coamo Christians interpret
life in terms of their new-found and heartfelt religion. " That
happened before I knew Christ," says one. Another, " That
was what I used to think while still in the world." Merely
their own spontaneous way of expressing their change of view-
point.

Concha's face glowed with happy anticipation, yesterday, on
our drive to the town of Aibonito farther up the highway
toward the crest of the Pass. For she was telling me of the
relatives she would see there, whom she had not seen since
giving herself to Christ's service. How much she would have
to tell them! She carried her New Testament and was with
her cousins two hours.

It was a wonderful drive, and the old horse covered himself
with honor, if not with glory, by his steady mounting of the
grades to the Aibonito Pass on the old highway across the
Island. There are few more beautiful drives. Near the sum-
mit, we turned our heads to see the Caribbean Sea, many miles
away to the south, softly blue; and, below the blue-veiled
guarding peaks all around, the deep valleys showed fold on
fold of green slopes, in sunshine and shadow. Tiny thatched
huts snuggled among the plantains on the lower hillsides, while
round and round upward wound our white road until it
reached Aibonito, eighty-seven kilometers from Ponce.

While C. visited her friends, I lunched with mine, who
were occupying temporary but delightfully breezy quarters in
the old barracks, and Speckle trailed his tired heels in Mr.
3 's green pasture.

Child of the Sea [127[

A weary trio returned to Coamo at 6 p. m., and after
Speckle had been cared for, I crawled into my cot, and lay
reading Thomas Carlyle's Life, by the light of a feeble tallow
candle, to rest me before sleep would come.

I have rarely seen anywhere else such devotion of spirit as
these people of " Ours " here in Coamo show, for helping
others up out of the darkness and for learning, themselves, of
Christ. Is there, perhaps, a note of fanaticism in their entire
absorption in this new interest that has touched their lives?

Sunday, February 28, 1904.

Today, after morning Bible School and a good lunch in
old Valentina's inn, Juanito and I, accompanied by the native
pastor on horseback, drove out to a country-house for a culto.

We found few grown folks at the house besides Don T 's

family, but there were fifteen children gathered from somewhere
— always there are the blessed children.

From the doorway I counted more than fifty little dwellings
scattered about the neighborhood, and there was a lovely view
of sky and sea and valley and mountains. All the world
seemed steeped in blue, at that hot hour of the afternoon. As
we had had to leave the phaeton when the road ended, and
plod across parched fields and along lanes fenced in with the
thorny maya, and at last came upon a gaunt, gray hog asleep
under a tamarind tree close by the house, the beautiful view
from the doorway came upon me as a great surprise.

For many years Don T has been known as the most

devoted rezador — pray-er of Roman Catholic prayers — of
all the district, and he told us today, with all frankness, of his
vow made years ago, to pray to and serve a certain image of
San Antonio — not for a few years but to the end of his life,

[128] Child of the Sea

He has heard the gospel preached, and the simple truth is
touching his heart. " Yet, I cannot of course break my vow,"
he says. ** That would seem to me a very wrong thing to
do! M

When told of the sufficiency of the ** one mediator between
God and man," with no need of visible adjuncts for appeal,
he replied confidently, " Ah yes, that is so, but the Cross! "
making the sign with his fingers, ** To me it seems the right
and worthy thing to do on rising in the morning to cast one's
eyes upon the sign of Christ's sufferings for us and to impress
it upon one's forehead and breast! "

Don T is simple, frank, genuine. May his heart open

to the full truth before his few remaining years are ended.
Not for worlds would I disturb such a man's faith if I did
not believe in something deeper and higher to take its place, to
make his life more hopeful and blessed. As we came away
he said almost plaintively: " Do not think that I do not believe
in the rightness of the true worship of God. If I did not,
would I offer my house to you for cultos ? "

March 3, 1904.

Two weeks are as many as I can give nowadays to any
place away from busy Ponce, so I must leave Coamo tomor-
row. Today, I saw A about a matter of discipline in

the little church. He shows a violent, unchristian spirit in de-
claring that he will " no more darken the doors of the mission
while attends," etc., etc. Alas! alas! But he will!

Ponce, March 4, 1904.

With little Abelino as companion, I drove away from
Poamo today, just after noon. The hills crowding close aboujt

Child of the Sea [129]

the town are sere and thirsting for rain. The lowlands of the
coast, as we approached, were so green and flourishing with
the wide-spreading cane-fields, bounding the newly plowed
ground, here and there, that even little A. exclaimed, "Que
campo alegre! What a glad country!

Sweet indeed seemed our cottage in its clean coolness, set
in fresh, welcoming order by my dear little companion, Miss
Greenlaw.

GUANICA, P. R.,
March 31, 1904.

Again I am off, to green fields this time, and pastures new.
" Holy Week " seemed a good time to visit the small town on
Guanica Bay. There is no hotel or inn of any kind in the
place, for no one from outside ever comes to stay, at this sea-
son, except a few public-school teachers who must be here. I
came over from Yauco, day before yesterday, in a hired car-
riage, and at first despaired of finding even a room for sleeping,
but the driver drove me patiently from house to house in the
long street of little cottages. It has sometimes been possible to
find householders, in such places, very glad to rent a room to
a law-abiding missionary. And at last we found a young
Porto Rican school-teacher, with a nice, young wife who will-
ingly agreed to share with me. They themselves, are " camp-
ing out " in this house much too large for them, while the school
term lasts — no more. Without doubt, they are very pleasant
and hospitable to the lone americana, whom they have seemed
even glad to take in. I have a large room, a cot, a blanket,
one chair, a bare pine table, and nails galore driven into the
board walls for the few clothes brought in the little soldier
trunk.

[130] Child of the Sea

Wide sweeps of vivid yellow-green salt meadows surround
the house as we are almost at the end of the two long lines
of cottages marking the village street, and one minute's walk
takes me to the edge of the loveliest of Porto Rican bays.
But, since yesterday the sky has been leaden, the wind howling
across the treeless waste of salt meadows, the Bay as dreary
as a bay can look, and the Delectable Mountains in the north
are swathed in mist.

Our mission here, after months of preaching by the Porto
Rican pastor in Yauco, is still in a rather feeble infancy. We
have the most diminutive house possible for cultos. Four per-
sons have asked for baptism, and there are children (of course)
who come to the little blue house to sing. How I long to teach
some of these ladies and girls who have been hearing and
misunderstanding this simple truth of God, confounding it, now
with spiritualism, now with a " higher " Romanism, now with
"unbelief in the Virgin," now with a new American system of
religion — to make them know it as it is, a light, a power, a
hope, a salvation!

There is no Roman Catholic church here, and no priest ever
comes on " a mission." x

Holy Friday, April 1, 1904.

Pouring rain still ; but I plunged through the water and mire
of the road, yesterday, to the children's class, after school.
Afterward, I visited the home of an interesting old gentleman
who could trace his forefathers back to the early sixteenth cen-
tury. Not much satisfaction in the visit to the garrulous old

*Very soon after our work crystallized in Guanica into a church-
membership a priest began visiting the village for hearing confession and
celebrating mass, and when our own chapel was finally built, a few years
later, the Roman Catholics also built a small meeting-house there.

Child of the Sea [13U

man, although I was interested in him as an antiquarian and
he in me as an — American!

A wretched night followed, every nerve and muscle rebelling
against the saturation of the atmosphere of my camping-ground.
So ill was I that the fighting cats and dogs on the porch out-
side of my door, and the swarms of mosquitoes and hordes of
ants, were but insignificant items in the general misery. But
I looked out this morning to find a brilliant blue sky, flashing
blue sea, and the salt meadows golden green in the sunlight.
After a stroll on the beach I came home to fall asleep on my
cot like a tired baby. A meeting for women this afternoon,
and then tomorrow I must hurry back to Yauco, for Sunday.

Hotel American Victory,
Yauco, P. R., April 2, 1904.

From the balcony of the little hotel I can see the sparklike
lights in the cots which crowd the hill above the town twinkling
down upon the streets, full tonight of the uproar of merry-
makers and the ringing of bicycle-bells. As this is " Saturday
of Glory," day before Easter, Lent is over and done with,
and all the world is agog and gay.

April 4, 1904.

I am visiting, in these few days, those of the new " brethren
and sisters " who are unknown to me. One of the boys of
the old Class and Club is a member of the church now, and
Victoria, one of the little girls. Where are the others? I ask.
They say, " Ah, if you had been here! " But is it not true
that some are always " left "7

Yauco has never seemed to " hunger and thirst " for the
gospel. But we have a church of sixty members, many inter-
esting characters among them,

[132] Child of the Sea

Ponce, P. R.,
April 10, 1904.

Malaria came home with me from Guanica and its mos-
quitoes. I lie for a day or two in my cool bed, and ache and
ache.

Child of the Sea [133]

XIII

Aliens! whoever you, come travel with me!
Traveling with me, you find what never tires.

—Walt Whitman.

Hotel Americans' Home,
Barros, P. R., July 13, 1904.

MR. ToWLES of the Methodists [later, author of the
book " Down in Porto Rico "] shared my carriage
and the expense from Ponce as far as Aibonito. I
found him a very agreeable companero de viaje, as he is an
enthusiastic and wide-awake American, in full sympathy with
Porto Rico and with mission work. Some Americans aren't !

After parting from Mr. T. at noon, I left the Military
Highway for the new road, steepish and long, leading to
Barranquitas. That little town lying high among the moun-
taintops is built on a level spur, from which one may look
down on each side into ravines, across other hilltops, and be-
yond to even higher heights. Don G , the pastor here

in Barros, was waiting for me in Barranquitas, having come
to escort me safely hither. And the six peons with the ham-
mock, who were to carry me the rest of the way, as there is no
carriage-road beyond Barranquitas, were ready for our next
day's trip. I found a room in a private home prepared for
me, with all the hospitality of these country people, which is
often a quaint mixture of gentle courtesy and naive familiarity.

There was time for calling in two homes, with Don G ,

after resting a few moments and partaking of two small eggs
" passed through the water " (soft boiled) and a glass of milk,
all before going to an evening culto. There is the usual rented

[134] Child of the Sea

storeroom for the mission in Barranquitas, where occasional
services have been held whenever they could be arranged for
from Barros, or by a passing missionary. This time there was
a motley crowd of men and boys inside, who pored over the
hymn-books, reading aloud from them rather than singing, and
a few poor women and little girls. Outside, a crowd of all
sorts and conditions remained standing, chatting and listening
by turns.

The hammock-bearers were to be at the door before sunrise,
so I went early to bed, but it was really half past six before
we were off the next morning. Some day, the carriage-road
will be extended to Barros and beyond, but there is now only
a horse-trail, so rough and steep that it had been considered
out of the question for me to attempt it on horseback, being no
horsewoman.

It seemed very ignominious to be borne in a hammock, as I
have seen so many sick and dying carried to doctors or hos-
pitals, and I walked quite outside of town before establishing
connection with my conveyance. Then, the men laid the
strong canvas thing down on the ground, I laid myself upon it,
and was gently lifted by the bamboo pole carried on the
shoulders of two bearers. A white bedspread thrown over the
pole fell tentwise about me, and the journey began. At inter-
vals the two relieving peons took the places of the perspiring
panting pair at the pole, and each time came renewed energy
in the dog-trot jolting by the fresh relay. A fifth man carried
my little flat trunk on his head, and a sixth the bundle of rugs,

and umbrella. Behind or before, as escort, Don G

climbed quietly on his mountain pony.

When we reached shade and coolness above, I would not
have the curtain hang about me, for the air was sweet, and the
country beautiful. Little rounded hills below the trail sug-
gested plump, green pincushions stuck with pins — plumy royal

Child of the Sea [1351^

palms on their straight, gray stems. The bearers were good-
natured, and cracked many a joke as we went along. Once or
twice, I was allowed to walk when the hot sky was veiled and
the trail was level for a bit. We stopped to rest at a farm-
house, and I had hot coffee made and brought out to the mefi
who, I found, had taken nothing before starting out to lug me
over the mountain! Between Barranquitas and Barros we
passed in sight of the geographical center of the Island.

It was half past nine o'clock, and we had been traveling

for three hours, when Don G announced that we were

nearing Barros. He would spur on ahead, he said, and
apprize his wife and " the rest " of our coming. And when
presently the first house appeared from around a bend in the
road, and I had landed on my feet, sunburned, disheveled,
with clothes all awry, a smiling, starched-and-ironed group of
young folks came chattering around the cliff from town to meet
me. A deputation from the little church! After salutations,
I asked permission to put up my hair, and kneeling down in the
weeds, with all looking on with open curiosity, I managed with
side-combs to get it into order.

The trail had ended suddenly, not " in a squirrel track run-
ning up a tree " but in a cart-road, and then the road ran into
a street leading straight through the town. As we proceeded
rather noisily along the street, doors, windows, and porches
were crowded with spectators to witness the arrival of the first
American woman ever in Barros!

I had hardly taken off my hat in this " guest-house " which
cannot be called a hotel, when an important-looking document
was sent over from the town hall across the street — a small,
frame house, itself not important-looking at all — with the re-
quest that the americana would have the kindness to translate
the paper from English into Spanish!

The " Americans' Home " occupies the second floor of a

K

[136] Child of the Sea

ramshackle frame building, reached from the street by a steep
flight of wooden stairs ; below there are storerooms, and a poor
family occupies a room or two. '* Tia " is the hostess, a
friendly little soul who smokes a long cigar in her resting-times,
and she has given me the best of the four little bedrooms at
her disposal. One window overlooks our chapel, which is
nearly finished. The hammering and sawing went on busily
all the afternoon, seemingly at my very head as I rested after
lunch, and accompanied by the shrill whistling of familiar
hymn-tunes by the workmen, most of whom are " brothers in
Christ."

July 19, 1904.

The mission has already crystallized into a small church, a
remarkably youthful group, as there are few elderly persons
among them. They are all ardent in attendance, in singing,
and in Bible study, and the fact that our temporary mission
house, until the chapel is finished, is almost vis-d-vis with the
Roman Catholic church, does not quench their ardor one whit.
As usual everywhere in the mountains, the work here began
with visits from the missionary and an occasional trip of a col-
porteur. Two months ago there were baptisms by Mr. Rudd
in the mountain stream flowing by, and the first glamor of
enthusiasm has not yet passed. The novelty of American
interest in their shut-off-from-the-world lives, their own awak-
ened interest in the Bible, which is a new book for all, in the
bright hymn-tunes, and the frequent services, still holds. Some
of this will pass and then will come the testing-time of these
young believers. I have already learned that some of them
have withdrawn from a social club, recently inaugurated, with
dancing as a star feature, a bar, and late hours, on Sundays as
well as on all other nights. Are they finding, or are they going
to find, with our help, something in their new faith to satisfy

Child of the Sea Vm

and inspire so that such amusement will not appeal to them?
The oldest in years is only an infant as yet in Christian experi-
ence, earnest and zealous as all are.

The man who is superintending the building of the chapel,
is from the United States, and is employed by the Home
Mission Board of the North for this work. I think Mr. Riggs
has built two or three chapels in Cuba recently, The young
people like him, and as he also takes his meals at Tia's, her
big room up-stairs, which is dining- and sitting-room combined,
has become an informal gathering-place for the members of the
church, Romanist though the landlady is. She makes the
hostia, the wafer used at communion in her church, and she has
given me samples of the delicately molded wafers of flour and
water, of the size of a silver quarter and stamped with the sign
of a Iamb. Until the " host " is consecrated by the priest, it
suffers no indignity at falling into my hands. In the curious,
old kitchen the two daily quarts of milk are prepared for the
priest, whose '.' weak stomach " is spoken of with pious pity.

These dear young friends come to the up-stairs room, before
school, at recess, after school, at night, sitting through our
meals, chatting sociably in Tia's rocking-chairs. Mr. R. has
been teaching them new hymns, and Tia does not seem to
mind at all, though the music of the " songs of Zion," sung
lustily, fills the house and even the street down below. Some-
times she joins us, contentedly smoking her long, black cigar,
after dinner.

Again I am reading aloud " El Viador" " The Pilgrim's
Progress," and we shall have an occasional evening of games
together.

July 28, 1904.

The pastor's young wife and two of the older girls of the
mission come to my room every morning for an hour's study of

[138] Child of the Sea

the book of Romans. This is the first pleasure of my day.
It is true that the book holds an argument reaching beyond the
present advance of these children in the faith, yet there is much
in it which they do understand, for a strangely simple wisdom
seems given to many a seeker after truth. I often marvel at
it and feel the reaction of its power upon my own spirit.

The boards that ought to be ceiling and flooring the chapel
are still in the trees ! Long, long ago they were ordered sawed
for ripening. They tell me here, in this connection that, " Para
un jibaro, otro jibaro; para dos jibaros el diablo" " For one
country fellow another country fellow, for two the devil.'* For
these " country fellows " alone know the devious ways of each
other. Though given an order for two hundred seasoned
boards, months ahead of the need, they now trail down the
mountains to Barros, week by week, bringing two, three, ten
green boards at a time. Already, the partly laid floor is
shrinking apart, board by board, while it has been necessary to
'* strip " the cracks in the boarding of the walls.

July 31, 1904.

Yesterday, I climbed with several girls to the top of the
ridge above the town, where the big mango tree stands, rounded
and shapely. We kept on over the ridge and downward to a
thatched hut standing among a waste of risings and fallings of
slopes innumerable. A woman sat on the floor of the hut,
patiently grinding yellow corn between two flat, round stones,
turning the upper stone upon the nether by means of an upright
stick fixed in the upper stone. The coarse meal resulting sifted
out on all sides into the woman's lap and on to a gunny sack
spread on the floor.

Two girls were shucking and shelling corn on the floor close

Child of the Sea [139]^

by, and after saluting them, and being bidden to enter, we fell
to and helped. A sick man sat drearily astride a hammock
and took no notice of us. For four years he has been sick
with asthma, and doubtless other ills. The woman says she
plants and harvests a patch of ground, with the young ones
to help, and they eke out a scanty living, without even the
reward of good sleep at night, because of the man's desperate
attacks of suffocation at any hour of the night. I suppose they
close every crack in window and door when day is done !
Sunday School today was the largest we have had.

August 3, 1904.

Today, we climbed again to the mango tree and went over
the ridge. We found the whole family of the thatched hut
sitting dumb and motionless on the floor. The man had just
come out of one of his " spells," and the family had not yet
recovered. He sat astride the hammock as before, as he can-
not lie down, but he kept his ghastly face turned from us.
The corn and grindstones were out of sight, as he had not been
able to bear the noise of the grinding, the woman told us.

I " snapped " the house, although they seemed timid about
having me do it. Next I showed the picture-cards I had
brought, with Bible verses pasted on them. Their fear was
manifest, then. At my invitation to come nearer and see the
cards, the little boy did not budge, but shrugged and shrank
all up in his little shirt! The woman, after silently conferring
with her husband by glances, said decidedly that they dared
not receive the cards. It might injure them with the priest.
But they would ask the priest if they might have them, and if
he agreed then they would come to get them from me! She
would not even look at the cards while I explained in simplest
words that the texts were from la Biblia, the book which every
priest knew to be " God's word."

[140] Child of the Sea

The girls' eyes glistened at the sight of the painted flowers
on the cards, but they said not a word. The mother then
explained that her daughters had been to confession a day or
two before, and had become ** Daughters of Mary," so, be-
longing to this Society, it was needful to do nothing which
might injure them with the priest. She had told him that they
could not pay as others did for the privilege of being ** Daugh-
ters," and he had said, " Oh, never mind, a little cent, a little
egg, anything you may have will do! " And that morning, I
learned they had had nothing to eat or drink but " coffee "
made from parched corn, with no sugar.

Her face, sad, hollow-eyed and strained, broke into a really
happy smile as we produced the coffee and sugar we had
brought. She came hastily across the room to open the pack-
ages as if half disbelieving me. " Nom, I can give him some
coffee! " she cried with joy, her thought only for her sick man.
Poor woman, she did not think it necessary to ask the priest's
permission before accepting these gifts!

Last night, a crowd of the young folks gathered in Tia's
dining-room for singing-practice and the reading. In four
readings more, we shall finish the " Pilgrim's Progress." Their
enjoyment of the book has been inspiring, for they have seemed
to visualize every scene in Christian's dramatic career and with
clear understanding.

August 12, 1904.

I am making the baptistery curtains for the new chapel, of
heavy, crimson damask fetched from San Juan by post.

Some Barreno customs: When schooltime arrives, a little
boy struts manfully up and down the main street ringing a
small, shrill tea-bell. This is a much coveted office, and the
favored urchin lifts his arm proudly aloft, and seems to feel
that the municipal welfare sits upon his shoulders.

A Lane in Barranquitas

The Sick Man's House in Barros

Child of the Sea [HI]

When there is a marriage, the bride gives away bits of her
ribbon-bows to her " gentlemen friends," and these are worn
pinned on the coat lapels, until they grow grimy and dejected.
This is called la capa de la nihat and the custom may not be
confined to Barros.

We were waiting to read the last chapter in " Pilgrim's Pro-
gress " today, and some of the young crowd were slow to as-
semble. '* Let's sing a hymn," said Pedrito, " that will bring
them! " But this would be called an " engrafted " custom
in Barros.

August 15, 1904.

My days in Barros are numbered. A deliciously sweet,
bright morning, with a fresh breeze blowing in at my little north-
east window.

The chapel is nearly ready for the dedication tomorrow
night, as the floor has slowly crept across the sills with the
boards dragged down the mountain trails by men and beast
from time to time. The seats are benches made here in the
chapel by the carpenters, rather clumsy affairs, but at least they
have backs. The two pulpit chairs Mr. Riggs has made him-
self of nutmeg wood, highly polished by the patient use of
sandpaper and oil — a pale-brown, speckled wood. The lamps
are in place, and many friends are lending potted plants and
offering cut flowers for the decorations at the dedication
service.

The children are ready for their festival vespertino, an after-
noon entertainment of songs and speeches, and all the young
folks are as enthusiastic over their dialogues and discursos as
they are over everything else. Printed invitations have been
sent to everybody in town for all the dedication services, and
there will be several " visiting brethren " from other towns to
take part in the dedication itself.

[142] Child of the Sea

Barranquitas, P. R.,
August 18, 1904.

Farewells this morning and, as always I have felt sad all
day since leaving, at coming away at all. The girls spent the
last two hours with me, crying and lamenting, as is the way
of girls, and when the final hour came, with many others they
accompanied us out of town to the place where my hammock-
bearers were waiting. The " delegates " were all on horse-
back and the procession separated, the little church returning
to town and the rest of us taking up the trail for Barranquitas.

Tonight, we have had a crowd of children at mission
service here in Barranquitas. I counted about fifty inside the
room. My heart went out to the women and children, and I
hope to return in October for a few weeks with them.

Child of the Sea [143]

XIV

I stood tip-toe upon a little Kill,

The clouds were pure and white as flocks new-shorn
And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept
On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept
A little noiseless noise among the leaves,

There was wide wandering for the greediest eye
To peer about upon variety;
Far round the horizon's central air to skim,
And trace the dwindled edges of its brim.

So I straightway began to pluck a posy
Of luxuries bright, milky, soft and rosy.

— Keals.

Ponce, P. R.,
October, 11, 1904.

TWO more American missionaries with their families
have come to our Island work — Rev. L. E. Troyer and
Rev. H. L. Vodra. One other, Rev. E. L. Humphrey,
has been here since 1902 and is stationed at Cayey, in the
interior of the Island.

The rainy season at its rainiest has been upon us for days,
the streets are rivers of mud and water, and cloudbursts of
rain thunder down upon the zinc roofs overhead. Market
prices have soared, houses are mud-tracked and moldy, bones
ache, and — presently we shall have glorious sunshine again,
and old Speckle may come out of his foot-bath in the un-
trained patio, a shallow lake just now.

[144] Child of the Sea

Barranquitas, P. R.,
October 25, 1904.

It rains, and I sit in the snug little whitewashed chamber

at Dona T 's. The small, flat trunk is unpacked, nails

are driven into the board walls to hold clothing; my feather
pillow and steamer-rug make the cot comfortable, my own
soap, brushes, towels, take the place of those the family so
kindly provided for me, and presto! the room is mine! How
hospitable these people are, always giving of their very best
and never apologizing if it be not so good as they would like
it to be — true courtesy. This is not a public inn, like Tia's
at Barros, and I appreciate the goodness that affords me even
a very small corner of the home.

A sorrow is touching our Island mission now, because of
the growing illness of dear Mrs. McCormick which is neces-
sitating the family's return to the States. Mr. McC. was our
first missionary here, in February, 1 899.

October 29, 1904.

We are still near the beginning of things here in Barran-
quitas, the congregations at the irregular preaching services,
when some mission worker can be here, being still changing,
inattentive crowds. After awhile some will drop off, leaving
a group of earnest men and women and children who will be-
gin to understand what it is all about, and from this nucleus
the thing will grow, from inside out. Our rented quarters are
perfectly unattractive but, after a while also, there will be a
chapel built here as elsewhere. I have had two classes of
young folks this week, who came noisily swarming in from
school, to hear the little organ and to see the qmen'cana. They

Child of the Sea [145]

are bright children and doubtless wonder mightily what it is
all about.

This morning, " I stood on tiptoe upon a little hill,*' with
Keats himself in my mind as I climbed to the inviting green knob
rising above the roadside. On a farther hilltop two cows
grazed, in jet-black silhouette against a snow-white cloud!
Little children strolled with me and chattered of the wild
guavas we found, showed me the brilliant red flowers of
zapatos de paloma, dove's shoes, told me that all the birds
belong to the Virgin, and described to me the toothsomeness
of the malanga, boiled and eaten by the peasants — for me a
tasteless and unwholesome root.

Once, we stopped at a cottage to talk with six children, who
learned with us half a stanza of " Cristo bendito" with gusto.
At another, where a barefooted woman in black calico spread
her fresh beans to dry in the sun. She gave me the details of
the death of her husband eleven days ago, of a gruesome
operation. Even her scrawny chickens were " in mourning,"
as one of my small companions slyly observed. One often
wonders at seeing so many more black than white chickens in
the Island!

Tomorrow, we shall have Sunday School, the first in Bar-
ranquitas.

Sunday, October 30, 1904.

Not so many, this morning, in the mission hall as come in
the freer afternoon hours. But they listened, dear hearts,
as we studied with the blackboard about gratitude to God.
They say " Thank you " to me, when I hand them hymn-
books, I say " Thank you " to them for the posies they bring
me, so we say " Thank you " to God, for — what is it that
comes from him to us? " Food" they* shout in chorus,
" Water" " Our mothers and fathers" etc. T should like to

[146] Child of the Sea

show them the way to know God as he is, to make them want
to be his own dear children.

" All Souls' Day," November 2, 1904.

Yesterday, I was cozily dozing on my cot, when a hen
roused me, stepping more heavily than I would have imagined
a hen could step, across my body. She was perhaps looking
for a place on my soft steamer-rug for *' putting " an egg, or
it may be that I had usurped a favorite nesting-place.

Unlike Barros, Barranquitas has no little bell-ringer to an-
nounce the school hour through the streets. The children
simply wait until they see the teacher go and open the school-
room door; as this is not always at the same hour, the schol-
ars are often ready long before, loitering in doorways and
along the street.

For a day or two, I have been ill and work must go slowly,
but I have books, and always there are letters to write, and
from my cot I can see through the window an enterprising fowl
pulling to pieces the dried palm-thatching of a hut outside, and
beyond, the white clouds piling up above a zinc roof close by.
It is delightfully cool here, the air pure and good to breathe.

Dr. Adoniram Judson believed that Christ was with him " in
the heart of the heathen, unlocking the door from the inside"
The people of this Island are certainly not " heathen," with
their kindness, friendliness, courtesy, but many hearts are
closed to me and my teaching of Him as we know him. But
they have not had half a chance to know the truth of God.
What a responsibility for us!

November 4, 1 904.

A grim, little church stands on the upper edge of the steep
downward slope of the spur the town stands on, and it faces

Child of the Sea [147]

the empty weedy plaza. A few large houses with shops on
the ground floor front on this plaza, but most of the dwellings
are frame cottages, and in by-lanes there are lines of huts of
the very poor. The priest is said to be rather lenient with his
parishioners, and when I have, met him he shows none of the
personal resentment of my presence which priests elsewhere
have shown.

I suppose that, in a sense, it is '* proselyting " to be coming
into a purely Roman Catholic community and presenting new
religious truths for study to large and small folks. Perhaps
after all, proselyte is not so bad a word as it seems, if the
" conversion " implied comes about through personal con-
viction and choice. Surely there is nothing about our missions
that is not open and aboveboard, and those who learn with
us do so of their own will. I cannot imagine any one hoping
to bring Roman Catholics to a better understanding of God
and life itself, by railing against their Church and ministers.
Certainly one must understand the religious thought of another
before one can reasonably hope to succeed in putting a better
hope in. its place.

Both the ladies of this household are Romanists in the mild
manner of many in these mountain towns. Of course if they
were fanatical, they would not have taken me in to board.
We have quiet talks together after the children are abed. One
of them has a sweet, docile spirit. Yesterday, I heard her
say — through the thin, board partition between the rooms —
to a young woman visiting her: ** Read those books " (the
gospels and tracts lying on a table) , ** and if you do not under-
stand them pray to God and say, ' O God, give me sight to
understand what I am reading.' "

In kindly consideration for my comfort, the dear woman
sent to the church for her prayer-rug which she has laid be-
side my cot on the bare boards of the floor.

[148] Child of the Sea

November 5, 1904.

The two young men who are studying John with me in the
evening, brought a friend with them tonight. Thinking that
the stranger had merely come to make a call with them, I
hesitated about going on with our study, but my first mention
of the reading was promptly responded to. They had brought
their friend for this very purpose! And John 3 was slowly
and carefully studied, the intelligent faces of the young men
full of interest as they read from their little books.

November 8, 1904.

There has been much talk of the danger to be expected here,
today, at elections. Families were taken out of town to be out
of harm's way. The shooting fray of last election day, two
years ago, in Barranquitas, has been gone over and over with
many idle rumors added. Let us go quietly about our usual
affairs, I have said to them, keeping out of the Way of mischief.

And the day has been as quiet as a funeral occasion. Two
long lines of men awaited their turn to vote, at the respective
tooths of the Republican and the Unionist parties. Serious,
sober, cleanly dressed, they seemed to regard the occasion as
momentous. Some of the townsmen have little idea of what
they are voting for, at least they have little interest in it, beyond
knowing the names of the two opposing parties. I asked a
good-looking man, chopping wood at his door, why he was not
at the voting-place: " Because if I vote unionista, the republic
canos will be down on me: if I vote republicano, the unionistas
will be down on me; so I vote not at all! " was his candid
reply.

November 11, 1904.

The Unionists gained here, and in Ponce. In Barros,
farther up in the hills, there were three thousand Republican

Child of the Sea [H9]

votes and one Unionist! Republicanism just now in Porto
Rico means American sentiment in opposition to Unionism,
which springs from the old Federal party, and is in general
anti- American. ** Unionists is a name to attract, for union
sounds like a very good thing! Two-year-old Pepe, when
asked for his political sentiments, puts the tips of his two fore-
fingers together closely and lisps *' 'Nista!

Lately, I have visited two of the principal homes in town,
finding in one indifference, even coolness in attitude, in the
other keen interest in comparing the teachings of the New Tes-
tament with the practises of the Church here. Dona V

has the priest's own copy of the New Testament in Latin and
in Spanish, and has read much in it, lately. After speaking of
the doctrine of many intermediaries she said to me, " The
Word of God does teach the truth that there is but one inter-
cessor, but it seems impossible to get away from what one has
been taught since babyhood."

It was interesting to have her find in the priest's book the
references I named from mine and to see the wonder with
which she read, in both, of the " all power " given to Christ,
and of the " one mediator " between God and man.

Today, I had a long talk with the priest himself, intro-
duced by Dona P — — at the post-office. I have often wished
to talk freely with a priest (some " unconverted " one, a rare
experience for a foreign missionary here) — to ask him ques-
tions, to face him with the Bible, as it were. Of course padre

D extricated himself from the difficulties into which my

questions might have plunged him, by backing dexterously be-
hind the supreme authority of " the Church." I asked him
if he would dare to stand up before his people in church to-
morrow, and simply read to them out of his Bible in Spanish,
about those things of which we were speaking. His reply
was that he was under authority, and that the Church had pre-

[150] Child of the Sea

pared a Bible edited with notes by men much more learned than
he, who might be expected to know more of the profundities of
that profound book than he; that the plan of his Church is
to have sermons preached from texts based, of course, on the
Scriptures, in order that the people may not be misled by their
own private interpretation. I read to him several texts, and he
could or would give no direct answers to my questions: "Is
this true? Do you believe it? Is it not written so in your
Bible? If it is true, how can you teach the reverse to people
who trust you? " I knew I could speak frankly with him, for
he is most friendly and is known to be not in the least fanatical.
Indeed, I am told that one day in church, seeing a poor peasant
woman kiss the feet of an image, he said to her: " "What do you
do that for? That is only a piece of wood! Pray to God."
He was very serious and respectful, but when he did reply to
a question, it was perfunctorily done with the stock phrases of
the Romanist. Once he shrugged his shoulders and said that
if he should preach what I had spoken of, as unquestioned
truth, he would be put out of the Church — and one must live!
[Later, this man was removed to another place — I never
learned where — and a more strict priest was sent to B. ! We
have noticed such changes in many places, after we have
firmly established a mission.]

Sunday, November 13, 1904.

It seems incredible that the orderly little folks at Sunday
School this morning are a part of the restless horde that at
first invaded the cultos. Perhaps there has been a process
of automatic winnowing out going on, and only the more
docile return to be taught. I regret leaving this new work,
discouraging as it has been at times, after but a three weeks'
" mission " here. But, there is much to be done in Ponce.
Sunday School entertainments for the year's end must be pre-

Child of the Sea [15U

pared for at several " stations," with much writing of dia-
logues and training of scores of infants and youths in their
speeches and songs. The church in Ponce has come to count
on this year-end entertainment as a fitting culmination of their
year's studies. With bright lights and flowers we make the
church beautiful, but no one expects anything to eat or gifts,
and the house is always filled to overflowing.

[152] Child of the Sea

XV

I found among those Children of the Sun.

The cipher of my nature — the release
Of baffled powers, which else had never won

That free fulfilment whose reward is peace.

For, not to any race or clime

Is the completed sphere of life revealed;
He that would make his own that round sublime

Must pitch his tent on many a distant field.

— Bayard Taylor.

Ponce, P. R.,
January 4, 1905.

YESTERDAY Mr. R. baptized five men and women
in beautiful Guanica Bay, just at sunset. It was a
lovely setting for the scene. One by one the men and
women were led out from shore through the gilded surf roll-
ing gently on the sands, into deeper water beyond. They
seemed to tread a golden pathway toward the sinking sun.
The women changed their clothing in an empty hut on the
beach close by, and then we all came walking back together
by the long street, to supper. At the close of the evening
service, in the larger room Mr. R. has rented, the missionary
organized the church of the five believers just baptized ! Such
a little one!

Mr. R.'s words of explanation as to what a Christian
church means, and his counsel and encouragement, are al-
ways singularly appropriate, and I am glad of every oppor-
tunity I have of taking part in these first things.

Child of the Sea [153]

February 7, 1905.

Tonight marks an epoch in our Ponce church annals. At
the business meeting we agreed to call to the church as pastor-
assistant to the missionary, Rev. Ramon Veliz Lopez, from Rio
Grande. The church also decided to contribute five dollars
a month toward his salary. A first step toward " self-
support " regarding the pastorate.

February 21, 1905.
" Don Ramon " has come, with his wife and wee baby
Raquel — a frail little being, three months old. Sweet Dona

A , the mother, has quite captured my heart. They will

be of much help in our church.

March 27, 1905.

Old Speckle has had to go, and for fifteen dollars! He
cost thirty, and has served me for about three years, but had
become too tiresome to drive, stumbling and falling at the
least provocation, barking his knees, snapping straps, besides
eating his old, obstinate head off in the patio. The grass-
man has brought him and is to pay for him in daily guinea-
grass for the new horse. Speckle is to bring the grass himself,
poor old dear!

Brownie, the new incumbent of the shed, is about six years
old and trots well and is safe, though he is certainly no beauty.

Accounts of the Welsh revival have been thrilling and
tantalizing. I should like to be in Wales and feel it. Why
should not showers of blessings fall upon us too? We are
beginning a series of special cultos. Obedience! Obedience!
is Evan Roberts' cry from Wales,

[154] Child of the Sea

Easter Sunday, April 22, 1905.

I was away from home, at La Playa, yesterday when
the young pastor sent for me. Little Raquel was dying, after
sudden failing. She was gone, when I got to the house. Dear
wee one, so feeble and small, yet filling so large a place in her
devoted parents' hearts. As I sat, with the mother, in the
evening at the bedside, Raquelita on her little pillow looked
like a pretty waxen doll asleep, in her white muslin frock.

She was buried this afternoon, and the young parents have
come home with me for a night or two, as their house was too
lonely without the baby.

May 5, 1905.

Tonight, Miss Greenlaw and I in my phaeton, and others in
a buggy, drove out to Portugues, the country mission across
the river, for the first velada of the children's class. The
rented room in the house of the Perdomos was filled with
proud parents and friends. The children are rustic and wild,
but they said their '* pieces " with smiling gusto, and sang
sweetly. The women had decorated the whitewashed wall
with feathery green branches hung on nails, and there were
immense bunches of flowers besides. The little organ fairly
rocked and danced as we sang all together " Glory, Glory,
Hallelujah " and " America."

Yauco, P. R.,
Sunday, May 7, 1905.

Yesterday, I came hither by second-class on the train, and
enjoyed the hard seat among the polite, first-rate second-class
people much more than I have, sometimes, the second-rate first-
class traveling men as companions. Mr. R. has now rented a
commodious warehouse with two large rooms for our mission,
next door to the owner, Mrs, G , a Protestant German-

Child of the Sea [15£

English lady. And Mrs. G is giving me a room and

board in her pleasant house. She is the widow of a Spaniard.

Yauco was settled chiefly by Corsicans who are naturally
more like Italians than Spaniards, and their Spanish is at once
recognizable, with its rather foreign accent. Such a mixture
as one finds in all such colonies from the Old World 1

This morning in the mission Sunday School, next door,

V taught the children's class of twenty. It gave me pure

joy to hear her with gentle dignity explaining the lesson as
well as a cut-and-dried missionary could have done — the little
girl who, first of all, used to accompany me to the children's
classes, five years ago, when there were no *' believers " here at
all. She is now sixteen years old.

May 10, 1905.

Yesterday, I hired a carriage and with the native pastor,

his wife, and V , drove to Guanica for a day of visiting

and an evening service after a women's meeting in the after-
noon. Three of the five baptized in the sea in January have
moved away. The two left are a woman and a girl. Poor

little church of Guanica! E was ironing when we

went to see her. She kept on with her work, at our
insistence, so that she might finish in time to cool off before
going into the sereno, the dew, at night. She cannot read, and
her Christian growth cannot be rapid in that isolated place, but
there is life in her and she speaks bravely of some of her diffi-
culties. Her husband does not oppose her in her religion, but
takes advantage of her being a Christian, she says, and speaks
to her as roughly as he pleases, knowing that she " will hear
it quietly and no longer fly into a rage with him.** What a
commentary from the outside upon even the first, faint work-
ing of God's Spirit in a human soul that seeks him, however
alone!

[156] Child of the Sea

We came flying back to Yauco through the moonlit cane-
fields, shivering in the cold night air of the coast-lands.

May 19, 1905.

This afternoon, I talked long with " El Mayagiiez," one
of our own three blind men in Yauco. He thirsts for the truth
that he may tell it to others. If I could only take the book
in my hand and read it to them! " he said, his poor sightless
face full of expression as he turned it in eagerness to me. I
reminded him of what a lady had told me that very morning,
that El Mayaguez subscribed to our paper El Evangelista,
and carried it to her every month to be read through to him
and that he lends it to others! He tells me that he has stood
outside on the sidewalk, in the dark, listening to our women's
study at the mission, and that he has heard it all. If I had only
known " a brother " cared to come in! I invited him to the
children's song-service for this afternoon, just before I must
take the train back to Ponce.

Ponce, P. R.,
June 25, 1905.

The weather is piping hot, keeping pretty steadily at 90°
Fahr. by day, but cooling off beautifully at night. Yes-
terday the mothers of the boys and girls of the Industrial
Class at La Playa came to the church by invitation to see
specimens of the children's work. The youngsters themselves
made the speeches, young C presiding at the devotions.

The piece of work done by this class during the past years,
of most interest to them, has been the making of a small model
of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness — the cubit measurements
reduced to the inch. It took them a year of Saturday after-
noons to make it, the boys preparing the little " boards " (cut

Child of the Sea [15£

by a carpenter from cedar-wood cigar-boxes) with sandpaper,
gilding, and rings for the " bars," the girls making the sets of
curtains. The tabernacle can be taken to pieces or set up in
a few moments. It will be a proud day for them when the
little tabernacle is shown in the churches at La Playa, and
perhaps in Ponce.1

Barranquitas, P. R.,
July 27, 1905

Last night, I slept in my little bed without a mosquito-bar
and the sheet was blac^-peppered this morning with ancient
dust from the ceiling overhead.

The same heavenly panorama of other days here, of clouds
of dazzling white mounting into the pure blue of the sky from
behind the green hills, delights my eyes. Such purity of air,
such deliciousness merely in the act of breathing! A black
hog grunts most unholily below my window, but " the sap-
phire crown " of the sky sits upon the brow of the emerald
hill beyond, so why mention a pig? Keats — I want him with
me always in these mountains — was writing to another Jane
when he said :

The open Sky sits upon one's senses like a sapphire crown; the Air
is our robe of state; the Earth is our throne, and the Sea a mighty
minstrel playing before it, able like David's harp to make such as you
forget, almost, the tempest cares of life.

Our present storeroom, rented for the little mission, is a
huge place opening directly upon the passing road. From the
edge of the road, the ground falls steeply away underneath
the floor, so that only the front wall of the house rests on the

1 No work of the members of this class was for themselves. They
made many bedquilts and undergarments, dressed a doll, hemstitched
handkerchiefs, framed pictures in tiny sea-shells, as gifts for others,

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ground. Long-legged posts support the floor, and the back
windows overlook the canon still falling away into deeper
depths. This road passing us is the highway leading on to
Barros and beyond, not yet finished, however.

Here in this little Federal town I am, more than anywhere
I go, a persona non grata, as few of the townspeople care as
yet for our mission services, and it really costs something of
the women and girls who attend, to be faithful and loyal — it is
such a little town ! It is saddening to be in a disliked minority,
and to have children run from one, and hide, or call out saucy
words at one. Some day it will be different.

Sunday, July 30, 1905.

Today Mr. Troyer and Don A of Barros were here

and the Sunday School was formally organized, with adults
and children. We shall now have more regular and even per-
manent attention given to this struggling mission, and its his-
tory will be that of all the others. . .

Miss G. writes from Ponce that poor old sister Rosa
still lingers on her bed of long suffering, but that she seems
to be " resting beside still waters, in green pastures," rather
than passing through the Valley of the Shadow. Dear soul,
under the dusty thatching of your hillside hut, I hope your
longed-for freedom will not long delay its coming.

A poor anemic woman haunts this house, doing jobs of
coarse mending in exchange for a cup of coffee, a plate of
beans or rice. There is something uncanny in her stealthy
tread, as she prowls about, peering in at me, watching as I
write. Great things are being proposed and some accomplished
in the anemic cure. They have treated two thousand cases in
Doctor Ashford's field-hospital for the diseased near Aibonito,
within a few months. This poor woman is gray in her pallor
and is sadly bloated.

Vidal — Faithful Cook and Sister in the Faith, Ponce

Old Speckle" at the Side Door of the Church, Ponce

Child of the Sea [159]

August 6, 1905.

This morning there were eighteen stationary ones in Sun-
day School, and many transients. I rose from a sick-bed to
go. What a curious expression! I wish the cot could bear
some of the pain that pork and grease and draughty damp, in
combination, can produce.

I write in my room, divided from the rest of the cottage
by a thin partition of boards. There has been much talk com-
ing through all day, laughter and cries of children. But, this
evening, when all was quiet, I have talked long in the small
parlor with the two widowed sisters-in-law. They were inter-
ested in a tract read to them and, again, to the heart of one
there seemed to be penetrating a ray of the light I hoped was
entering last November.

It is in the poorer homes that I find the listening ear, the
kindling eye, for the words of cheer and hope from the Bible.
Yet, as before, I see a timid interest in other homes — where
hearts are testing the truth and questioning the value of old con-
ceptions and belief.

Coamo, P. R.,
August 18, 1905.

The beautiful church here was dedicated, last night, and
thus, in all the chief towns of our missions, suitable meeting-
houses are taking the place of the ramshackle warehouse rooms
or mere cottages of the first cultos. Yet one may live to look
back with an almost sentimental regret to '* first things " as
they took place in the smelly old warehouses redolent of kero-
sene oil, "passed" codfish, and stale bacon! The edifices
for the missions are all being solidly built, generally of brick,
plastered or cemented over, and meant to last. I think it is
these substantial churches, and those of other missions besides
ours, which most convince the Island people that Protestant

[160] Child of the Sea

mission work has come here to stay, and not to perish as one
American enterprise after another has done. As the little
churches grow in number and influence, Porto Ricans are
seeing also that the Christian propaganda is not an American
enterprise in its original source or ultimate aim.

There are native pastors and delegates from the twenty-
five of our own churches here today, taking part in the annual
Association. Most of them are young, and enthusiastic about
their work. After the Association, the pastors will remain
for several days for an *' Institute," held by the American
missionaries-in-charge, for study, for the hearing of theses pre-
pared by the students, and for pastoral instruction.

Ponce calls me loudly, and the little home on Isabel Street.
Miss G. who has been with me for two years is to be very
soon transferred to Mr. and Mrs. Troyer's mission school in
this town, so, good old Vidal, the cook, and Claudino, my
horse-boy, and I shall be alone.

Child of the Sea [16U

XVI

God sitting by the humblest hearth. — Loioell.

Ponce, P. R,
October 4, 1905.

MISS Greenlaw set out this afternoon for her new work
in the school at Coamo. Without her, the cottage
seems lonely this rainy night. The little dog and the
kittens are doing their best to befriend me — the black kitten,
boldest of all, sitting on my knee and nosing the pen as I
write.

November 11, 1905.

I was in Yauco again, last night, for the dedication of the
new church which stands on a fine corner lot. As I sat behind
the organ, on its platform, looking over the large, reverent con-
gregation of several hundred men and women seated in the
comfortable new chairs, I remembered our first service in
Yauco, in the little fruit-shop on a public street, loaned for
the occasion by a poor woman for — she really did not know
what ! She knew only that the Americans wished to say some-
thing to her people about religion and the Bible, and that she
was friendly to us. And I remembered former services in the
hired rooms with the tipsy chairs and the backless benches, and
wondered at all that the perseverance and pluck of the mis-
sionaries-in-charge were doing in the whole Island. Mighty
little have I had to do with any kind of building there in
Yauco — of houses or of Christian character. Often I grieve
over having to spread myself so thin over important details in
our women's and children's work. And now I have had to

[162] Child of the Sea

come back to Ponce on this morning's train, too busy to stay
over for Sunday with the happy little church in Yauco.

" Guest House " of Don Manuel,.
Adjuntas, P. R.,
February 19, 1906.

For a long, long time I have wished to be again in this dear
little mountain town. We seem cut off from the world up here,
but not so much as in the old days, as the highway is finished
through Adjuntas to Arecibo, on the north coast, and one can
reach the sea on either side now, north or south, in a few hours
any day.

The church has suffered many losses from removal and even
*' exclusions." The corner-store building which we have
bought is better than the old warehouse, but is not attractive to
outsiders as a meeting-place, and I hope we can soon tear it
down and begin the church building on this pleasant corner.

It is four years, except for a few days' visit, since I was
here, and as I go in and out of the alleyways old acquain-
tances come running to the doors, and sometimes I hear them
calling out: "It looks like Dona Juanita! It is! Here's
Dona Juanita! "

February 25, 1906.

Carnival Sunday; and there has been some play of maskers
in the streets, but all is quiet now at dusk. Down in Ponce,
the carnival ball in the Casino, over the garden walls from our
cottage, will be just now opening, and King Momo and his
court will have been thronging the streets all day with their
rampant din. There is nothing picturesque about carnival
gaiety in our Island.

Though the mission here has not prospered of late as in

Child of the Sea [163]

some other towns, there are thirty-three faithful members and
many little children. Some live off in the mountains and can
attend only the day services unless there is a moon to light
them down and up. Everybody is glad when she stays long
enough to light the somber hill trails! These are often only
narrow gullies worn by rivulets in the rainy season, and by the
tread of man and beast in single file ceaselessly passing to and
fro. At night the darkness is dense, from the shade of the
big trees protecting the coffee-shrubs from too much sunlight,
and even at midday a chill strikes one in the thick groves.

This morning, a sweet-faced old lady of the hills above
us came to the Bible School over a trail which they insist is
much too steep and long for me! These hill-folk are serious
and for the most part industrious and independent in their
lives. It is good to think of their getting something more into
their days than the endless struggle toward feeding, clothing,
and sheltering themselves. I usually find the little parlor of
the pastor's wife, next the mission hall, full of sturdy-looking
women and their menfolk, resting from their tramping, while
they wait for the service-hour to arrive. Sometimes they make
a day of it, coming very early in the morning.

The townspeople, even here, have their parties, dances,
church feasts, daily mail, newspapers, and other pleasures to
vary the monotony of their isolation and do not seem to feel
their need of the gospel's light and cheer, as the lonelier hill
people around them do.

As I look back to former visits here I realize how much
effort goes to apparent waste in mission endeavor. Yet, is it
waste, after all? Who can know?

The folding-organ given me by the church at Maiden,
Mass., came up the mountain with me, scarred by much travel
already and wobbly in the legs, but it still has a voice, The
singing sounded very sweet tonight — in my ears,

[164] Child of the Sea

As I came home through the flowery plaza between the tall
hibiscus plants and the rose-trees, I saw a thread of a moon
just two nights old glimmering behind a filmy cloud. So, by
next Sunday evening we shall have light for the hill-trails.

Ash Wednesday,
February 28, 1906.

I stood at the door outside of the little Catholic chapel, this
morning, watching the intent worshipers on their knees, who
waited with patient eagerness, each one, for the crosslike dab
of ashes on his forehead. The ash is dampened with holy oil
or holy water. The floor was crowded to the doorway with
a kneeling mass, and the silent crowd overflowed into the
street, kneeling erect. Every one was clean and tidy, most of
them peasants from the hills, in their faded cotton clothes —
the women with white kerchiefs over their heads and tied under
their chins. Of course feminine heads must be covered in
church as rigorously as masculine pates must be bared.

I noticed in the little congregation a solemnity new to me
even for such occasions. One realized what " the prophet,"
the Homhre-Dios, God-man, has been doing lately at least
in the country places and in these far-away hills. Poor, dull
Jose Morales from Jayuya-way, has been sent by " the
Church " all through these parts and elsewhere, preaching,
and it claims for him inspiration from Heaven, and even
more. He is an ignorant peasant who cannot read, and even
this is set to his credit among his followers who say, " Won-
derful it is that, not knowing how to read or write, such words
as he preaches should proceed out of his mouth! " At any
rate, he has aroused a religious feeling among the people,
even in the neighborhood of Ponce itself and while, in former
times, the poorer people did not much trouble themselves to

Child of the Sea [165^

come to the fiestas of the church, they now swarm down to this
little church, and their attitude is sincerely devotional. They
truly believe that Morales is a man sent from God, and they
clothe the inane words he is said to speak in his *' sermons,"
with the fervor of their own awakened imagination and faith.
He is not here — only the priest was in the chapel murmuring
unintelligible Latin words as he swiftly and mechanically
" crossed " the forehead of each suppliant at his feet with
ashes. Among the white-kerchiefed heads, there were others
draped in black veils or lace mantillas representing the
senoras of the town. How much or how little does this wear-
ing of ashes upon the brow mean to them? So carnival has
ended with the ashes, and Lent begins today.

March 1, 1906.

March has come in like a storming lion, if only a Porto
Rican lion, and the north wind blows in tepid gusts and a white
mist blots out the mountains. The Giant lies tucked under one
of his heaviest blankets today, and not even the tip of his nose —
his best feature — is visible.

Yesterday, I walked out to the plantation of the Cuban
doctor's cousins. The family is in deepest mourning, having

just lost a grown son under tragic circumstances. Dona

and the girls were gentle and affectionate, and I seemed to get
closer to their hearts than ever before. They wanted consola-
tion, for it seems they have found none. I tried to give the
mother comfort, telling her of where I have so often found it,
and where many in Porto Rico are finding it, and they promised
to read John's Gospel which I left with them. They are
** good Catholics," but I suppose no one here would think of
turning to the priest for comfort — another gamester of notori-
ous reputation. The S family are refined, educated peo-

[166] Child of the Sea

«w — ■ mmm HMUMirrimiHI'iiiMNliniBi i n mi ■!— — —cm— ■

pie. The father tells me that the hurricane of six years ago
destroyed twenty of their tenants' houses, and most of the cof-
fee, along with the shading trees, and he has never been able
to reinstate himself and get the estate in order, so the skeleton
drying-frames for the coffee-berries still stretch empty, useless
arms from beneath the big dwelling-house.

Sunday, March 4, 1906.

My last Sunday here — a beautiful one. What a children's
work might be built up here, if one might only stay!

March 6, 1906.

I do not know what I should do for reading if remaining
longer in Adjuntas, for the evenings are long in my room, when
there are no cultos. This from Stevenson's " El Dorado " is
apropos of my plight, having brought few books in the wee
trunk:

One who goes touring afoot with a single volume in his knapsack reads
with circumspection, pausing often to reflect, and often laying the book
down to contemplate the landscape or the prints in the inn-parlor [adver-
tisements of Pabst's beer in choice gilt frames and the Scott's Emulsion
boy with the big codfish!], for he fears to come to an end of his enter-
tainment and be left companionless on the last stages of his journey.

And " companionless " I am left now, although I brought more
than " a single volume " with me!.

Child of the Sea [167]

XVII

Not in the solitude
Alone, may man communicate with Heaven, or see

Only in savage wood
And sunny vale the present Deity;

Or only hear his voice
Where the winds whisper and the waves rejoice.

Even here, do I behold
Thy steps, Almighty! — here amid the crowd

Through the great city rolled
With everlasting murmur deep and low.

— Bryant.

Aboard the S. S. Coamo,

for Porto Rico, Atlantic Ocean,

September 23, 1906.

MISS Alice Shorey, of Baltimore, Md., has been
appointed in Miss G.'s place to work with me in
Ponce, and she hurried to get ready to come away
from home to the Island with me. She is bright-eyed and
cheerful and a good sailor.

Rio Piedras, P. R.,
September 27, 1906.

We finally came to our moorings at the San Juan pier last
night — no need of little bobbing boats and swarthy boatmen
to take us to the shore nowadays — and I think a thousand
people must have been at the pier to welcome the ship's arrival.
Evidently, they had come down on a moonlight frolic, and
most were Porto Ricans.

Miss S. and I stayed aboard, while every one else went
M

[168] Child of the Sea

ashore. It was ten p. m„ and we knew Miss Hayes was
seven miles away, here in Rio Piedras. The night was still
and cool on the water, and the crew did not begin to rattle
the donkey-engines for unloading the cargo until six o'clock
this morning. As we lay in our berths, it seemed good to be
listening to roosters crowing, and dogs barking ashore on the
land side, while the water softly sucked and splashed on the
other side about the ship.

Miss Hayes, still the faithful missionary who first wel-
comed me to the Island in 1899, came aboard for us before
breakfast, and we shall be with her for a day or two before
traveling on by train and carriage to Ponce.

Adjuntas, P. R.,
September 30, 1906.

A lovely blue and gold day. The mountain air is cool, and
our one day here has been full to the brim, and it is my birth-
day.

The thirty-three-mile drive from Arecibo on the north coast,
where we left the train from San Juan and took the mail-
coach, made a panorama of tropical pictures. Rocks and
ferns, palms, cascades, cliffs, and a river, all fresh and beau-
tiful from the rains, enchanted Miss S. to my full satisfaction.

The small, new church is finished, standing in its sturdy
stucco where the green, frame storehouse used to be. These
chapels seem to be built by magic, when one is not by to see.
But they always mean untold labor and worry on the part of
the missionary-in-charge of the district.

After morning service, today, we went to see a little dying
girl, baptized two months ago. She knew me and could speak,
and they told me she had been afraid she would die before I
came. It has been good to be once more among these dear
people where the Giant sleeps.

Child of the Sea [169]

Tomorrow, at seven a. m., we must continue our drive down
to Ponce.

Ponce, P. R.,
October 8, 1906.

Very hot weather. My horse, used for country mission
work while I was away, is still in the hills and I '* go walk-
ing!

I am more than thankful to have been at home when my
precious Sister died in August. And now, I am glad to be
here again where my life's work seems to be. Miss S.
declares that one need never be depressed or homesick after
visiting, from house to house, with the missionary. We had
made a round of visits, and she said the unwholesome-looking
shacks and crowded alleyways made our plain cottage seem
restful and homelike to her.

October 23, 1906.

Yesterday, I saw the pastor's new baby, a tiny, perfect
little creature, three days old. When I came in this afternoon
I was thunderstruck at finding Don Ramon's note telling me
that this second little one, Louisa Raquel, was dead! At
once, I went to them, and found even the dear, faint little
mother comforted with God's own comfort as when the first
Raquel died. What an example of fine, Christian courage
these dear young people are giving to those about us who are
groping in the mists of superstition and sorrow and despair!

The baby must have had some affection of the brain, for we
noticed a spasmodic movement of the arm yesterday as I helcj
the pretty little creature in my arms.

October 24, 1906.

My horse has come home, feeble and lean. S hitched

him to the phaeton today, for the first time? to take Don Ramon

[170] Child of the Sea

to the cemetery. The father would not let strange hands carry
the tiny white casket and lay it in the grave.

November 8, 1906.

The 6th was election day and again Ponce '* went Union-
ist," as did other towns of importance, but not all. In an
evening procession celebrating the victory and composed of a
rabble of men and women, I saw a large United States flag
carried upside down! What would President Roosevelt say
to that? He is to visit Porto Rico now, on his homeward way
from Panama.

I have been told a story of the elections which would
be amusing if it were not so true a witness to the real igno-
rance of the country people as to the drift of affairs, and to
the weakness of poor humanity at any stage. The Republi-
cans worked very hard in Ponce and in the country districts
around, and on the day before election they brought in num-
bers of clean, barefooted peasants, housing them in a high-
fenced, vacant lot, stuffing them not only with beans and rice,
but also with radiant party promises. And then they waked
on the eventful morning, to find that every man of those voters
had been bought over during the night by the Unionists, for
slightly more radiant promises and — shoes! The peasants
found their way homeward, after voting unionistas, in the
moral and physical condition to be imagined. I suppose that
election gains and loss, here, are won by the same methods,
more or less, as those practised in other countries.

So we have again the same mayor of the past two years.
The streets are being swept every day, and not only by the
trade-wind just now at first. And the city hall, alcaldia, has
been repainted for President Roosevelt.

On Sunday, Don R. baptized three, and there was the
Lord's Supper at night, Many were absent, These seem ta

Child of the Sea [171]

be days of testing for our people. There was not a quorum at
the business-meeting, Tuesday night, as the election returns
were expected at any moment. We who know frailty in our-
selves are ready to understand much in these whom we are
hoping to uplift, but, as Don Ramon says, it is time for them
to be learning that there is no clash in duties. Something like
this, he tells them: Let us know for what political party we
stand, hear its discussions, and vote as good citizens, leaving
the sordid all-night carousings and street-screaming to those
who have not learned the mind of Christ.

November 26, 1906.

This season of the year is always dangerous, following on
the heated end of the rainy season. Gusty, chilly winds blow
from the north and east, and the Islanders go down before la
grippe like grain under the scythe. This is the beginning of
much of the " consumption " of the throat and lungs, which
before the ending of another year will carry off scores of
underfed, anemic people to the cemetery.

Mr. Roosevelt spent the twentieth and twenty-first in the
Island, mostly in rapid transit. Coming from Panama in a
battle-ship, he landed at La Playa and spent two hours in
Ponce, at once. Then, crossing the Island by automobile, he
paused a few moments at each of the towns strung along the
Military Road. Back he came the next day from San Juan,
by rail and the new coach road, as Miss S. and I traveled
two months ago, and boarding the ship again, without stopping
this time in Ponce, he is I suppose at this moment nearing New
York! Presidents cannot loiter as other tourists do.

January 17, 1907.

Breezy, cool, sunshiny days, fit for work. Since my poor
horse Brownie died, at last, after three weeks of attempted

[172] Child of the Sea

" cures," I have tramped the long streets from end to end,
north, east, south, and west on rather rheumatic feet.

Note, apropos of some visits of disciplina among our flock:
It is easy to sit and sing oneself away, in a well-ordered chapel,
hard to take up the intimate concerns of daily life in sordid
surroundings, and £eep one's own feet and fingers out of the
muck. We must be lenient in judgment, yes, but unwearying
in leading and uplifting toward the light.

February 22, 1907.

Last week, I began reading " Pilgrim's Progress " in the
women's Monday evening hour. This will be the third read-
ing of the book in Spanish to some who have fairly gulped it
down with ears and eyes!

June 30, 1907.

Troubled in these days by certain happenings among our
people. There is much illness besides, fevers, pneumonia, con-
sumption. I was not troubled over the death of a young
man last week though grieving over his suffering, for the last
months of Eladio's long, weary illness of the lungs brought him
to Christ, and he was even glad to die. When I last saw him,
a few hours before the end, he could still smile gently and say
" Lea" read. He wore a most lovely expression of counte-
nance. There was no one near to lament his going, as he had
no home, and had been cared for by a member of the church.
Such quiet, hopeful deaths preach sermons among Roman
Catholic neighbors.

One of the girls in the industrial class in La Playa has been
taken violently ill. Tuta is a good, gentle child of fifteen years.
She recognized me yesterday, but was unable to speak. She
cannot live, and my heart aches for the mother who must lose
her one little daughter.

Child of the Sea [173]

July 8, 1907.

She died after three days of pernicious fever.

And now I must be thinking of going to Barros, for a long
visit. Miss S. will be in Adjuntas, and we shall close the
cottage. Our good Porto Rican women are left to do the
teaching for a while, and the cool mountain air will make us
both new again.

[174] Child of the Sea

XVIII

I stood upon the hills, when heaven's wide arch
Was glorious with the sun's returning march,

If thou art worn and hard beset

With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget,

If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep

Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,

Go to the woods and hills! No tears

Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.

— Longfellow.

Americans' Home, Barros, P. R.,
July 21,1907.

For my small corner of the world —
Blue sea, blue sky, and pale green sod,
And noble mountains glistening mistily —
I thank thee, God!

THREE horses abreast, galloping up-hill as well as
down, with three changes at the posting-stations, brought
me, in Don Victor's guagua1, to Coamo in three hours.
Early the next morning, after the night spent with dear little
Miss G. in the Troyers' house, I set out alone for the long
drive to Barros. Four hours over the beautiful upward road,
shaded by flamboydn trees in brilliant scarlet flower, and man-
goes and palms, brought me to Barranquitas. My coachman,
horses, and carriage were all good ones, and I rested per-

1The derivation of this queer word is not clear. But it is probably
from the English word wagon, for guagua meant a long-bodied wagon
with several seats, used as a stage.

Child of the Sea [175]_

fectly during the drive, with no need to talk, and with very
little thought about anything. At B. I lunched and
rested in the house of my old friends with whom I have so
often stopped. Then, engaging another carriage and driver,
I left for Barros at half past three by the new road, for three
more hours of climbing. The fine highway, too narrow but
well built, is about finished as far as Barros, and my progress,
dashing around curves and along perilous edges of precipices,
was very unlike the leisurely hammock trip of three years ago,
by short cuts over the trail. The scenery is lovely now — long,
green, velvety ribs of the mountains stretch down into the
valley quite to the little river flowing by, with the slim shadows
of the royal palms streaming across the green.

I had expected to be met by a horse and some one to escort
me the rest of the way from a point a kilometer or two outside
of Barros. For I had heard that the road was not yet fit
for a carriage entrance into town, as one or two bridges over
ravines are not finished, and the blasting of a cliff is still going
on. But instead of a horse and rider, several " brethren "
afoot were waiting for me near the end, with a crowd of boys
and girls in high feather, all intent upon my driving quite into
town, the first woman to enter on wheels — they would make it
possible!

For nearly an hour we labored on. A dozen times I alighted
on my aching ankle — sprained last Sunday in Ponce by slip-
ping on a mango seed — at places too risky and rough for even
an empty coach. Twice the men unhitched the horses, and
led them down steep places to ford the streams below, while
several rolled the carnage by hand over the skeleton bridges
on planks which they laid across the beams. Huge masses of
rock blocked the road in some places, the precipice falling
sheerly off from the outside edge of the way. The children
scampered behind the carriage with glee, swarming into it, over

[176] Child of the Sea

it, under it, everywhere, whenever it stopped for us to enter it
again.

At last, we came to the finish in triumph, and dashed into
town, the carriage full inside, and small boys perched on the
steps and atop the little trunk strapped on behind, with the
town all turned out to see.

Only that morning, two carriages had come in, ahead of
me, the very first ever to enter Barros and full of men. The
town took holiday and was wild with excitement. A perfect
mob swarmed about Tia's inn, so that we could not drive
quite to the door. Must my entries here be spectacular always?
Dear little Barros has enough of nervous electricity to light
the dark, little town! Of course, if I had ridden horseback, I
should have come peacefully pacing into town this afternoon,
without notice, as the men missionaries have been doing for
years, but the fact of carriage connection with the outside
world being actually established made all the difference last
Friday, and for " Dona Juanita " to be the " first " woman
again had quite intoxicated the little church.

The village priest, a young Frenchman, has my old room
overlooking the chapel roof and I have taken the one on the
other side of the parlor-dining-room. The priest is ill with
malarial fever, and not only must his room be kept shut up
tight and dark, but the public reception-room also, where one
sits and eats, is closed to the air, as much as possible, and is a
dreary place enough. But my own little corner cubby is light
and airy, as I keep the solid shutters open day and night.
What if an open sewer-ditch passes directly under my window
— above stirs the sweet mountain air!

It seems odd for this poor sick, homeless, wifeless priest to
be living under the same roof as the Protestant missionary. If
he pleases, he can listen to the sermons preached in the heretic
chapel almost within touch of his hands from the window, shd

Child of the Sea [177J

he cannot, if he would, help hearing the strenuous singing, even
though his solid shutters are kept hermetically closed. Every
day, his parishioners come to see him in his dark, airless, can-
dle-lighted little chamber. Even girls go in to ask for his bless-
ing, poor young things!

July 23, 1907.

Yesterday our girls came to begin their Bible study, and the
bedquilt piecing. None of them need me to teach them to sew.
I should say not! But stitching the bright blocks helps to pass
a half hour of conversation for our mutual acquaintance and
the bedquilt is to be given to some needy body. They are
loyal, affectionate young things, some perhaps lovably senti-
mental. One cried a few nights ago because she thought of
the time, she said, when I should be going away again. She
says this keeps her from enjoying my visit!

I think they need a Christian woman friend to live among
them, training and broadening them, as they are in a minority
here, apart and different from the other girls who were once
their associates. They are made to feel this keenly sometimes.

A widow lives in the rooms behind our chapel and cares
for it. This morning her little ailing son died. Four girls bore
the tiny white coffin between them to the cemetery, and the
Sunday School tramped along with it. There was some of the
usual careless behavior along the way as others, not of the
mission, joined us, laughing and talking as they straggled along.
There was the customary oration at the cemetery gate, where
we all stopped to hear thanks given by some one appointed
to do this, for the attention of friends in the funeral procession.
Later, little boys and girls of " Ours " sang " Around the
Throne of God in Heaven " almost too merrily about the wee
grave, holding in their hands green branches broken from shrubs
in the cemetery which they afterward stuck into the broken earth

[178] Child of the Sea

around the grave. The poor baby was afflicted and senseless,
and his death was a mercy, but the mother misses his little
cries tonight and grieves as mothers do.

July 25, 1907.

Nine years ago today, our soldiers entered Porto Rico at
Guanica. Except that government offices are closed, there is
no sign of the holiday here today, and showers of rain pour
down upon us. I have been too sleepy all day to hold my eyes
open — a toxic condition caused by improper food and mala-
rial infection. The heat at noontime is intense.

There is a slight epidemic of fever in the town, but the priest
is getting better, and now sits pallid and listless in the outer
room. As the drinking-water for the public stands in an
earthen jar on a shelf in this unventilated room, I boil my own
in a tiny kettle over my alcohol-lamp.

Don Pancho's Country-house,
Culebras District, beyond Barros,
August 4, 1907.

Don Pancho's wife and eldest son are earnestly studying
the Bible, the latter having a pretty wife and baby in Barros.
They have had visits from Mr. Rudd, and they have prac-
tically accepted the gospel, having had the missionary at the
country-house for services more than once. As my stay is
ending in Barros, I accepted Dona Justina's invitation to ricle
out to Culebras and spend a week with her family. Dona
J. wants to understand better many points she is interested in
and for this wished me to come.

So yesterday, Don Francisco, the married son, mounted me
on a little horse in Barros, and himself escorted me over the
mountains. For days beforehand, the trip had been discussed
in my hearing by all the outside friends, as villagers will dis-

Child of the Sea [Vm

cuss in neighborly fashion. Most agreed that it would be a
risky attempt for me, for it is considered one of the difficult
journeys hereabouts. Even good horsemen sometimes find the
almost perpendicular descent into the valley on the other side
of the mountain most trying and excessively fatiguing, and
some called it appalling for a lady.

As I mounted at the door, the street corner was filled with
friendly well-wishers. One clasped her hands as I rode
off bravely. " Ay, la pobre! " she cried, "Alas! the poor
thing! " suggesting that I might be riding gaily to my doom.
Most of this sympathy, I knew, was secretly prompted by their
knowledge of my small experience in riding, for all these hill
people ride without fear. And I determined not to let their dis-
trust of me make me show the white feather, so off I went
gaily, Don F. alongside on a beautiful, prancing steed, and the
peon riding close behind.

At the top of the ridge, after a while, before beginning the
steep descent into the very bottom of the valley, we came to a
fine stretch of turfy fields, and, for the first time in my life,
I had a rollicking canter on horseback. A rocking-chair's
motion could not have been easier than my pretty pony's pac-
ing, and Don F. was proud of my staying in the saddle — of
course a side-saddle!

If the peon had not walked at my horse's head, holding the
bridle, and if I had not been assured that the horse was the
pick of the ladies' mounts from Don Pancho's stable and as
sure-footed as a mountain-goat, that narrow, rocky trail down,
down the mountain would have been impossible for me. There
was possibly no danger at all, but today I sit and look out
of my window, straight up and up, where the trail winds some-
times on the dizzy razorback edge of a ridge with precipices
falling steeply away on each side, and wonder how I am ever
to get to the top of that awful grade again !

[180] Child of the Sea

August 8, 1907.

Don P.'s plantation is mostly of coffee, several mountain-
sides belonging to him being covered with the groves shading
the coffee-trees. Water from a cool, mountain spring is piped
down to the house in abundance. The dwelling is very large,
of two stories with verandas, and furnished most comfortably.
Don P. has shown me the rooms on the ground floor where
the coffee is stored before it is sent up over the mountain
by pack-mules. Also, sugar and bacon and all manner of
necessities are stored there, for family use, and even straw hats
for the hired men and tenants.

There is a piano in the large parlor, up-stairs where the
dwelling-rooms are, and how ever did it get there from the
world above? In the kitchen, there is a huge platform, waist-
high, in the center of the room, filled with earth, on which fires
are kept burning continuously, with two cooks preparing food
for the twenty-one persons — family and retainers about the
house alone — who eat under this roof daily. We have abun-
dant meals, and pleasant talk about the table. The man who
serves between the table and the kitchen is a dwarfish deaf-
mute, uncanny to behold, but devoted to his master. The
other ** retainers " have their special offices, one boy's sole duty
being that of sitting in the hall of the upper entrance with a
whip to keep the dogs out! These are legion and lie in wait
on the ground below, and up and down the outer stairway,
waiting for a chance to slip in when some one mounts to the
entrance doors above.

The three younger daughters of the house, who have been
attending school " outside," are at home and make things most
agreeable for me. There are two little sons — one a scrap of
a boy who plays silently alone, in out-of-the-way corners, all
manner of games. I found him once manipulating a little box

Child of the Sea [1811

for a wagon, to which was very ingeniously yoked a team of
three or four pairs of oxen in the shape of large mango seeds.
His cries of Oosch! Oosch! as he guided the team with a
goad, was perfectly realistic.

Now a little granddaughter has been brought over from Bar-
ros, and there are four generations under the roof. For the
most interesting member of the family, after all, is a dear, old
great-grandmother in her eighty-eighth year. She is full of
life, and is a devoted Romanist, sitting on her bed and praying
devotedly at night when she cannot sleep.

All the simple, wholesome affairs of farm life go on below
in the ample premises, and the peons live on the estate round
about. The cows are driven up to the front of the house at
milkingtime, to be under the mistress' or master's eye, and
goblets of warm milk are brought up to us on the veranda.

August 9, 1907.

I find Dona J. an earnest seeker after truth, and her black
eyes shine as we talk together of the beautiful things of God,
and her mind at least is entirely convinced that his plan
for the redemption of man is the only one. Both of these,
Dona J. and her son, will have trials enough to prove their
faith — indeed trials have already begun, and are being faith-
fully borne.

If it were not such a busy, happy household, it would be
lonely here, as this is the only house in the deep valley, I be-
lieve, except those of Don P.'s tenants. We stand on the
balconies and look directly up, on all sides, into the dark,
green mountain heights, and to me it seems as if we were the
last people left alive on earth.

In the evening, we sing Spanish hymns from the books they
have bought, one of the senoritas accompanying us on the
piano. Outdoors is wrapped in utter darkness, except for the

[182] Child of the Sea

gleaming of the stars. Mars has come very close to the earth
this summer.

May this whole dear family come to know Christ fully, and
to work for him in this isolated valley. The simple life of the
well-to-do Porto Rican planter seems a very happy life, though
even Don P. speaks of " better times " and the greater ease
of past years.

[The son, later, became one of our most useful preachers,
and a pastor in Coamo. He led a singularly blameless life.
His work was arduous, as there were outside preaching-sta-
tions to be visited every week, with crossings at dangerous
fords by night, in the rainy season, when he could only trust to
the instinct of his horse for going in safety through the dark-
ness and the river. He chose the life of a mission pastor, when
" the world," in consideration of the family's means and posi-
tion, offered him many inducements to other courses, and in a
few years he died true to his faith and chosen work.]

Barros, P. R.,
August 10, 1907.

Back again at Tia's for a few days. By my not daring to
look back and down and not letting my giddy head get the
better of my nerve, the pony brought me safely up to the gate
at the top of the grade, and down again into Barros, tonight.
The chapel was already lighted for service, so 1 jumped off
and went straight from the saddle to the prayer-meeting, rather
shaky and disheveled.

August 13, 1907.

The bedquilt is finished and is to be given to a crippled
widow, mother of seven children, in Don Pancho's neighbor-
hood, in the Culebras district. The girls have been given a

Child of the Sea [m

written examination on John's Gospel and have done re-
markably well in their thoughtful answers.

Tomorrow, I must take flight again over the new road,
cleared now, with bridges all complete, and after a day and
night in Barranquitas must hie me on to Ponce.

Ponce, P. R.,
August 25, 1907.

There is much to do after the month out of town. Miss
S. is still in Adjuntas and likes it there. Ponce is hot and dry.

This morning at Sunday School, we showed the children's

tabernacle, apropos of the Bible lesson. Don F , the

superintendent, confesses that he never before could understand
what manner of building it could have been, with its boards
and posts and sockets and cords and curtains manifold. The
Iktle model can be taken apart, packed in parcels, and set up
again on short notice.

My little study window overlooks an abandoned garden
shut in by high walls from the noisy street — a daily joy. Pink
coral vine clambers over ruined walls inside, a big nispero tree
shades one corner, and birds flock to the tree for the sweet
russet fruit. A faint, perfumed air stirs the vines and enters
my window, now and then, fresh and reviving, after the dusty
day at the missions. Now I shall have tea, and then be off
in the cooling dusk to evening service. Three are to be baptized
tonight.

August 27, 1907.

These days are given to visiting and teaching some who wish
to be baptized. Some eyes must be opened to responsibilities
too carelessly sought. From some it is hard to have frank ex-
pressions of belief ; from others we have clear, convincing state-
ments that do our hearts good.

N

[184] Child of the Sea

Now, I shall begin a correspondence course of Bible study
for some of the young women who live in out-of-the-way places,
whom I cannot reach personally. There are a few in the out-
station churches who are intelligent and persistent enough to
go through with such a course — not many, after all. If they
are to be Sunday School teachers, they need to know more
than their own reading can show them. It will mean almost
too much added work, so much hand-writing every month,
even with carbon copies, but it must be gotten in somehow, and
Matilde will help.

Child of the Sea [185]

XIX

And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright
Through the deep purple of the twilight air

Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light,
With strange unearthly splendor in the glare.

The mariner remembers, when a child

On his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink,

And when returning from adventure wild,
He saw it rise again on ocean's brink.

— " The Lighthouse" Longfellow.

Ponce, P. R.,
September 17, 1907.

TWENTY-EIGHT churches of " Ours " were repre-
sented in the 6th annual meeting in Yauco which closed
yesterday. Most of these are small, and poor in this
world's goods, but many are rich in faithfulness and hope, the
reports from country churches being always of special interest
to me. The sixteen hundred and twenty-three members have
contributed two thousand and twenty-three dollars and ninety
cents ($2,023.90) this year. Each church is in charge of
some Porto Rican brother — in some cases two or three being
under one man's guidance. The four American missionaries-
in-charge, Messrs. Rudd, Humphrey, Vodra, and Troyer,
have the oversight of these fields, by districts, and, as yet, but
two native preachers have been ordained.

A " living picture," perfectly unconscious and spontaneous,
of one of our country preachers impressed me very much. The
diligence of all the delegates was notable, and my heart was
more stirred by their absorbed faces and the earnestness of

[186] Child of the Sea

their note-taking than by any of the discussions and " papers."
The singing too was really delightful. But above all, I was
struck by the look on M 's face as he led one of the devo-
tional exercises from the platform. He was plainly dressed,
and his face was lined and rugged. He gave out the hymn,
" Jesus, Lover of My Soul," in Spanish, and the rapt look
that touched his face, as he stood, innocent of any pose, clasp-
ing the hymn-book to his breast as he sang, was a revelation of
what such a " Lover " can do for a man. Tears filled my eyes
as I watched the furrowed face. As he raised his eyes to
heaven in singing, in all self-unconsciousness, ** Other refuge
have I none," I thought of the revelations he had made to me
in earlier years, of how the Lord had raised him up from the
very muck and mire and had set his feet in a clean place. The
transformation showed in his worn but peaceful face, and the
thought of the patient tramping of such a man's feet — for he
goes afoot as colporteur and preacher up and down the hill-
trails — makes me realize the prophet's meaning in crying,
" How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who
bringeth good tidings! "

We missed Mr. Troyer from the meeting, as his family
has returned from the States without him, leaving him to seek
health for a year in the far West of the United States. Miss
Stassen is a new missionary who has come to help in Mrs.
Troyer's school in Coamo, and two other young women have
been added to the working force on the far side of the Island.
We were almost a complete family in Yauco.

October 13, 1907.

Miss Shorey, my companion in the mission since last fall,
has been ailing for some time, and does not recuperate from
her depression and discouragement. She sleeps very little, and

Child of the Sea [18£

I believe she will need to go home to Baltimore, if she is to re-
cover her vitality and poise. The doctor advises this, but it is
a hard step for her to take.

Aboard S. S. Ponce,
for New York,
October 30, 1907.

We embarked at noon, yesterday, from La Playa. Today,
we are steaming easily through the dark-blue tropic sea under
a lovely sky. Miss S.'s case has given me much anxiety,
and I am glad to be taking her home to her mother. It was
hard to break off suddenly from work, at this busiest season,
but there was no one else to come with Miss S., and I am
to return on this same ship, as soon as it discharges its cargo
and reloads at the Brooklyn pier. We are the only lady-pas-
sengers, and the stewardess and doctor are unfailing in their
attentions.

November 3, 1907.

A nip of the North in the air! Miss S. rather stronger,
cats with a good appetite, and has played a game or two of
dominoes with us.

Today, I have sent a wireless message from off the Vir-
ginia coast to her father in Baltimore, asking for some one to
meet us at the pier tomorrow. Ten words " wirelessed," two
dollars.

Aboard the S. S. Ponce again,
for Porto Rico, Atlantic Ocean,
November 14, 1907.

We landed on the 4th and found a brother of Miss S.
waiting on the pier at Brooklyn, having received my message
from the ship, the night before, in time to catch a train for
New York.

[188] Child of the Sea

After five days ashore, I came aboard again on the 9th
to hurry back to the Island. A note from Mrs. S. received
aboard ship before sailing tells, I am sorry to say, of the in-
creasing illness of her daughter.

Four American Roman Catholic missionary-priests are
aboard, bound for Porto Rico.

November 15, 1907.

Land in sight! The Island on our left, the black peak of
El Desecho rock lifted out of the waves, on our right. . . At
sunset, yesterday, I sat in a corner of the social hall, alone but
for a priest reading from a little black book. Enters another
passenger, Mr. L , and addresses the priest without see-
ing me in my dim corner:

*' Ah! got it all to yourself in here, have you? "
" Yes, taking it easy — getting off my prayers! "

Ponce, P. R.f
December 4, 1907.

This afternoon, after two hours in church rehearsing the
children for the end-of-the-year entertainment, I went to see
the pastor's new baby. This little one was born in St. Luke's
Hospital, the new enterprise of the Episcopal mission, and
little dark-eyed Lucila will live — a lusty baby. When have I
ever seen such richness of color as the sunset glory bathed the
unlovely streets on my way home? A planet blazed in the
west through the deep rose and gold of the air, and there was
no speck of cloud to be seen anywhere. Now the stars are
lighting the moonless sky as I write. Since I had the acacia
branches cut away, the eastern sky is clear above the gable of
my neighbor, Don Luis, and I have a fine view from my
chamber window of the wonderful winter procession of rising
constellations every night, from nine o'clock on. Blue-bright

Child of the Sea [jm

Vega in Lyra, my joy all summer, is low in the northwest
these nights. Fomalhaut the lonely shines in the far south.
Mars is still retreating from the earth, after his nearest ap-
proach in Sagittarius, last August. We used to watch his
glowing red, from the balcony of Don Pancho's house away
down in the Culebras valley. The book, " The Friendly
Stars," has been an inspiration during the past months, de-
manding uplifted eyes, far-reaching vision!

Since Miss Shorey went away, Matilde sleeps at the cottage
every night to keep me company. A nice quiet girl; always
thoughtful for my comfort.

December 13, 1907.

Mrs. S. writes from Baltimore that her daughter Alice
quietly passed away on December 3, in an unconscious condi-
tion. At last, little Miss Shorey is " satisfied," but she will
be missed by many of our women and girls among whom she
was winning a way, as she was learning Spanish with unusual
ease.

The topic-cards for the women's Bible studies are ready,
printed by Mr. Humphrey in Caguas on his mission press, and
gay with varied colors.

Sunday, December 29, 1907.

There were ten baptisms tonight, ending a beautiful ser-
vice for the beautiful last Sunday of the year.

Last night, six of the ten Sunday School teachers (and
supplies) came to the cottage for a social hour, with coffee,
chocolate, and cakes served on the little round table. Each
chose a favorite hymn for singing at the end.

I spent most of Christmas Day out of doors. Old sister
Fela was dying in the Tncoche Hospital and perfectly un-

[190] Child of the Sea

conscious, as she had been for days, as I stood on Christmas
morning for a few moments at her bedside in the long ward.
The brethren of La Playa Church had had all ready for her
burial, for some time, in order that the poor old, wasted body
need not be carried in the " Black Maria " to the paupers*
ground and given an unnamed burial. And they were waiting
for the message to be sent them, so there was nothing more I
could do after sending them word of the end at hand.

Then, on my wheel, I kept on out into the country, books,
water-bottle, and luncheon strapped to the handle-bars. For
two or three long, restful hours, it was good to be out of the
tooting, racketing, honk-honking streets, in the quiet country,

Where man in the bush with God may meet.

Woe to man, however, if He were not also to be met in the
noisy, cheerful streets, as well! But it was there, " in the
bush " that I wished to meet him that day, with just the birds
and butterflies for company. Later, after eating my sand-
wiches, I kept on to the settlement at Portugues and visited
some of our far-off people there, living among the plantains,
Claudino appeared in time to give me his big, strong hand for
crossing the stepping-stones of the river.

In the evening there was prayer-meeting in the Ponce church.

December 31, 1907.

Ten p. m. The music of the New Year's ball in the Casino
close by sounds merrily as I write the date of the last day of
this year.

Some mission cares press heavily. The spirit of a few of
our people distresses us, and is working havoc in their own
lives. How much Christ had to bear from hi? chosen Twelve,

Child of the Sea M9M

and the " contradiction of sinners against himself," and he is
still bearing it. With what patience and wisdom should we —
imperfect teachers— treat the contradictions of these new Chris-
tians !

Note. Setting one's face to the future *' like a flint," in
Isaiah's way, must not end in the petrification of one's heart !

January 1, 1908.

My way took me very early this morning, awheel, through
the streets of the Cantera on a message to some children who
must come for rehearsal tomorrow. New Year's Day is not
one for missionary visiting. Poor and desolate indeed is the
Poncenan today who cannot go out to walk in the streets or
ride on the electric-car, in new clothes and hat, or at the very
least with a gay new ribbon or necktie. I found even the early
morning world decked in its best bib and tucker. By after-
noon, the streets will be gay with pink, blue, yellow, green, and
red spots of color. Every mansion and shack has had a clean-
ing, and lace curtains hung even at doorways of the clean,
little houses where soap-shining children called out their vocifer-
ous Feliz ano nuevo, as I pedaled past.

Caja de Muertos Lighthouse,
off Porto Rico,
January 9, 1908.

My head was too tired to think, after the Sunday School
veladas were over, and the New Year's work taken somewhat
in hand, so I have come off here for a week's rest on this
rocky islet in the Caribbean Sea, nine miles from La Playa.
One of the two lighthouses guarding the roadstead is perched
on the top of this rock rising from the midst of coral reefs.

[192] Child of the Sea

I have many books with me, material for the preparation of
the girls' correspondence lessons for next month, and provisions
to last for a week.

January 14, 1908.

An exquisitely pure, fresh morning, with no dust from the
sea playing about the rock! I can understand that life here for
months at a time would grow monotonous, but it is full of
daily interest for me. The lighthouse keepers have been most
courteous and remind me of the sea-captains I have known, of
the kind who see God's hand in the sky and the waves. The
chief keeper of this Island Light is brother of the keeper of
Cardona Light across the roadstead.

The lamp in the high, round tower on the edge of the cliff
must be kept with exquisite care. Soft, clean cloths are used
for every-day polishing of the lenses of the huge, prismatic,
crystal bell enclosing the lamp. The winking eye of the light
must never really close from six p. m., until six a. m., though
from a distance it had always seemed to me, at nine miles away,
to open every three minutes, and close. I know now that this
winking effect is caused by the revolving of the great crystal
bell about the stationary lamp; certain of the panels of glass
permit the light to shine constantly over the nearer waters
round about, while the gleam, passing through other lenses as
the bell revolves, streams many miles out to sea every three
minutes and over to us at La Playa. Everything in the light-
house, from the lamp above and the little motor-engine below
which causes the bell to revolve, to the small brass knobs on
the doors, shines spotlessly.

Overhead is the arching sky, absolutely unobstructed for star-
gazing at night by roof gables or trees, and below is the chang-
ing sea, sometimes heaving in glassy swells, often ribbed and
" watered," green, purple, silver, bronze, blue, as the currents

Child of the Sea [193]^

and the winds and the sunlight change, at times seeming a
petrified, corrugated, azure floor. There is no noise, only the
plashing of the water on the narrow beach far below, and the
nights are full of peace.

Last night's reading in Mabie's " Meaning and Message of
the Cross " gave me deep thoughts of a i" potentially saved
humanity! " And is every man and woman and child I meet
a '* potentially saved " one, only waiting for the spark which
is to bring actual redemption? What a responsibility for one
who believes this?

January 15, 1908.

Pepe, the assistant keeper of the light, has been with me
down the steep cliff to the beach, and I have found lovely
stones and sea-urchin shells, and bits of coral and wonderful
filigree seaweed. It is a wild and rugged coast seaward, and
we have had one stormy night with a booming sea pounding
the rocks down below.

I have found Aries in Triangulum, from a neck-breaking
angle of vision, in the brilliant night sky. The strangeness of
the sensation of standing alone, in the night, on a peak of rock
in the sea! If I were a hermit, my mountain peak should be
one standing straight up out of the ocean. But I should like
to have one or two of these charcoal-burners' little huts down
on the shore for the company of the women and their babies !

Tomorrow I must leave the lighthouse.

Ponce, P. R.,
January 16, 1908.

It was a small gasoline boat that carried me over to the
lighthouse a week ago, but I came pelting home today in a big
sailboat which had brought mail and supplies to the rock.
Pepe having business in Ponce came with me, and with the

[194] ChJlJ of the Sea

wife of one of the charcoal-burners we were the only passen-
gers. Trade-wind astern, we dashed through the waves at
high speed, sitting atop the roof of the wee cabin and clinging
for our lives to whatever we could lay hands upon. . . Vidal
was waiting, with the cottage aired and open and lunch under
way, which, later oa, Pepe shared with me.

January 25, 1908.

Little black Leocadia is dying of tuberculosis of the throat.
Though her breathing is distressing, she could tell me this morn-
ing that her hope was in Christ, and I cannot doubt it. She
was baptized long ago, one of the first of the young people re-
ceived into the church, and she has tried to live as a Christian,
amid many difficulties. Certainly, there has not been brought
against her life the accusation too frequently heard today
against even some of those who have seemed to stand for better
things.

February 7, 1908.

She died, and the hermanos y hermanas buried her decently
in the big new civil cemetery. . . This afternoon I sat at the feet,
so to speak, of a little old lady of seventy years and saw that
she might lead me closer to Jesus' feet. She is too feeble and
dim-eyed now to go to the mission church alone, but she reads
a little at home and understands, living alone in her cabin a
long, long way from the church. She told me of her child-
hood, of her father who always taught his little ones to re-
frain from the sharp word of resentment.

I am often surprised at finding memory remnants of truly
Christian teaching of parents in the minds of some who talk
with me. All of these were, of course, Roman Catholics, but
in spite of error they seem to have been not very far behind

Child of the Sea [195]

many of those whom we feel more disposed to call Christian.
Some tell of a father's prayers to God with the family, many
speak of the old Bible which was respected and read and pre-
served until some upheaval in the family life caused its disap-
pearance. How I wish we might have begun to bring the
better understanding of God's word to the Island a hundred,
rather than only nine years ago!

Dona G , who was once my landlady in the first days

in Adjuntas, keeps a guest-house in this very street now, in
one of the massively built houses of old times. There is a
mirador above the second story — a large room standing alone
upon the spacious brick-paved roof, which I am going to rent
for a while. It is away up above the noisy, dusty street, yet no
farther away from my people. Living alone in the cottage
with a servant is too expensive for a single mission purse, and
it will be rather a welcome change to be having meals in the
dining-room below without racking my brains for planning
with the cook three solitary meals a day. When the Mis-
sion Board sends another to take Miss S.'s place in Ponce —
well! going to live again in one of these cottages with a friend
and Vidal will seem almost like going home. But the cool,
quiet mirador seems very inviting just now. Ever since I
came to Ponce I have wanted to live in a mirador, on a house-
top!

February 9, 1908.

A superb day, the mercury only at 79°, and cool and pleas-
ant for the long walk to Machuelo. I had to see the dear
sick baby Enrique, little brother of Sunday School scholars
across the river. He has bronchitic complication with typhoid
fever, and is very weak today, I sat a long while with the
mother, helping where I could. There are always many chil-
dren in our Island homes, but the mother never seems able to

1196] Child of the Sea

spare the little sick one, no matter how much care he gives her.
All was quiet and clean in the house, the other children being
at play outside. A neighbor told me of overhearing a conver-
sation between Enrique's brother, Pedrito aged five, and Ana
the chubby knee-baby of two and half years.

Pedrito: " Dona Juanita is God's lady and she lives in
God's house."

Ana: "God's? God's?"

Pedrito: "Yes, because she is all the time talking about
God."

Sunday, February 23, 1 908.

Enrique died this morning, after a month of constant suf-
fering, poor baby! After the Bible class in Machuelo, this
afternoon, I stopped in to see the mother. She was quiet —
relieved, I think, dear heart! that her baby was no longer
moaning on the bed.

Child of the Sea [197]

XX

Lord of the winds! I feel thee nigh,
1 know thy breath in the burning sky!
And I wait with a thrill in every vein
For the coming of the hurricane!
And Io! on the wing of the heavy gales,
Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails;
Silent and slow and terribly strong,
The mighty shadow is borne along.

While the world below, dismayed and dim,
Through the calm of the thick, hot temperature,
Looks up at the gloomy folds with fear.

•■—•*' The Hurricane" Longfellow.

Ponce, P. R.,
April 25, 1908.

THE general missionary, Mr. Rudd, tells of a long mis-
sionary trip among the hills during which three small
churches have been organized: one at Barranquitas, at
last, of seven members; another in Culebras, near the planter's
home, of nine; and a third in the country near Coamo, at
Pedro Garcia, of eleven men and women.

A few days ago I went to see our poor girl , who

has gone openly to live with a man, " without benefit of
clergy." How will it be possible for us to know of danger
of this kind before it is too late ? The first steps are not openly
taken, and how can our eyes and ears be in all places at once,
no matter how omnipresent our hearts may be. I had the rather
unusual experience of encountering the man in the case. He
does not often appear, but this one said to me very quietly,

[198] Child of the Sea

even respectfully, that he did not intend to marry

tried to say to them what it seemed to me Christ would have

said .

May 30, 1908.
Here I am on the roof of the guest-house named El Hogar,
" The Home." Peeping over the high parapet I can see the
dear cottage, closed and solitary, down in the street. My
roof cabin is large and more than cosy with books and desk,
rug and couch, all my own furnishings, freshly whitewashed
walls, and pictures and curtains hung. The way to the roof
begins at the front entrance by white marble stairs, and ends
at the top of the house in broken brick steps leading to the
roof door. Once outside, I have almost a " mountain peak "
of my own, and can look down into neighbors' high-walled
gardens and then away up to real mountains in the north. By
climbing a sort of ladder to the top of the front wall of the
house, which runs higher than the rest of the parapet, one may
gain a view of the shining sea two miles away.

June 3, 1908.

The air on the roof is sea air by day, and mountain air by
night. The trade-winds blow steadily from nine a. m. until
sunset. At nine p. m. the refreshing mountain breeze comes
down to us, after three hours of calm following sunset.

Some of the " sisters " have seen more from this roof, of the
round of sky, of the mountains and sea and the city, than they
had ever seen before. One lady, having lived all her life on
the ground, grew so giddy at the appalling height of the third
story that she turned quite pale and sick!

Downstairs, Charlie, the colored waiter from one of the En-
glish islands, takes good care of me at my little corner table
in the hotel dining-room. He sees that I have the breast of
chicken, and two helps of lettuce, and eggs boiled just right.

Child of the Sea [199]

June 13, 1908.

With so much to do alone, in Ponce, La Playa, and Ma-
chuelo, it is impossible now to leave for the long visits to out-
stations, but it is going to be possible to go to Yauco for a day
and night each week, for visiting and for a Bible class of
women. It will mean the early train on Friday mornings
from Ponce and the first train back again on Saturdays, with
the night between at the little Hotel Pla in Yauco.

July 7, 1908.

Hours afoot out of doors in the sun and wind and rain send
me up to my bed at night as tired as a day-laborer — more tired
sometimes, perhaps, as there is night labor as well, but the
soundest sleep of years comes to me on my cool roof!

Last week, I stayed in Yauco long enough to run over to
Guanica once more. Just ten years ago, this month, General
Miles brought a few of his battle-ships into the Bay, the rest of
the fleet remaining outside. A lady tells me that a dozen
Spanish guerrillas tried to keep Miles from landing! Mission
work there is slow, in spite of its having first received " the
invaders.' * Well, I am glad we came, but I cannot help won-
dering how much of the mission work that is being done in
the Island would endure and succeed if it were not for some
idealization of it, some bright imagination on the part of the
workers, some " vision of a happier Island ahead.

The native pastors preach and preach in all the little
churches, and everywhere there is growth, slower perhaps nu-
merically than during the first years. All the denominations at
work in the Island have churches and chapels and some have
schools. The American missionaries are constantly journeying,
preaching, teaching, training, building.

[200] Child of the Sea

August 3, 1908.

S brought me just now a splendid bunch of pink roses,

a Greek bearing a gift, for he desired the loan of one dollar,
and got it ! Smotheringly hot these days.

September 3, 1908.

Poor F is going to die, and in all my experience with

suffering and death here, I have never seen such a look of
helpless pain on any face as hers wears. Today, she kept
passing her burning hand over my bare cool arm and said it felt
*' so nice." She had not slept for days. I turned everybody
out and stroked her head and hands, praying for a few moments
of rest for her, and she fell asleep — not for long, but waked
so pleased to have had the prayer answered.

September 4, 1908.

F died at noon today. I found the quiet figure lying

on a clean cot. The breeze poured in from the sea, and a
** sister " sat cozily beside the cot, a tiny hand sewing-machine
on her lap, making the shroud. Others sat by in cheerful chat,
and neighbors' children ran in and out. The new-born baby
wailed in a hammock in a corner, till a young, motherly wo-
man caught it up and put it to her breast. It was good to see
the motherless mite take comfort. The two other little girls
are scarcely more than babies, but their papa comforts them
and he says he means to keep all three, himself.

September 7, 1908.

Miss Mary O. Lake, of Texas, has been appointed by the
women's Mission Board to the Ponce work and will come in
a month or so. This is the best of news, and I must begin to

Child of the Sea [20U

look for a cottage for us, at once. This is the day for G *s

English lesson. He is the only one left in Ponce of the four
young preachers who studied English with me early in the
year.

September 12, 1908.

When I came from the Yauco train this morning, I found
a message saying that dear Cruz Torres had died this morn-
ing early. The news went to my heart with a pang, for
she was one of those M pure in heart " whose listening face and
loving spirit are an inspiration to every missionary. For six
years, Cruz had had an aneurism formed in her chest, and she
knew that death might come at any instant from the bursting
of the arterial sac or tumor. When the aneurism first developed
six years ago, and I took a good American doctor to see her,
he saw at once the reason of her acute pain, and that there was
nothing to do for her, and nothing to tell her but the truth.
And I had to tell it. I cannot forget the peace and cheer of
her face as she heard her fate. The pain subsided, but for
ail these years she has known that any overexertion, a fit of
anger — anger could hardly be thought of in connection with
our converted Cruz — or sudden emotion might break the blood-
tumor in her breast and cause instantaneous death, and we
have all known it. I have seen her fine, eager face as she
has sat in almost the same seat in church all these six years
since, and long before — and I am sure I shall look for it there
still. It was Cruz who asked for the visit to her cousin, living
beyond Portugues, which resulted in the mission at Portugues,
but not in the conversion of the cousin.

I have often stopped by at her little house in the Alley of
the Flowers, Callejon de las Flores, for a chat and refresh-
ment of my own spirit, for Cruz was one of the Lord's happy
children. Last Monday she prayed sweetly with us in the

[202] Child of the Sea

women's study; on Tuesday night she was at the business-
meeting of the church; on Wednesday, at prayer-meeting; on
Friday, last night, it rained and she could not go to the cot-
tage-meeting in the Cantera, but Don Ramon called by and
found her sunny and well. This morning, Saturday, she arose
early as usual and, before dressing herself, prayed. Then,
as she bent to draw on her shoes and stockings, she quietly fell
over to one side as she sat, and was gone!

The poor old husband is disconsolate. None of us can for-
get how she used to pray for his conversion in our women's
meetings.

This afternoon, I sat in the quiet room where she lay and
read to the neighbor women who had gathered about the coffin
in respectful silence — so different from many a scene I have
witnessed about the dead. Then, I had to hurry away three
miles to La Playa, to the little girls waiting there for their
sewing and lesson. They were impressed in their innocent
hearts, as all have been, with the fact that " sister Cruz " had
prayed first, before she began to dress, and then went home!

Ponce, P. R.,
September 26, 1908.

At the seventh annual meeting of the churches held in Rio
Piedras, this month, the lady-v> orders Were given a Vote in the
proceedings, for the first time. . .

Today, we are " on the edge of a hurricane " in the West
Indian waters. Warning was published yesterday, and to-
day we have sudden storm-bursts of wind — rdfagas — cloud-
bursts of rain — aguaceros — from the black, driven clouds
overhead. The rain is so beaten by the wind, that Just now it
is whipped from the brick paving of my roof beyond the open
door, like snow in a blizzard. The mountains look to be

Child of the Sea [203]

simply drowning in the rain, and the clouds stream over the
tiled roof of my lovely cabin in long waving rags!

Sunday, September 27, 1908.

A black, portentous night just past, with the sea's thundering
two miles away at La Playa in my ears all night. La Playa
is inundated and I must go down there at once after Bible
School. The storm is not only at sea, but in the hills also, and
during the early evening I heard long, loud, weird cries, now
and then, from the direction of the river, which is of course in
flood. It is the ** backwater," driven in at its mouth by the
surging surf of the sea, that causes the inundations at La Playa.
But the hurricane did not arrive.

Later. I found the sea raging, and of a queer, creamy color,
with foaming crests. One steamer was in port, all other craft
gone in search of safer waters. The huts on posts along the
shore were empty, as the surf was running in under and beyond
them, but only one had been washed away, others leaned
giddily against the poles placed to secure them. Why will
people continue to build their shacks and live in such surround-
ings after constant warnings from the sea and river themselves?
The eternal " Why? "! One family of ** Ours," had had to
leave their home, the streets were little rivers, and I could not
get near the houses of any of our people, but a " brother "
called out to me across the mud and water that all was well.

And so another hurricane has passed us by!

In the Little Brown House,
October 12, 1908.

As Miss Lake is coming very soon, I have taken a small,
frame cottage on Cristina Street, after four months on the roof.
The house is old and shabby but is being freshly papered, and

[204] Child of the Sea

with a little inside painting and S 's scrubbing, it will do.

The sun shines in on both sides, and there is a yard with a
cocoanut palm and space for flowers. That space is a weedy,
tin-canny desert at present. I have moved in, with Matilde
again, and a tall black woman is established in the miniature
kitchen, temporarily. Also, there is a small white kitten, from
Yauco.

Tonight's Bible lesson for the " sisters " is on " The Moun-
tains " — a good subject for our sea-level Christians who often
pine for the alturas, the heights. Mission work was never more
alluring and in a way satisfying.

October 19, 1908.

A rainy day, and peddling men and boys go by with gunny
sacks pulled over head and shoulders, looking rather miserable.
Our street is of dirt, and there is even no sidewalk where it
passes our house, so we are shut in by a lake of water in front,
today.

There are said to be five thousand school children in Ponce,
and it seems to me that at least one thousand flock by us on
Cristina Street four times a day to and from the big school
campus just beyond the cottage. All branches of study are
in English, as Spanish is not allowed except in the regular hour
in each school for the study of Spanish, and in some of the
lowest grades. Even the kindergarten babes sing English
songs, whatever they may prattle among themselves. Already,
many teachers and principals of schools are Porto Ricans.

Today, the children go slopping by, under their little para-
sols, or without, most of the girls wearing white frocks, and
slippers for shoes! Little boys wear white too, and not one
goes barefoot if shoes of any kind can be had. The American
teachers tell me that it is a delight to teach these bright-eyed
youngsters. Do I not know it?

Child of the Sea [205]^

One of the new American teachers, a fine Christian girl from
Boulder, Colorado, is going to take a class in our mission
Sunday School — of the largest girls who know English. Why
do not all of the young people from wide-awake churches *' at
home," take an interest in the missions in the Island? Here
and there some one does, and it works well. Sometimes a mis-
sionary has difficult questions to answer from the natives who
wonder over the manner of ** Sunday-keeping " of some Ameri-
cans who come to the Island.

San Juan, P. R.,
November 12, 1908.

Miss Lake arrived today, and I was on the pier here, as the*
old S. S. Caracas warped in, and the gangway was raised to
the deck. There was a meeting here this week of the " Con-
greso Evangelico n of mission churches and workers in the
Island, so I came to attend the meeting, hoping very much that
the new missionary would have taken this week*s ship for the
Island, that I might kill two birds with one stone! Miss Lake
came straight away with me from the ship to the hotel, and as
we could not arrange to go on to Ponce today, it has been
possible to do a little sightseeing this afternoon. Mr. R. was
attending the " Congress M and agreed to take us to EI
Morro, which I have never seen on the inside, in all the
years here.

We spent an hour — having two new American school-
teachers also with us — in going over the interesting old fortress.
Uncle Sam has recently spent a fortune on an ugly new light-
house tower which has taken the place of the old, picturesque
Spanish tower which seemed to grow out of the hoary walls
of the fort. The new one is of slate-colored brick, almost
black, rising in obstreperous fashion above the richly yellowed
walls hung with vines and maiden-hair ferns. If less pio

[206] Child of the Sea

turesque it may be, however, a much more efficient light than
the old one.

A young Porto Rican orderly showed us around, and we
came in one place upon the huge hole plowed through a mighty
wall by one of our own shells on May 12, 1898, from Rear-
admiral Sampson's fleet.1

Ponce, P. R.,
November 16, 1908.

And now the other blue bedroom in our cottage is occu-
pied, and Miss Lake is already making it ** seem like home "
with her fresh white curtains and pictures. She has had ex-
perience of men and women in general, and of mission work
in particular, in New Mexico, so is prepared to be of use at
once, while she goes on diligently studying Spanish with a
teacher. I think we are going to love the ** little brown
house! "

An episode on the train as I traveled to San Juan last week
interested me. A tall, sweet-faced American woman, dressed
in a sort of deaconess costume, appeared on the Ponce streets
not long ago, and we soon learned that she was a teacher for
one of the nuns' schools, straight from " the States." She was
on the train with us last week, and she and I chatted together
until she left the train at Mayaguez. She told me that she was
not a *' sister," having taken no " vows," but that she was a
religious teacher of the Roman Catholic Church. She seemed
to have no objection to offer to my frank account of our own
reason for being in the Island, and spoke of those Porto
Ricans whom she had touched as in a state of " heathenism."
How easily I understood her meaning — that Roman Catholi-

1 " He bombarded the fortifications at San Juan in order to test tbeir
strength."- — Joseph B, Seabury, 1903,

Child of the Sea [207]^

cism was at such a low-water mark here that, in comparison
with "good Catholics," the people are "heathen! " She
has not yet learned how the poor have been absolutely neglected
by the priests unless *' faithful " at confession and mass, with
baptism and marriage by " The Church." Many send their
children to this large parochial school in Ponce rather than to
the public schools, and a nominal charge of five cents a week
is made, of even the poorest.

[208] Child of the Sea

XXI

But, to Truth's house there is a single door,

Which is Experience. He teaches best

Who feels the heart of all men in his breast,

And knows their strength or weakness through his own.

— Bayard Taylor.

Ponce, P. R.,
January 3, 1909.

WE have most of the strategic points as mission centers,
along the broad diagonal of the Island extending from
northeast southward. Presbyterians have most of
their strength in the west, Congregationalists, in the east; the
Christian Alliance and Lutherans are in the north, the Chris-
tians and United Brethren, in the south; and the Methodists, all
about. By a principle of comity, the different denominations
have agreed that but one shall work in towns numbering under
five thousand, and that one to be the first to have " driven
stakes." In the large cities several denominations work in their
various missions, harmoniously.

January 12, 1909.

The oyster-man is now on the porch-steps opening the dozen
tiny oysters (for ten cents) which are to make my soup today.
He comes through the streets, on certain days, with a few little
oysters in the bottom of a sack slung over his shoulders, cry-
ing " Ostiones! " It is wonderful how toothsome they are.
He tells me that he picks them off little trees growing along
the shore near Guayanilla. Miss L. is in Yauco today.

Child of the Sea Um_

There are sick and sorrowing people to be visited this p. m.
A girl lost her father by sudden death last week; there is
another dying " sister " in La Play a.

Up till late last night making my annual treasurer's report of
the church finances, and stupidly chasing sixty-one cents out
of the balance a favor, and did it !

Rio Piedras, P. R.,
January 28, 1909.

Our Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. A. E. Reynolds, has
come from Boston to visit the missions of our Boards, and I
came to meet her at the pier in San Juan. How rejoiced I was
to see her shining face looking down from the high deck of the
S. S. Carolina as I waited on the pier ! 1

We are in the hospitable home of our devoted missionary,
Mr. Cober, for two or three days that Mrs. R. may see the
missions hereabouts.

Ad juntas, P. R.,
February, 1, 1909.

On one night of our stay with Mrs. Cober in Rio Piedras,
she entertained a large number of the fine young normal school
students, at her house. Most of them are members of Mrs.
C.'s Bible class, in English, at the mission church. But they
are not all Protestants, by any means. We sang hymns in
both languages, and Mrs. R. spoke charmingly to the young
men and women, of Indian mission work in the United States.

Today, we took the train, and then a carriage at Arecibo
for this dear mountain town which I was most anxious for
Mrs. R. to see. The old house where ** Dona Clara " lived
and where the blue roses clambered up and down the livid

1The "Carolina" was torpedoed by the Germans in 1918 and sunk,
on its out voyage to Porto Rico.

[210] Child of the Sea

walls in my room, is occupied now by the red-faced priest,
who keeps a " hotel " there. We must take our meals there
for the day or two we are to stay, but sleep quite alone in
the '* Annex," no other than the big house behind, where Cap-
tain Andrus lived and where later I spent many happy weeks
alone with Luisa the cook. Mrs. R. is seeing the Sleeping
Giant, and the great mountain slopes, and the little river and
the flowery plaza, of which she has heard so much. Best of
all, as we could not have a Sunday here, she talked sweetly,
tonight, to the women, in a specially arranged service for her
and them in the new church.

The disreputable old priest himself waits on us at table,
in blowsy shirt-sleeves and trousers, looking anything but
priestly, and only men seem to congregate for meals in the un-
cleanly old house. How many memories, for me, gather
about the place — of the kind old lady of the house; of little
dying Anita; of Manuel, the sick mountain lad, now a strap-
ping young clerk in Ponce; of anxious thoughts for the little
beginning-church of five members; of heartaches over the
hordes of famishing people; of long readings and talks with
Dona Clara's family, now utterly dispersed !

Few of those touched by those first months of work here, in
the superficial way that many first-comers are touched by mis-
sion teaching, are with us now. Yet some of the best material
in the church today is from those days of first awakening.
Where are all my children who came swarming to the old
warehouse?

Ponce, P. R.,
February 18, 1909.

One wishes that a visit from Board representatives might be
longer than such visits always are. There is much they might
learn of the " true inwardness of things " which is not to be

Child of the Sea [2I_M

fully understood by attending specially arranged meetings and
receptions for welcoming or speeding. Still, in the case of
Mrs. R., we were delighted to have her for almost three
weeks of constant companionship as guest in the little brown
house, when she was not being taken off to ** missions." Mr.
and Mrs. Rudd did their part toward making her see just what
mission work has meant in this part of our Island, and we went
to Yauco and Coamo, and picked up shells on the shore of
Guanica Bay, and attended the marriage of the young pastor
there. Best of all for us were the quiet talks Miss Lake and
I enjoyed with her in our home. Mrs. Reynolds under-
stands the joys and the complications of mission work as I
believe few do. She fitted into our broken-up days as one
well accustomed to interruptions and to constant coming and
going.

At last, she went off by the Military Road across the Island,
to see the central districts, on her way back to San Juan and
her ship for New York.

April 6, 1909.

At vesper-tide,

Since none I wronged in deed or word today,
From whom should I crave pardon, Master, say? "

A voice replied:

From the sad child whose joy thou has not planned ;
The goaded beast whose friend thou didst not stand;
The rose that died for water from thy hand."

April 8, 1909.

Well, the " sad child " is asleep in her cot, in my study,
bathed (I hope not too strenuously), tea-ed hot for her cough
and fever.

[212] Child of the Sea

The " goaded beast *' I have not perhaps encountered today,
but I am afraid an unwatered " rose " is dying in a vase on
my sitting-room table at this moment tonight, and by my hand.
I am sorry. There has been no moment for thinking of fresh
water for a rose!

B , the sad child's mother, is very ill, will never be any

better, and was taken to a hospital today. A neighbor taking
the three boys, I brought the little girl home with me. She is
painfully thin, only six years old, and as wise as an owl. ,

Matilde is hemming a little blue frock of gingham for her
tonight.

April 10, 1909.

Ten-year-old I cannot live. I found her with flies

swarming over her bed, and had to come home and send her
a spare mosquito-bar to protect her from the pests she was too
feeble to drive away. No one else seemed to mind them.

April 15, 1909.

The " sad child " has been a very sad one indeed. After
sundry wailing-fits and runnings-away to the kind, but over-
crowded family which cares for the brothers, she is settling
down today to sew for her rag-doll.

Little I died on Tuesday, while I was in Yauco, and

was buried yesterday. I spent an hour at the house before
the burial. As the parents have been members of our church
for some time, I was troubled at the laying-out of the pathetic,
little dusky corpse. She was dressed in the white and blue
paraphernalia of the Virgin de la purisima, even to the half-
moon of silvered cardboard bound to her feet. A candle
burned at her head, flickering its light over the white veil and
orange-blossoms and blue ribbons of the little dead girl. I
had carried some flowers from the little garden of the church,

Child of the Sea [213]_

and we laid them in the coffin. A few " sisters " were present,
but there was none of the quiet dignity usually present in our
Christians' homes nor the comforting where there is hope in the
bereaved hearts. Some wrong is cooling the early devotion of
years ago, for such a display means more than a mere show of
spangles and blue ribbons, tinsel, and lights. Don Ramon,
the pastor, was able to read a few words from the New Testa-
ment and prayed. For the rest, the occasion was only a
fiesta, the house filled with curious comers and goers from the
street, mostly little wide-eyed, whispering children. Finally*
at six o'clock they were off to the cemetery. The casket was
covered with white cloth bound with blue tape, and was car-
ried by men. Six of I 's little girl friends walked along-
side, dressed in white with veils, and wearing artificial orange-
blossoms in their hair — all this, I was told, was to indicate the
virginity of all the little creatures!

From a book on hand, just now:

Something higher and greater than either heart, intellect, or soul, whis-
pered to her inmost self, "Work! God bids you do what is in you as
completely as you can, without asking for a reward of Love or Fame."

" Ah, but the world will never own women's work to be great, even
if it be so, because men give the verdict and man's praise is for himself,
and his own achievements, always."

"Man's praise! " went on the inward voice, "and what of God's
final justice? Have you not patience to wait for that, and faith to
work for it? "

Two more chapel dedications are announced for this month.
The first is for the mountain district of Sierra Alta, on the
heights above Yauco. The wee, white building can be seen
from even Guanica-by-the-sea as a tiny spot against the moun-

[214] Child of the Sea

tainside and, from Yauco nearer by, it looks like a dove-cote
perched amid the green of the high mountain slope. The other
chapel is for Guanica itself.

In some way I must have closer touch with these fine school-
girls of Ponce, in their teens as yet and members of the Sun-
day School, and with others who work in factories and tailor-
shops, a more personal touch than casual visits or the hours of
even the women's services can give. So, I am planning to get
them together at our cottage at least once a month.

April 16, 1909.

Little L is sewing diligently on a small petticoat for

herself, made of soft material easy for the clever baby fingers
to sew. For two days she has been a good child, and not too
*' sad." She helps pick up the gudsimas from the ground, so
troublesome a little fruit falling from a neighbor's tree from
over the wall. We have no pig to eat them! She waters the
plants with her small can, and even sweeps and dusts a little.
Her appetite is healthy now, and she meets me at the door
sometimes with a smile, if a rather wan one. She does not
really like it here, and wants to be with people of her own
kind, and as I must leave her alone all day with the servant,
I think it will be best to let her go, finally.

Monday, May 31, 1909.

I find that I have failed to note in my journals how the
women's missionary society began. We have the monthly
meeting tonight, several months now since its beginning. Hesi-
tating about suggesting another form of " offering " besides
that of the regular ones for expenses and for the sick poor of
the church, I had delayed forming a society of the women for
specific giving to missions, as always we have set apart a portion

Child of the Sea [215]^

of the regular church funds for this, and our people are being
instructed in the need of the world for the gospel.

One day last fall R , who washes for me, sat on the

roof chatting as I put up the laundry for her, and, at last,
quietly said something like this : " Dona Juanita, I want you
to keep twenty-five cents from my wash-money every month,
for missions, for those people who have not had the Bible
brought to them as we have."

I cautiously reminded her of her three fatherless children and
of the old house in disrepair for which she had been collecting
boards for mending, and asked her if she could afford to spare
quite So much at once. Her face beamed as she assured me
that she had thought about the matter for some time, and that
twenty-five cents was what she wished to give every month.
She said nothing about any one else giving, and I saw that she
meant it to be an offering apart from the weekly collection of
the church — and her envelope for this never fails !

Therefore, on the next night of the women's Bible study, I
brought the matter before the women, and after telling of the
desire of one (unnamed of course) expressed to me spon-
taneously, to give a quarter each month to mission work apart
from our own, I invited any others who might feel inclined, to
think over the matter and say if they wished to give twenty-
five, ten, five cents, or one, regularly each month for helping to
send the gospel to others. But they did not stop " to think / "
And I was kept busy at once taking down the names, and the
amount each one thought she could give. In some cases, the
amounts were, as I knew, more than the dear women in their
zeal could keep up, and this was quietly talked over and
adjusted later. All was earnest enthusiasm, and nearly every
one gave her name. Since then, there has been, of course, a
peculiar interest in the monthly missionary studies, such as we
have tonight,
p

[216] Child of the Sea

Some of the proposed contributions have lapsed, others have
diminished, but a sum is accumulating in the bank to be added
to the church funds in reports, and dedicated to foreign mis-
sions. I suppose every church has its women's missionary so-
ciety, sooner or later, but not many originate in the sponta-
neous giving of the widow's mite.

June 4, 1909.

Mrs. K. W. Westfall, the newly elected Corresponding Sec-
retary of our Woman's Home Board of Missions in Chicago,
writes agreeing to my proposed vacation — the fifth — in the
States for the late summer. We have had the loveliest of days
lately, with frequent showers, the air transparent and odorous
with flowering vines and trees, in the old, walled gardens.

Sunday, June 20, 1909.

Dear Mrs. Harwood, of Newton, Mass., who gave us the
chapel for Corral Viejo, years ago, is sending forty kinder-
garten chairs for the littlest children. One of the little girls
whispered to me this morning that she had dreamed of those
sillitas, and all of the children are begging to know when their
ship will come in from New York with them.

July 10, 1909.

One of the last things to be done is finishing the manuscript
of the little catechism, translated and adapted from Dr. An-
drew Broaddus' simple work. It is ready for the printer at
last.

Sunday, July 18, 1909.

Three baptisms tonight.

This afternoon I walked across the river dry-shod, by step-
ping-stones, to Machuelo Sunday School, and on returning,

Interior of Corral Viejo Chapel on Day of Dedication

Coamo Springs Hotel

Child of the Sea [217]_

an hour later, found the stream a rushing, muddy flood. Had
to cross by the rotting sills of the old bridge, which is closed to
traffic.

Friday, July 30, 1909.

The 25 th, the tenth anniversary holiday in honor of the
American " Invasion " of the Island, was celebrated with a
vim last Sunday, beginning with the early morning discharge
of thirteen (original colonies) cannon-crackers, and the play-
ing of our national airs by a band. Later, there were forty-
seven (States) cafionazos, cannon-shots, and so went the day,
on to the afternoon's horse-racing, and the " winding-up " ball
at the Casino in the evening. Not a pretty Sunday, but " the
masses " and many Americans here are said to have enjoyed it.
In the midst of the rollicking, we hardly thought of the fuss, as
mission services went on quietly as usual, except that our young
librarian had his hand burned by the explosion of a peiardo, as
he held it!

We have finished the last chapter of " Pilgrim's Progress "
in the women's study, after lapses into some specially needed
studies now and then. There was a rapt look on their faces as
we came to the end, where " the shining men bid them call at
the gate." What imagery! Bunyan and John were akin in
their visions of the Holy City. The dear women know it is
imagery and that no one has actually come back across that
river from the gate to tell us just what heaven is, but they know
that the reality will be even better than the vision, if different.
Such tired, old-young, young-old faces some of them are!
Many of the women and girls work so hard that the Monday
evening hour spent in the bright, little back room of the church,
crowded as it is, has come to mean a good deal to them. And
since last October, apart from their weekly envelopes and be-
sides their birthday offerings — for which each church-member

[218] Child of the Sea

has a pink envelope — these seamstresses, cooks, washerwomen,
mothers of big little families, schoolgirls, makers of drawn-work
and embroideries have given nearly twenty dollars to missions
through their society. And one white-haired woman whispered
to me that her birthday had passed a few days before, but that
she was waiting to get the fifty-odd cents, before giving in her
pink birthday envelope, as she had only thirty cents, so far!

Sunday, August 1, 1909.

My last before sailing for the north, on the 3rd. The little
chairs came and were used today, to the children's delight.

The catechisms are printed just at the very last, little, green
booklets of truths for infant minds.

Child of the Sea [219]

XXII

Among the toilworn poor, my soul is seeking
For one to bring the Maker's name to ligh',

Who sees a brother in the evil-doer,
And finds in Love the heart's blood of his song,
This, this is he for whom the world is waiting,
To sing the beatings of its mighty heart. — Lotoell.

Ponce, P. R.,
November 13, 1909.

THIS last voyage between New York and Borinquen was
the stormiest of all. Yesterday, we cast anchor at
Mayagiiez, on the west coast, after a black, stormy
night, when neither star nor light appeared and there was
danger of the ship's running amuck with our own Island! In
Mayagiiez, we found that the railroad track was under water
and a part of the town inundated, so everybody had to stay
over until today. We came at last safely through the danger-
ous places, the wheels of the train running under water once,
and again I am in the little brown house on Cristina Street,
with Miss Lake and Matilde. Miss L. looks pale from a
malarial attack, but she will have her turn of rest now.

December 5, 1909.

The individual communion service has arrived in Porto
Rico, and a very good thing it is where a church is as large
as ours in Ponce. A friend has sent this to us through the
general missionary, Mr. R. So the other set, of silver flagon
and goblets, may be passed on to one of the smaller churches.

[220] Child of the Sea

December 12, 1909.

Tonight, the church decided to give four dollars a month to
the support of a native ** home missionary " in our Island.
The thirty- four Baptist churches all together will raise twenty-
five dollars a month for his support. This is a beautiful ad-
vance step, and Don R., our pastor, said in the meeting to-
night that it should bring not a monthly four dollars' worth
of joy back to us but millares de bendiciones, thousands of
blessings.

February 10, 1910.

Strange and awesome it is to think that the lady who has
lived opposite our cottage, who always seemed a mere house-
hold drudge, blowsy, never dressed very neatly, never leaving
her home, seen on the front porch only for taking in the bread
or milk, or drearily watching for the tardy coming in of the
family, slaving for her five sons and daughters, and old hus-
band, lies today in the mysterious dignity of death! Blood-
poisoning from a poor pin-pricked finger brought the end after
four days of desperate suffering. Little, uninteresting, frowsy
lady, where are you now?

February 22, 1910.

I was not actually sick but, having a touch of anemia, and
having been crippled by more than a touch of sciatica not very
long ago, I dropped all work and went to Coamo Springs for a
week of rest. It was pleasant in the freshness and quiet of the
rural hotel, away from city noise and dust, but I was glad to
come home, a day or so ago.

It was while I was there that Mr. Rudd's letter came, pro-
posing my leaving the Ponce mission to take charge, next fall,
of the mission school in Coamo, which Mrs. Troyer and the
other teachers, have finally left, At first, it seemed unthinkable

Child of the Sea [221]

. . . yet, in spite of the heavy trial it will be to me, I have
agreed to do so. Personally, it seems to me as if the bottom
is dropping out of my work in the Island, but time will help to
heal the heartache over leaving my own people. And there
is need in Coamo. . .

March 8, 1910.

Since January, the American lady missionaries of the dif-
ferent denominations in the city, have been meeting twice a
month. We talk of our common and individual work, that our
efforts may not overlap and confuse. Miss Reed, of the
United Brethren mission, and I have just attended one of the
services which are held by the different pastors, in turn, in the
Island Hospital for treatment of the blind — not an asylum for
holding and supporting them, though they come for their treat-
ment from all over the Island. Thirty-four poor, bowed,
bandaged patients sat in chairs arranged in the great corri-
dor of the building, El Mayagiiez, one of our own blind
members from Yauco, among them. It is a pleasure to help
teach them to sing '* Beautiful Words of Life " and " Jesus is
the Light of the World." We have secured permission from
the authorities in San Juan to have a weekly class for the
blind children, and the ladies of the various missions are to
take this class, turn about. Of course, this permission must
be extended to the Roman Catholics as well, if they want it,
as this is a State institution. We are to have six little blind
boys and girls — or with eyes diseased — as our first charge.

Sunday, May 8, 1910.

Mrs. Rudd's youngest boy who has been ill for weeks with
typhoid fever, at our house (because of the need of having him
nearer the doctor than in his own home in the hills of Corral

[222] Child of the Sea

Viejo) , has been a perfect little patient. He is enough better
to stand a tottering second on his feet, today. Doctor Ruth
says he may go home this week, and the poor little fellow can
hardly wait for the day and the automobile to arrive.

When beggars die there are no comets seen;

The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.

So said Shakespeare in Julius Caesar, and lo! on May 6,
while the Halley comet was blazing its path nearer and
nearer to us, King Edward VII died!

June 17, 1910.

It has been hard to tell some of our people of leaving them
— not for a few weeks this time as often heretofore, but for
another work. The sorrow of some is natural perhaps, as we
have spent years together. To all of them I am saying that
" the Work " is not of the workers but of God, and will abide,
no matter who passes out of it, anywhere. This I know to be
absolutely true, yet it does not, somehow, heal all the heart-
ache for me.

July 19, 1910.

A day of gorgeous coloring — blue of sky, snowy white-
ness of cloud, blackness of shade, golden blaze of sun, red of
flamboydn trees, tender green of new leaves — wind, dust!

A beggar at my door says, on being dismissed, " Estd bien,
caballera, All right, lady! " Note: Systematic refusals to
give to professional beggars may, at last, create in one's own
soul a need to give.

Excessive heat continues. Sleepiness overpowers me, and
even crossing the room means too much of an effort — but I
cross it!

Child of the Sea [223]

August 6, 1910.

Mercury at 95° in our dining-room. Don Pedro died
this morning. I went to his mother and sisters this p. m., in
their pleasant home, and found him lying painless now, after
a year's illness, on a great high bed, in a room literally filled
with loveliest of real flowers, roses, lilies, jessamines, and with
wreaths of artificial ones for the family vault. The grief of
the family is profound and the whole city loved " Perico," a
blameless, public-spirited gentleman. As a close neighbor for
five years I saw in him the ideal Porto Rican son and brother.
The funeral procession this afternoon (Oh, the haste of a tropic
land!) did not turn in at the big yellow church in the plaza,
but kept straight on by, to the campo santo, ** without benefit
of clergy," and without the tolling of bells.

It is night, hot, dark, breathless.

St. Thomas Island, D. W. I.,
September 30, 1910.

It has always rested me more, in times of stress, to get
quite off our Island than to go to the hills, so I came to this
beautiful Danish island, a few days ago. It is about fifty
miles from Porto Rico, and a night of steaming eastward at
half-speed in the rusty little S. S. Abd-el-Kader brought me
here. Words cannot express the quiet and peace of the old,
yellow brick house on the hill, where Madame Simonsen and
her three daughters have cared for me more as a guest of
honor, than as a boarder in their pension.

The wear and tear of preparations for leaving Ponce brought
on such crashing pain a week ago in the nerves of my head
that Doctor Vogel gave me a letter to his Danish brother
physician in St. Thomas and himself engaged my passage and
packed me off, without ceremony. Now relaxation and ease

[224] Child of the Sea

have come, and I can enjoy the perfection of the semi-tropic
loveliness of this little wonder-spot in the sea.

Today is my birthday. The daughters of Mme. S. have
sent up roses on my breakfast-tray, a card of quaint good
wishes, and a piece of the beautiful Danish needle-work I ad-
mire so much, as birthday gifts. This afternoon dear little
Mme. S. and Miss Kristine are going for a long drive with
me in one of the quaint, hooded carriages that fit in so well
with the foreign aspect of this little city of Charlotte Amalia,
capital of the Danish Islands.

Ponce, P. R.,
October 9, 1910.

My bits of furniture packed into two ox-carts have at last
gone off to the empty mission house in Coamo, and our mis-
sion sexton will drive me the twenty miles, tomorrow, in my
own phaeton with a hired horse. The week has been full of
last things to be done before leaving Ponce. Miss Lake will
remain here, of course, and our Woman's Board of Chicago,
111., has appointed Miss Laura K. Dresser * to come to live and
work with her. Miss Alice Collyer will assist me as teacher
in the school at Coamo. We have now in the Island eight
missionaries of the two recently amalgamated Home Boards
— that of New England at Boston, and that of the West at
Chicago.

Rev. Mr. Detweiler, one of the late-comers to our work,
will be stationed in Ponce; another recent arrival, Mr. Riggs,
in the Barros district; while the general missionary, Doctor
Rudd, moves to the north side of the Island, as Mr. Cober has
had to retire with impaired health. Don Ramon Veliz Lopez,
pastor for five years of our large church in Ponce, must go to
Yauco. May all these changes be for Thine own glory!

* Died in Ponce, July 24, 1919,

Child of the Sea [225]^

O thou who changest not
Abide with me!

The " sisters " came for my last meeting with them in the
church this afternoon, and this was my real farewell to Ponce.
All went quietly, as I gave them no example of weeping or
lamenting, after a brief talk and prayers. I shall never forget
their wistful, loving faces and the tears quietly wiped away, as
we embraced and separated. I could not have borne a scene ;
and do I not know the heart of my people?

POSTSCRIPT— 1920

POSTSCRIPT— 1920

On November 1 7, 1 493, on his second voyage of dis-
covery, Christopher Columbus sighted the Island of Porto
Rico. On the 19th he landed on the west coast for fresh
water. Taking possession of the Island in the name of the
Spanish sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, he named it San
Juan Bautista, St. John the Baptist. The hymn given at the
beginning of this book tells of its Indian name, Borinquen.

The Borinqueiios were a peaceable, lazy, and happy people
when not molested by the occasional onsets from the sea of
the fierce Caribs who ravaged the island coasts of the Carib-
bean, passing from one island to another in their strong canoes
of war.

For a few years after its discovery Borinquen remained un-
explored, and the Indians unafraid of the white men who had
visited them. It is said that some cattle were introduced by
one of the " governors " appointed by Spain, early in the next
century, but it was Ponce De Leon who opened the way to
colonizing the Island. This " ambitious Captain " had ac-
companied Columbus on his second voyage, and had finally
remained in Santo Domingo. He heard rumors of gold to be
found in the rivers of Borinquen, and sailed thither from Santo
Domingo, in 1508. On his return with good reports, the
governor of Santo Domingo charged Ponce de Leon with the
task of subduing the Borinquenos by force of arms.

" This bold, but cruel and unprincipled leader quickly
brought the simple, unwarlike Indians under his sway. A year
or two later, he founded near the present site of San Juan a

[229]

[230] Child of the Sea

town which he named Caparra. The town was afterward
called Puerto Rico (Rich Port). In 1521, by command of
the King of Spain, the capital was transferred to its present
location." x Later still, the name Puerto Rico was transferred
to the Island, the colony only being called San Juan. The
Indian name of course disappeared. Until the year 1898
Porto Rico remained a dependency of Spain.

The Hymn of Borinquen, as sung today in Spanish in the
public schools of the Island, calls it Child of the sea and the
sun.

" Child of the sea,'* it forms a link in the lovely island chain
of the Greater and Lesser Antilles, which, beginning with Cuba
at the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, extends thence eastward
and south, far into the Atlantic Ocean. San Juan, the capital
of Porto Rico, lies a thousand miles to the east of Habana,
Cuba, and almost fourteen hundred miles southeastward from
New York City. On the north, the Island's rocky coast is
beaten by the rough Atlantic surges. On the south, its shores
slope more gently to the less unquiet waters of the Caribbean
Sea.

" Child of the sun," Borinquen basks in semi-tropical heat
which is tempered by the daily trade-winds during the year-
around summertime. As the sun drops into the Caribbean Sea
at its setting, the sea-wind falls and the brief twilight ends in
the coolness of the dewy night. Even the rainy season of
months is no rival of the sunshine, for blessed rain and brilliant
sun together unite to make of Porto Rico the picture-paradise it
is for its lovers.

The Island lies just within the tropics, yet so far from the
equator that its climate and natural productions partake rather
of a temperate-tropical than of the torrid zone. The rainy
season, lasting in general from May to October inclusive, re-

10 Porto Rico: the land of the Rich Port," by Joseph B. Seabury.

Postscript [231]

news by frequent showers the verdure of the hills and pastures
grown sere and brown during the rainless months; it quickens
the foliage of the evergreen trees of fruit and shade and the
blossoming of gardens, and cleanses the dust-laden air. While
the humidity is great, 86° may be given as the average tempera-
ture of these months, on the coastlands. Among the hills, the
temperature is lower, in both the dry and wet seasons, than on
the coast.

Those Indians who were unable to escape from the oppres-
sion of the Spanish rulers by flight to other islands, were in the
end thoroughly exterminated. It became necessary therefore
to import African slaves for the hard labor of the early colo-
nies. Slavery was finally abolished in Porto Rico by the
Cortes of Spain in 1 873. There is a large admixture of negro
blood throughout the Island, particularly in the towns of the
coastlands. Besides the varying shades of complexion, denot-
ing the more or less vigorous strain of color in the population of
mixed race, there is the pure white of Europe and the pure
black of Africa. Of Indian blood there seem to be as few
remains as there are of Borinquen nomenclature and design.

The Island contains about 3,500 square miles, and Governor
Yager's last annual report (1919) gives the population as
1 ,263,474. While multitudes throng the cities and towns, the
majority of the people live in the country districts, tucked away
in incredible numbers in their thatched huts among the plan-
tains up and down the mountain slopes, or in scattered settle-
ments on the coffee estates of the hills, and among the cane-
plantations of the valleys.

It is as natural that the religion of Porto Rico — since the In-
dian extermination — should be the Roman Catholicism of the
colonizing mother country as that the language should be Span-
ish. But Porto Rico seems to have been looked upon by Spain
and its Church, all through the years, less as mission field than
Q

[2321 Child of the Sea

as a " rich port M for exploitation. The religion of the Island-
ers has never reached the point of fanatical practice attained
in those other Spanish-American lands where a half-pagan
Indian race has remained to be reckoned with. There are old
churches in all the towns, new ones in some, and their functions
are attended with zeal, on Sundays and other feast-days by
most of the " better class " of citizens, and in the country dis-
tricts by peasants who take the trail on these days to market as
well as to the church. Before the American occupation, the
poor and isolated were apparently held in little esteem by the
Spanish priests, except that the Church charged systematically
for the baptism of infants, for the performance of the marriage
ceremony, for burial, and for masses for the souls of the dead.
Besides the emoluments accruing from these every-day occur-
rences, the import duties of the Island were turned into the treas-
ury of the Church for priests' salaries and perquisites.

Of official public-school buildings there were none under the
Spanish regime. The small rented schoolhouse or room was
generally shared with the teacher's family. The alcalde, or
mayor, and the parish priest were the supervising members of
the school boards oftenest seen in inspection. Schools were
** graded " autocratically by the teachers themselves, lessons
were recited by rote, text-books were inadequate, and the whole
system of education was antiquated and ineffective. Many of
the teachers, however, were faithful so far as their training
carried them, and some of these were still employed, after a
better system was introduced. The rural districts were prac-
tically uncared for. Those who were ambitious for the higher
education of their sons, and were able to satisfy these ambitions,
sent the young men to Madrid or to other educational centers of
Spain, or to Paris, for further instruction.

In a word, the beautiful Island of fertile soil and delightful
climate, dominated by Spain across the ocean for four hun-

Postscript [233]

dred years, had had no opportunity for self-development, until
the day when the ending of Spanish rule opened the door to its
awakening.

After the victory of the forces of the United States at San-
tiago de Cuba, in the war of 1 898, General Nelson A. Miles,
U. S. A., sailed for the coast of Porto Rico, with about four
thousand troops, and several battle-ships, part of the fleet from
Cuban waters. On July 25, 1898, "he appeared suddenly
before Guanica on the southern side of the Island. After a
few shots from the gunboat Gloucester the town succumbed.
The troops landed the next day and a light passage at arms
followed [a few Spanish guerrillas resisting the landing] . The
soldiers then marched on to Yauco, and on the twenty-eighth of
the month they reached Ponce, which surrendered without the
use of either powder or shot.

li The troops marching under the Stars and Stripes were re-
ceived with hurrahs. The people brought out from their houses
flowers, fruits, and cool drinks, shouting enthusiastically as they
gave these to the soldiers: ' Vivan los americanos! * Everybody
wanted an American flag, and the demand was so great that
General Miles sent to Washington for a fresh supply.

" It was expected that strong resistance to the American
forces would be made at Aibonito [midway of the Island on
the Military Highway] because of the high and commanding
position of the town. Before the town was reached, however,
the war had come to an end. The protocol [with Spain]
was signed at Washington, August 1 2, and the next day peace
was proclaimed in Porto Rico. . . It was . . agreed that the
Spanish authorities should at once leave [the Island] ." 2

In this brief account, scarcely a glance may be given at the
progress of the Island in the twenty years which have elapsed
since Spain withdrew with her civil authorities and her army.

2 "Porto Rico: the Land of the Rich Port," by Joseph B. Seabury.

[234] Child of the Sea

A military government was quickly formed with Major
General Brooke as first executive. This was superseded early
in 1900 by civil government, the Hon. Charles A. Allen
being the first civil governor. (The President of the United
States appoints the governor of the Island every four years.
He also appoints an Executive Council of eleven men, five of
whom must be Porto Ricans. A House of Delegates consists
of thirty-five persons, five chosen from each of the seven dis-
tricts into which the Island is divided.)

To give work to an impoverished people — a devastating hur-
ricane having added its distressing consequences to the early
problems attending reconstruction; to open up the Island to
impressions from the great country in the north bent upon its
material uplifting ; to prepare for the education of the youth of
the Island through public schools — these became the immediate
tasks of the new government. The Americanization of Porto
Rico is another story from that to which this book has been
dedicated, but a few statistics as to general education will not
be out of place here.

In 1898 the population was estimated at..„ 953,243

" 1919 the population was estimated at 1,263,473

" 1898 number of children attending school — 21,873

" 1919 number of children attending school 160,794

" 1898 number of teachers _ 525

" 1919 number of teachers _. 2,984

'* 1898 number of Government-owned school build-

ings

529

.1919 number of Government-owned school build-

1898 number of rented school buildings 525

1919 number of rented school buildings 1,195

Old text-books were removed. English was introduced into
the schools as soon as possible, at first by the employment of

Postscript [235]

teachers from the U. S. Native teachers were prepared by
degrees for classroom work and later for the principalship of
schools, in many cases. Spanish was continued, however, in
grade work and in normal training. " The authorities as well
as the public realized that the introduction of the English lan-
guage was of vital importance. There has been at no time a
tendency to suppress Spanish. There is no reason why this
should be done. Because of the geographical location of Porto
Rico, the ancestry and tradition of the people, and from a com-
mercial standpoint, there is every reason for continuing the
study of Spanish. From the earliest days, the purpose of the
Department [of Education] has been to establish a bilingual
system of education, which would ensure the conservation of
Spanish and promote the acquisition of English. Both of these
languages should be mastered sufficiently for practical use." 3

More than once war has opened the door for the word of
God. Freedom of worship had not been a vital question in
Porto Rico where Roman Catholicism was the established
faith, but Spain had not allowed Protestant propaganda in
Spanish. There was a small church in Ponce, near the south-
ern coast, where services were permitted in English, principally
for the negroes from the islands of the British West Indies.
" Religious liberty entered with our flag, and among the eager
men and women of the United States ready to undertake mis-
sion work there, Baptists were the first on the field. They en-
tered in February, 1899, six months after the signing of the
peace protocol with Spain, and first preached the gospel to the
native Porto Ricans in Spanish, baptized the first converts, and
organized the first church."

During that first year six Baptist missionaries arrived in the
Island, all with a knowledge of the Spanish language.

"From the annual report of the Commissioner of Education of Porto
Rico, for 1919.

[236] Child of the Sea

Since then, there have been sent thirteen men, with their
wives, under the auspices of the American Baptist Home Mis-
sion Board, of New York, N. Y., and twenty-three single
women working with these in connection with the Woman's
Boards of Home Missions in Boston, Mass., and Chicago, 111.
(amalgamated in 1909). Of these Baptist missionaries five
have died: Miss Henrietta Stassen, of Coamo; Miss Alice
Shorey, of Ponce; Miss Ruth Chamberlain, of Ponce; Miss
Laura K. Dresser, of Ponce; Rev. L. E. Troyer, of Coamo.
Of these, all but Miss Dresser had returned to the United
States before their death.

There are at present in Porto Rico of our own American
workers (December 31, 1919), nine single women and five
married men.

Our churches number 46

Church-members 2,2 1 2

Average attendance at Bible schools 2,915

Number of native workers (7 ordained) „ 23

Total offerings for 1919 $10,487.35

Workers of other denominations quickly followed the pio-
neers. " A comity agreement was entered into by all but the
Episcopalians, which provided for distribution of territory
and of Christian forces over the whole Island. Towns of
5,000 and over were considered open to all comers. Smaller
towns with adjacent territory were entrusted to the exclusive
care of the denomination entering first. No sacrifice of princi-
ple or conviction was proposed. Members of one denomination
moving into the territory of another were free to propagate their
particular church life, but this was done voluntarily and with-
out financial assistance from their Mission Board. By this
provision, it was believed that the practise of self-support would
be stimulated. The plan has been justified by results. Within

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Postscript [237]

a short time practically the whole of the Island was enjoying
some measure of evangelical ministration."

After twenty years, we find from the little pamphlet giving
the annual report for 1919 of the churches belonging to the
Union Evangelica de Puerto Rico the following:

Number of churches „„ 195

Members in full communion ._ 1 1 ,072

Number of Bible schools „. 276

Members of Bible schools _ „ 17,114

Surely no apology is needed for Protestant work in this
Island. The first years, inadequately described in the pages of
this volume, were only the beginning of what is to be. If the
" human documents " thus spread before the reader do not
bear testimony to the urgent need of the truth which makes men
and women free indeed, and to the blessings attending this
freedom, the book will have been written and read in vain.

J. P. D.