sick she looked.

"What is wrong?" asked Ovens.

Mary told them about the sickness at Ekenge. She told them of what she had
done. "I don't see how you could have done that work alone," said
Mr. Ovens.

"Won't you go and bury the rest of the dead?" asked Mary. "I was just too
tired to do it."

"Yes, we will," said Mr. Ovens. The two missionaries went to Ekenge. There
they found the mission house filled with dead bodies. They buried these
people and preached to those who were still living about the Saviour.

Mary was weak and sick, but she kept right on working. In one of her
letters to a friend she tells about some of her work:

Four are at my feet listening. Five boys outside are getting a reading
lesson from Janie. A man is lying on the ground who has run away from his
master, and is staying with me for safety until I get him forgiven. An old
chief is here with a girl who has a bad sore on her arm. A woman is begging
me to help her get her husband to treat her better. Three people are here
for vaccination.

Every evening she would have family worship. Mary sat on the mud floor in
one of the shed rooms. In front of her in a half-circle were the many
children she had adopted and was taking care of. Behind them were the
baskets holding the twin babies she had recently rescued. The light from a
little lamp shone on the bright faces. Mary read slowly from the
Bible. Then she explained the Bible reading to the children and
prayed. Then she sang a song in the native language. The tune was a
Scottish melody and as she sang she kept time with a tamborine. If any of
the children did not pay attention, Mary would lean forward and tap his
head with the tamborine.

Mary did not get her strength back. She was not well. The mission committee
at Calabar decided that even though they had no worker to take her place,
she must go home on a vacation which was long overdue.

"But who will take care of the work at Akpap?" asked Mary.

"Mr. Ovens, the carpenter, who is building the mission house at Akpap, can
do the work until we find someone to take your place," answered the
chairman of the committee.

"But what shall I do with my many black children? I don't want them to go
back to heathen ways of living while I am gone. I don't like to ask the
other mission workers to take care of them for me."

"Don't worry, Mary. We will find places for them."

Places were found for all the adopted children except the four black
chil