The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1914-07-23
HE MISsIONARY'S WIFE, sitting
In the veranda of the bleak. white

In the verand2 of the bleak. white
washed mission house, watched the
dust devils pirouetting down the Grand
Trunk road, and gave herself up to
thought. Retrospection may be good for
the soul, but it is not wise to give way
to the malady of thought in India when
ptiless sun is cracking and warping
the earth, and the blue of high heaven
Is bleached to binding, white hell of
neat waves. Under such circumstances
The average white does not think. Some.
Times he seeks forgetfulness in whisky
pegs; sometimes she forgets the mad
denlng heat in the greater madness of
intrigue with the wrong man.
The missionarys wife, because she
was missionary's wife and because
the heart CT her was innately clean. re.
colied from these mental drugs. She en-
deavored to ward off the abnormal
wave engulfing her by a renewed zeal
to her religious faith; but she was so
young, so untried, and SO unaccustomed
TO viewing the world in its raw naked.
ness that her faith faltered and she
would not be comforted. Perhaps, as the
missionary sahib thought, she was a
trifle worldly; perhaps she was. But
she was very young.
Therefore she gave up herself to
thought. Day by day she would sit on
the veranda and watch the dust devils
dancing and whirling along the Grand
Trunk road. From her position she could
see the road, a white ribbon of dust.
stretching its length across a parched.
flat country until it was lots in haze
OF heat waves. From the haze would
appear the dust devils, cones of light.
1ine dust, whipped up from the road
way by a passing breath of air. She
would watch them as they came down
the road towards the mission gates, spin
ming along in fantastic dervish dances.
and she continued watching until they
we're lost to sight in another wall of
heat haze on the opposite horizon. Be-
tween whiles she thought. Her mind ran
to things green and cool; of dainty
prlmroses smiling shyly from moist
earth, of wild violets hidden in the cool
shades of Yorkshire woods, of damp
moss clinging to ancient rock, of moor
land, spongy underfoot, of moist mists
on Ingleborough's heights. Then, an
other dust devil would come revolving
from the heat haze, and she would find
herself in India again, with its white
washed mission house, its watching days
and worse than slecpless nights.
Separating the mission house from the
Grand Trunk road was what the mis-
sionary had intended for a garden;
but the sun had sapped the moisture
from the plant life, leaving it wiIted,
dropping, and coated with dust. It was
merely plot of caked earth and the
futile endeavor at beauty had but in
tensified its hideous barrenness. It had
its purpose, however, in that it gave
employment to the sole convert of the
mission.
On the mission records he was identi
fled as Joseph; but his native tongue
could get no nearer to his baptismal
name than Jojug, and Jojug he re-
mained to the missionary's wife. The
missionary sahib, who did not quite ap.
prove of levity, however, was careful
to refer to him as Joseph. The convert,
like the plants among which he worked,
but accentuated the failure of the mis-
sion. He was the result of five years
OF hard, ceaseless labor, shambling,
woebegone monument in a castoff suit |
of European clothes. He was watering
the plants while the missionary's wife
sat on the veranda. 1t was hopeless
task, for the thirsty earth sucked up
his tiny stream in an instant, leaving
the surface as dry and as bare as be-
fore. Undeterred, however, he would
shamble to the well to fill again a |
dilapidated watering can--minus the |
sprinkler-and proceed about his futile,
useless labor. Once, when passing near
the veranda, he salaamed and smiled. |
She raised her head as he shuffled by, |
but turned again to watch new dust |
devil dancing in the distance.
N 4 I