The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1915-09-30
A Letter From the Mission
Field.
Miss Porter to Her Pittsfield Friends.


afraid l haven't kept my promise to
some of you very well. 1t doesn't seem
very easy to write to everybody at once,
but l promised to send letter to the
Advertiser sometime and | can't forget
it. First l want you to know how inter-
esting everything that happens in Pitts
field is tc me. That paper gets read
much more thoroughly now than when l
was at home. Can you imagine how
good that Commencement number looked
with the pictures of all those students
and teachers whom l had known for
three years? | haven't got over being
thankful to the Advertiser for that yet.
1t doesn't seem possible that l have
been here almost year. Three months
more and | shall have seen the whole
round of new seasons. 1t has been very
interesting. 1t seemed to me like sum-
mer when l reached here in November.
Along in December and January l was
glad to have a good pile of coverings
over me at night and actually enjoyed
my heavy garnet sweater during the
mornings and evenings, but roses, mas
turtiums, pansies and balsams f1ourished
in those days. April brought burning,
scorching winds that felt like the air
that rushes out from an oven when the
door is opened, but it didn't bring any
delicious odor of baking pies or roasting
meat, however. By May the govern
ment courts and all the schools had
changed to morning schedule, that is,
from six to eleven, then closed for the
day. Even then the children coming
home from school complained of feet
burned by the hot roads. By the third
week in May everyone who could get
away was off for vacation. Miss Gowen
and two others of our missionaries went
to Ootocamund in the hills of southern
India. They had a delightful vacation
in the COOL bracing air 81 The hills. l
went with other missionaries to place
by the seashore nine miles from here.
We had jolly good time walking along
the sands, bathing, visiting together,
reading and studying. When the rains
began in June we came home, for the
rains make the world liveable place
again. They started and then stopped
for three weeks, however, with the re-
suit that the farmers began to fear abso-
lutte failure for their crops. Many peo-
pie depending on work in the rice fields
have suffered terribly. Without work,
and with all their food and none y spent,
people in some sections are really starv-
ing. Some went so far as to commit
crimes in order to be put into jail be-
cause there they would be fed. Cost of
living is very low here. A common
workman can, with careful management,
support family of four or five on two
dollars month. But when work fails,
suffering comes very quickly. The war,
too, has made everything more eXpen-
sive. Two weeks ago the rains began
again. Work in the fields has begun,
but without great deal of rain IN the
next month the rice crop will be either a
failure or very meager this year in this
section.
Everything is very beautiful here, es-
pecially now that the rains have come.
From my room | look out over our
fresh grassy compound with beds of Wig
orous zinnia plants gay with blossoms.
At the foot of the driveway Is palm
tree with blue jay on its lowest branch
(only palms don't have branches, but |
don't know what to call iD this very
minute. Along the sides of the road are
big leafy mango trees and spreading
banyans. Beyond can see the waving
d
fairy green of the bamboos. | wonder if
people get tired of hearing me tell how
beautiful India is. Nobody toa me it
was beautiful, and | had made such a
wrong picture of it that feel as if 9th
ers had, too.
There are things that aren't beautiful.
The architecture (0 of India doesn't at
tract me. When | open thorn-brush
ga and go up to low mud house with
the matched roof so low that | have to
bend double to pass under it, then stoop
again to get through the doorway and
find myself in little square courtyard
with small mud rooms on three sides,
never yet have been able to see much
beauty there Mud houses aren't half
so bad as imagined though. | shouldn't
mind living in one if it were built big
enought to have plenty of air. The
pastor of our church has a fine high
walled one that is exceedingly airy, clean
and pleasant. Mud here is not like mud
in America. 1t does make fine, hard,
smooth wall and floor. No, the houses
are not beautiful, as | reckon beauty,
but they are in such beautiful spots
sometimes that it doesn't matter SO
much. Week before last had to 60 to
Calcutta and along the way l came to
place after place that seemed simply
wonderful to me. l had heard of the
beauty spots of America" but truly
there are ''beauty spots in India, too.
The most interesting part of all this
country is, of course, the people. l
haven't learned much from talking with
them yet for am just getting so that
understand what they say, and can talk
little myself, but have watched them
and have heard them talked about. They
are human like all other folks / have
known in this world, and they have some
faults which we count rather bad; but in
spite of that l can't help liking them.
am quite sure that by the time have
known these people as long as had M.
Z. l. folks | shall love them, shall l say
just as much? 1t doesn't seem quite
possible now, but think it will be so. l
am living in Sinclair Orphanage. Miss
Coe has charge of it. Would you like
her place? Here are eighty girls from
one year to twenty-six years of age.
They are of all kinds, good, bad and in
different. 1t is fine place to watch In
dian ideas, characteristics, way of think
ing, and SO forth, but it is a strenuous
task for the person who has to keep
ahead of them. They are happy, active
lot OF girls, not any more in love with
study or with restraint than our Ameri-
can girls but having their good qualities
as well. AS we see them day by day it
Is hard to see that they improve, but
once in a while we realize what the