nary-sister, that I am not working. The
fact is, Mate, the missionaries are still afflicted with the work
habit, and so subtle is its cheerful influence, it weaves a spell
over all who come near. No matter what your private belief is, you
roll up your sleeves and pitch right in when you see them at it,
and you put all your heart in it and thank the Lord for the
opportunity to help.

The fun begins at 5:30 in the morning, to the merry clang of a
brazen bell, and it keeps right on till 6 P.M. For fear of getting
rusty before sunrise, some of the teachers have classes at night.
I would rather have rest. I am too tired, then, to think.

I have put away all my vanity clothes. No need for them in
Hiroshima and in an icy room on a winter's morning, I do not stop
to think whether my dress has an in-curve or an out-sweep. I fall
into the first thing I find and finish buttoning it when the family
fire in the dining-room is reached. A solitary warming-spot to a
big house is one of the luxuries of missionary life.

In between times I 've been cheering up the home sickest young
Swede that ever got loose from his native heath. So firmly did he
believe that Japan was a land where necessity for work doth not
corrupt nor the thief of pleasure break through and steal, he gave
up a good position at home and signed a three-years' contract with
an oil firm. Now he is so sorry, all the pink has gone out of his
cheeks. Until he grows used to the thought that living where the
Sun flag floats is not a continuous holiday, the teachers here at
school take turns in making life livable for him.

His entertainment means tramps of miles into the country, sails on
the lovely Ujina Bay and climbs over the mountains. In the
afternoon the boy is so in evidence, we almost fall over him if we
step. Yesterday in desperation I tied an apron on him and let him
help me make a cake. Even at that, with a dab of chocolate on his
cheek and flour on his nose, his summer sky eyes were weepy
whenever he spoke of his "Mutter." I have done everything for him
except lend him my shoulder to weep on. It may come to that.
There is hope, however. One of our teachers is young and pretty.

Jack, in a much delayed epistle, tells me thrilling and awful
things about the plague; says he walks through what was once a
prosperous village, and now there is not a live dog to wag a
friendly tail. Every house and hovel tenantless. Often unfinished
meals on the t