ible.

HIS DEBT

It was a hot, sultry day in that little town near the Western coast of
Africa when Afa Bibo came. He had had a long, long journey from his home
among the Ntum people far to the south of Efulen. So he, as well as the
men who had brought him, was glad when they saw the rude little hospital
looming up at the end of the path.

Years and years before, when Afa Bibo was just a little baby, his mother
and father, because they were superstitious and ignorant, had deliberately
infected the little one with yaws, one of the most loathsome of African
diseases. Little by little the disease had spread through his system till
now, a boy in his teens, he was gradually losing his sight. So they had
brought him to the white doctor who had done so much for boys and girls in
the neighborhood, to see if he could also help Afa Bibo.

It took only a glance at the one eye to know that the sight was gone
forever. But there was a chance that the other might be saved. To be sure,
the inflammation was there and much damage had been done, but still there
was a chance. So they put him under the care of the nurse and began the
fight that was to tell whether he was to be one of the many African blind
ones who suffer so much and help so little, or whether he was to be like
other boys.

It was a long, hard time for the little fellow. The eyes must be washed
with a solution that was very painful; he must spend long hours not only
lying in bed but with all light shut from his eye. He grew very weary with
it all. But after the months had gone, Afa Bibo went out of that hospital
with an eye as clean and white in the ball as yours or mine.

Of course, he was anxious to go back to his people and tell them what
wonderful things had been done for him, but the Doctor said,

"Afa, you can do much with your one good eye, but if you will stay right
here and go to school with the boys for a time, you can do much, much
more. You can be as good as one man, two men, and perhaps as much as
three. If you will stay, you can be a big man in your own tribe. It may be
you could be a teacher and tell the boys there how to read and write or it
might be--yes, it might be--you could be a doctor and make other boys to
see, just as we have done to you."

So Afa Bibo stayed in the mission school and learned to study, and to
work, and to think. For a time he felt badly to think he had only one eye
when all his companions had two, but little by little