Mary went to her room.  In a little while she heard a knock at her door.

“It’s Daddy, Mary,” said a deep voice.  “Please open your door.”

Mary opened the door.  There stood Daddy Anderson with his hands full of biscuits and bananas which he was bringing to her with Mammy’s consent.

“I thought you might be hungry,” said Daddy Anderson.

“You and Mammy are perfect dears,” said Mary.  “I don’t deserve all your kindness.”  Mary soon began to visit the different yards or compounds in Duke Town.  Missionaries had been here for thirty years, but there weren’t many of them.  They worked chiefly in Duke Town, Old Town, and Creek Town—­three towns at the mouth of the Calabar River.  They also had opened a station at Ikunetu and Ikorofiong on the Cross River.  One day Mary was at one of the stations with another missionary.  When he finished his talk, he said, “Mary, won’t you speak to these people?”

Mary stood up.  “Please read John 3:1-21,” she said.  The missionary did.  Then Mary told the people how they could be born again.  She told them of the joy that they would have if they took Jesus into their hearts.  She told them of the hope of life after death with God in Heaven.  The natives listened.  They liked her talk.  After that whenever she came to that district, crowds would come to hear her speak.

“Mammy,” said Mary, after she had come from a trip to the outstations, “it hurts my heart to see how cruel these people are.  And those awful, ugly, cruel gods they pray to.  The chiefs are so cruel and mean and have no mercy.  And then that terrible secret society, the Egbo.  I saw some of their runners dressed in fearful costumes scaring the people and whipping them with long whips.  I saw a poor man whom they had beaten almost to death.  Then there is that horrible drinking.  They are worse than wild animals when they become drunk.  And worst of all is that they have slaves and sell their own people as slaves.”

“Ah, lassie,” said Mammy Anderson, “you haven’t seen anything yet.  There are millions of these black people in the bush and far back in the interior.  Most of them are slaves.  They don’t treat a slave any better than a pig.  The slaves sleep on the ground like animals.  They are branded with a hot iron just as animals are.  And just as the farmers back home fatten a pig for market, so the girls are fattened and sold for slave wives.  The slaves can be whipped or sold or killed.  When a chief dies, the tribe cuts off the heads of his wives and slaves and they are buried with him.  The tribes are wild and cruel.  Many of them are cannibals, who eat people.  They spend their lives in fighting, dancing, and drinking.  But the way they treat twins is one of the worst things they do.”

“What do they do to twins?” asked Mary.

“They kill them,” said Mammy Anderson.  “Sometimes they bury the twins alive and sometimes they just throw them out into the bush to die of hunger.  The mother is driven into the bush.  No one will have anything to do with her.  She is left to die in the jungle or to be eaten by the wild animals.”