y
poison; that's why God has given it the note of warning, I
suppose. Janie killed it.... I am always keeping my secret. Are
you? Don't slacken! Don't tell.

Ma always tried to cheer and help him:

I expect you will be at school by this time. Are you? How do you
like it? Do the masters give any punishments? I am sure they
won't need to do that with you, for you will be doing your best.
But it will sometimes be hard to do lessons when it is hot, and
you will want to do other things; and let me whisper a secret to
you. I, too, am an awful duffer at arithmetic! I simply can't do
it. Never mind, I've got on fairly well, and so will you; and
now I have only the sums of the boys in the school to bother me,
and I never give them harder ones than I can do quickly and
explain well myself. You will come out on top some day. All the
same, try for all you are worth and catch up. Auntie and mother
will help you--that's what aunties and mothers are for, you
know. Just you put your arms round auntie's neck and look at her
with your bonnie speaking eyes, and you'll see what will happen.
Janie can't count at all, she never could, and I had a great
pity always for her, and yet what could I do without Janie? She
is worth a thousand mathematicians to me and to our people.

Ma rejoiced that she was able to do a little more for her beloved
Master, and she began to take more care of her health. She did not want
to be great or famous, only to walk very quietly from day to day, and do
simple things, looking after the needs of her people and fighting the
sin and ignorance that marred their lives. So we find her again at Use
and Ikpe spending the long hours preaching, teaching, doctoring,
building, cementing, painting, varnishing--a very humble and happy
woman.

She paid a visit to Okoyong, the first since she had left eight years
before. The wild old station had become so quiet and peaceful that it
was almost like a bit of Scotland, and there was a fine new church.
Everybody came to "k[:o]m" her, and she could scarcely get her meals for
talking about the long ago. She saw Eme Ete and Mana, and Iye the mother
of Susie, and Esien, now a leading Christian, and many others; and when
she went over to the church she found four hundred people gathered to
hear her, the men and boys in the centre, and the women in coloured
frocks and head-dresses at the side, while the c