forwarding the work of the church, and
still others with requests for us to set a time when we could go with
them to call upon their unsaved friends or relatives.

Finally at four-thirty, after we had ushered out a couple of callers,
we returned, for the first time that day, to an empty room.

"Come, quickly!" I said to my sister. "Let's go out for a walk before
someone else comes!" I felt as though I would go crazy if I did not
get away--away anywhere, just so it was a place where we could be
alone. We hurriedly slipped out the back gate, around the pond,
through the back streets, and out the city gate.

"Which way do you want to go?" my sister asked.

"Oh, just anywhere into the country," I said immediately, "where there
aren't any people!"

My sister stood stock-still, looking at me in amazement. "Aren't any
people!" she repeated. "Aren't any people! _Where_ in China do you
think you'll find a place where there aren't any people?"

I stood still and looked around me. The flat countryside was dotted
with villages, and crisscrossed with paths. Farmers were busy plowing
their tiny fields. Coolies in groups of two and three were returning
home from the city, scattering in all directions along the many
footpaths. People, people everywhere, even out there in the country!
These were the people whom I had come to China to seek; yet if I could
only get away from them for a few hours! If there were only some
wooded gully or mountain thicket where I could be out of sight of
everyone! But there were no mountains; the country was as flat as a
tabletop. I mentally searched the familiar countryside for a place of
refuge. Good, fertile land, cut up into tiny fields; well-kept crops,
with not a weed anywhere; here and there a little grove of
trees--surely in among the trees we could be out of sight! But no!
There was no undergrowth, no weeds, not even any fallen leaves. All
had been gathered, carefully dried, and put in the fuel pile. Why, if
a strong wind came up in the night, the owner of the trees would rise
from bed and hurry out to sweep up the precious leaves as soon as they
fell, just so no unscrupulous neighbor could come and steal them
before daylight! And all the lower branches of the trees had long
since been trimmed off for fuel. A grove of trees would hide me from
the sight of no one, and there was no better place.

The full force of an unpleasant fact suddenly hit me, a fact that I
had never before completely r