nd the catechism
in Chinese so thoroughly that she has never forgotten them.

But as she approached the age when custom required that her feet should be
bound, the little girl discovered that the way of the pioneer is not an
easy one. The unbound feet were a constant source of comment and ridicule,
not only by older people, but by other children as well. She was stopped on
her way to school one day by an older girl, who taunted her with her "big
feet" and refused to let her pass unless she would kneel down and render
obeisance to her own bandaged stumps. The small descendant of the proud
house of Shih absolutely refused to submit to such humiliation; but it was
only after her mother's assistance had been invoked that she was allowed to
proceed on her way.

Relatives and friends protested vigorously against such apparent
indifference to their daughter's future on the part of her parents. "You
will never be able to get a mother-in-law for her," they declared. Mr. and
Mrs. Shih felt, no doubt, that this was true; for who could have then
prophesied that the time would so soon come in conservative old China when
young men would not only be willing to marry girls with natural feet, but
would decidedly prefer them! Maiyue's father and mother never reconsidered
their decision that their daughter should grow to womanhood with natural
feet; but they did try to devise some plan by which her life might be a
useful and happy one, even though she might never enjoy the blessing of a
mother-in-law. They were very much impressed with the service which Dr.
Kate Bushnell was rendering the suffering women and children of Kiukiang,
and when Maiyue was eight years old her father took her to Dr. Bushnell and
announced, "Here is my little girl. I want you to make a doctor of her."

This was almost as startling as the unbound feet! A Chinese woman physician
was unknown and undreamed of. But this young father's faith in the
possibilities of Chinese womanhood was not to be discouraged. The necessity
of general education, preliminary to medical training, was explained, and
Maiyue was put in charge of Miss Howe, then at the head of the Girls'
Boarding School of the Methodist Mission. In this school she spent most of
the next ten years of her life, studying in both Chinese and English, and
fitting herself under Miss Howe's direction for her medical course.

In 1892, Maiyue and her friend, Ida Kahn, accompanied Miss Howe to America,
there to receiv