“Who ever heard of wood speaking?”
By hard pleading I succeeded in persuading him to go. He was amazed to see her looking at the wood and then fetching the needed articles. He brought back the bit of wood, and eagerly made signs for an explanation. Chiefly in broken Tannese I read to him the words, and informed him that in the same way God spoke to us through His Book. The will of God was written there, and by-and-bye, when he learned to read, he would hear God _speaking_ to him from its page, as Mrs. Paton heard me from the bit of wood.
A great desire was thus awakened in the poor man’s soul to see the very Word of God printed in his own language. He helped me to learn words and master ideas with growing enthusiasm. And when my work of translating portions of Holy Scripture began, his delight was unbounded and his help invaluable. The miracle of a speaking page was not less wonderful than that of speaking wood!
One day, while building the house, an old Inland Chief and his three sons came to see us. Everything was to them full of wonder. After returning home one of the sons fell sick, and the father at once blamed us and the Worship, declaring that if the lad died we all should be murdered in revenge. By God’s blessing, and by our careful nursing and suitable medicine, he recovered and was spared. The old Chief superstitiously wheeled round almost to another extreme. He became not only friendly, but devoted to us. He attended the Sabbath Services, and listened to the Aneityumese Teachers, and to my first attempts, partly in Tannese, translated by the orator Taia or the chief Namakei, and explained in our hearing to the people in their mother tongue.
But, on the heels of this, another calamity overtook us. So soon as two rooms of the Mission House were roofed in, I hired the stoutest of the young men to carry our boxes thither. Two of them started off with a heavy box suspended on a pole from shoulder to shoulder, their usual custom. They were shortly after attacked with vomiting of blood; and one of them actually died, an Erromangan. The father of the other swore that, if his son did not get better, every soul at the Mission House should be slain in revenge. But God mercifully restored him.
As the boat-landing was nearly three-quarters of a mile distant, and such a calamity recurring would be not only sorrowful in itself but perilous in the extreme for us all, I steeped my wits, and, with such crude materials as were at hand, I manufactured not only a hand-barrow, but a wheel-barrow, for the pressing emergencies of the time. In due course, I procured a more orthodox hand-cart from the Colonies, and coaxed and bribed the Natives to assist me in making a road for it. Perhaps the ghost of _Macadam_ would shudder at the appearance of that road, but it has proved immensely useful ever since.
Our Mission House was once and again threatened with fire, and we ourselves with musket, before its completion. The threats to set fire to our premises stirred up Namakei, however, to befriend us; and we learned that he and his people had us under a guard by night and by day. But a savage Erromangan lurked about for ten days, watching for us with tomahawk and musket, and we knew that our peril was extreme. Looking up to God for protection, I went on with my daily toils, having a small American tomahawk beside me, and showing no fear. The main thing was to take every precaution against surprise, for these murderers are all cowards, and will attempt nothing when observed. I sent for the old Chief, whose guest the Erromangan was, and warned him that God would hold him guilty too if our blood was shed.