de me!

Ma's mind was as restless as her body. She was for ever planning what
more she could do for Jesus. Her new dream was a beautiful one, perhaps
the best of all. To understand it you must know that the women and girls
in West Africa all belonged to households, and were bound, by native
law, to obey the heads of these--their masters. The compounds were their
only homes. If they became Christians they still had to do what their
heathen masters told them. When they were given orders which as true
servants of Jesus they could not obey without doing wrong, they were in
a fix, for if they left the compounds it was not easy for them to live,
as they had no houses in which to stay and no farms where they could
work and grow food. Ma had often thought of the problem, and now she
made up her mind that the women and girls must be taught simple trades,
so that if they had to leave the compounds they would be able to support
themselves.

And this was her dream. She would start a home for women and girls where
she would take in waifs and refugees and other helpless ones, and train
them to do things, such as the weaving of baskets, the making of bamboo
furniture, shoe-making, and so on. They could also rear fowls and goats
and cows, and dig, and grow food-plants and fruit-trees. And best of
all, they would learn to be clean and tidy and womanly.

Ma was never long in making her dreams begin to take form. She went out
one morning to look round the land at Use. Why, Use was the very place
for the settlement! She would begin in a small way with just a few
cottages and a garden, and gradually make it bigger. She started at
once, and soon had many useful trees and plants in the ground, and fowls
and goats and a cow in the yard.

That cow was a wild one, and a great bother, as it was always breaking
out and wandering into the forest. Ma had no tinkling bell, but she tied
a tin pail to the beast so that the rattling noise might tell where it
was.

The stock had to be watched, for wild animals roamed about after dark,
and leopards often sprang into the yard in search of prey.

One or two rooms at Use were kept for visitors. The doors of these were
sealed up with strips of bamboo and mud until they were wanted. Once two
lady missionaries arrived, and had to sleep a night before the doors
were hung. Not long before a leopard had carried off the cow's calf, and
the ladies thought it wise to barricade the hole. Ma looked on smiling,
a