Where Are They? by Rose Terry Cooke

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 10, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 35.

Where Are They?

By Rose Terry Cooke

MIS' BABCOCK and me got a-talking one afternoon, after Deacon Coit's funeral, about forrin missions. We'd sort of stood around after the buryin' had took place, a-looking at the stones of them we knew, and fin'lly we set down on a bench there was in Judge Prior's lot, that folks said he put up there when he went to his wife's grave, as he used to some when she fust died. But he's had three on 'em sense, and one is livin' still, so he don't set there so much now; 'twould be sort of confusing ef he did, I expect. But, as I was sayin', we set down, and fell to talkin' about our neighbors, as folks will, and she said, "Mis' Green, I've always had it on my mind ag'inst Judge Prior that he don't give as he'd ought to for forrin missions."

"Well," says I, "perhaps that isn't his choice to give to; he's real liberal to the minister and to poor folks, and he's free-handed to home; his wife and children don't want for a thing that's wholesome and necessary, which is what couldn't be said of Deacon Coit. I ain't to blame the deacon, neither, but I always did think he give away more than he had ought to, considering his wife is real delicate, and Sophronny nigh to death with the consumption."

"But think of them poor heathens, Mis' Green, that haven't no privileges sech as we have. And how shall they hear, as Scripter says, unless they have preachers?"

"That's so," says I, "and I haven't never denied it; only I do say that everybody can't favor the same thing. Some folks is interested in one thing, an' some in another, and I feel more for what I see than for what I don't see. I'd sights ruther give what little I have to give, to help them poor folks up on Tanner's Hill, and them destitoot charcoal burners over in Holly Woods, than send it out to Indy or Polynesy, or forrin parts anywhere; and you'd ruther do the other way; somebody's got to do one, and somebody t'other."

"I don't b'lieve you're properly impressed with the state of the heathen," says Mis' Babcock, in a high and mighty sort of a way, heavin' a big sigh, as though I was an awful cretur, and to be pitied.

"Mebbe I ain't," says I, kind of short, and she didn't say no more; but I knew she kep' a-thinkin' of it. There are considerable many folks in this world who want that everybody else should see with their eyes, and them that don't they think is willfully blind, and Mis' Babcock is one of that sort; what she don't think a'n't worth thinkin', in her view; but she's honest about it, and strives serious to do what's about right herself. But I can't talk to her, and she knows it. I'd jest as lieves talk to our barn door; it's wasted breath.

I knowed well what it meant, howsover, when she asked me there to spend the afternoon and drink tea two weeks after, and I found she'd got a missionary from Indy a-visitin' of her with his wife. They'd got children in this country to school, and they'd come over to rest a little, for he was tired out and feeble, so feeble that he didn't come out of the bedroom till tea time; but she was a slim, cherk, capable body; and, when Mis' Babcock went out to get the tea and make some of her quick biscuit and a strawberry short-cake, she left me and Mis' Tyler on the piazzy together, and Mis' Tyler began it. She looked around outdoors, with a kind of a sigh, and said, "Oh, Mrs. Green, you don't know what your privileges are, to live in a Christian land."

"I wish 'twas Christian," says I.

"Why, what do you mean?" says she. "Haven't you got the light of the gospel, and the blessing of Christian civilization?"

"Land, yes," says I, "but, don't you know, Mis' Tyler, there are folks who won't see because they shut their eyes? And what good does the light do to sech? And how does Christianity help or civilize them that won't practice it?"

"Oh, my friend!" says she, "if once you lived among the heathen, as I do, you would appreciate your blessings; think of living among liars and thieves, who know nothing of the sacredness of truth, or the rights of property."

"I live amongst 'em now," says I, "there ain't no worse liars in Chiny, Indy, nor the Cannibal Islands, than there be right here in Dallas. I dunno more'n five people in the township that would tell the truth if they thought 'twas goin' to hurt 'em, or lose 'em ten cents; and as for stealin', we can't leave our washin' on the lines any night in the year, nor keep our apples, nor our pears, nor our grapes, no, not even the blows in our gardins, from the folks that can help themselves to 'em nights, or days either, if you a'n't lookin'."

"Dear me!" said she, looking real distressed. "Can this be so? But there is the dreadful vice and immorality of the heathen, which is certainly one thing you do not have to contend with."

"I dunno as we contend with it much, Mis' Tyler, but there's lots of it; in our very schools I don't believe you'll get ten clean-minded and pure actin' boys—no, nor girls neither—out of every fifty." And then I went on to tell her about the actions of some I knowed of, and the books they got to read, private; and how that the Young Men's Christian S'ciety in York tracked an' hunted that book matter out, and found how many in every school had read 'em or had 'em.

She turned kind of pale. "Is it really so?" she asked, in a low voice.

"I'm afeared 'tis, judgin' by what takes place here." And then I told her what I knew positive about some of the children amongst us, even the minister's son, too.

"And now," says I, "do you think Christianity has got through needin' to work to home here?"

"Oh, no! no! indeed no; but how you must work here; even harder than we have to!"

"No, we don't," says I, "we don't have no missionaries here to speak of."

She looked at me sort of curious, and drew a long breath. "Well," she said, "the children here have parents who can labor with them, not four or five mothers under one roof to be always jealous of each other's boys."

"No," says I, "not quite that; but I do'no but we're as bad other ways. Folks here get lawfully married, but when they're tired of each other, or get mad, or take to drink, they can get unmarried about as easy. There was Sereny Marsh over to Squam; she had three livin' husbands when she died. And Mark Stone's first wife is Mis' Joe Wheeler now, and he's just gettin' a bill from his second. And that's only two of 'em; there's lots more. Folks like that don't have much to say to the children."

"Oh, dear!" said Mis' Tyler; and, like the man in Pilgrim's Progress, the water stood in her eyes. "It does seem as if you needed help and hands here almost as much as we do; but your hope must be in teaching and converting the children."

"Well, now, look here," says I; "here's a family of folks not forty rod off from where you an' me are settin', born Yankees; the oldest girl only just sixteen livin' an openly shameful life, the mother settin' her an example in the same. The second girl was took to court the other day, complainant in a criminal assault case. She told the hull story right out without hesitatin' a mite, and giv' particulars; but when they come to swear her in she didn't know there was such a bein' as God. The father is a shif'less drunkard, too glad to have his women folks earn their own livin' any way. Now there won't one of them hark to a word you say. Try to visit 'em an' they'll shut an' bolt the door; try to speak to 'em and they larf in your face, and whatever you give 'em you don't get a thankee. They'd rather sin than not. Ain't that pretty solid heathenism?"

"It is awful! awful!" she said, kind of solemn.

I was half a mind to be sorry I'd be'n and told her all this, but well I knew that Mis' Babcock had set her to talk to me, an' quite probable had told her how that I didn't take no in'crest in forrin missions; and I meant for to show her that th' was heathen next door that in'crested me more than them that was over sea.

She sort of thought a minnit, and says, "Well, at any rate, your people don't kill their children. You do not see the shores of your rivers drown with dead babies, or their tiny bodies floating on the dark waters, to be the prey of evil birds and leaping reptiles."

"No," says I, "we kill 'em too young for that."

"What do you mean?" says she, turnin' on me a horrified look; and I went on to explain what I did mean, and told her facts. She really shuddered. "Can these things be so in a Christian country," she said, "even among its most ignorant and degraded classes?"

"But it isn't them alone;" I said. "Mis' Tyler, this abominable thing is done amongst them that are educated an' enlightened and well-to-do; yea, verily, amongst them who have taken upon them the name of Christ—in this very town, in this very church to which Sister Babcock and I both belong, this murder has been committed, boasted of, exulted in, right out."

"And is there no way of punishment, no law to reach such fearful abuses?"

"Yes, there's a law; 'tis a State's prison offense; but come to such folks as I'm telling of nobody did nor will prosecute 'em; they're too 'respectable'—that means money. Even the church never took any notice of it. They wasn't so much as reprimanded; for the same reason, I expect. But over and over and over again I have heard poor folks say, 'If't had been me done sech as that, I'd ha' had court and meetin' both turned onto me, and ketched it from 'em both.' And, Mis' Tyler, I don't know but what it's so."

"O Lord, how long!" she said, with a look on her face as though she was prayin'.

"And now," says I, "Mis' Tyler, you know, and I know, that Sister Babcock faults me considerable because I don't give no more money to, nor take no more in'crest in, forrin missions. Well, we ain't all made alike, and I'm one that sees and feels the things under my nose a sight more than them that is fur off. I'm a kind of

a near-sighted Christian, I guess, but the Lord's got to hev some of us stay to home, ye know, and do the housework, so to speak; and I've always looked towardst the text that speaks about providin' for your own fam'ly; but I do feel just as pitiful over these heathens here as you do over them where you be, and it seems as though I must do what little I can for my neighbors before I go further. There's hundreds an' thousands of folks, too, that give to your s'ciety and go to its meetin's, and talk about it, and pray for it, to where there's five that even think about this state of things to home. And if it ain't tended up to, why to my mind it'll be just like Squire Root's spring, that bein' left open and hevin' all sorts of refuse put into't, and nobody cleaning of it out, fin'lly run into the well on the green and p'isoned half the town. I feel as though our great beautiful country had got a rot to its core, and it must be some way or other got out or we're all ruined; and ther' won't nothing but a livin', actin' gospel do it."

"But, dear Mrs. Green, I can't, I don't, understand all this. I respect your feeling and see just where you stand, and hold out my hand to you as a true fellow-laborer in the vineyard; but when I think of all this sin and vice and corruption going on unchecked in your lovely villages, with your churches, your laws, your privileges, I must ask, Where are your church-members? Where are your professed Christians, that this state of things can exist in their very neighborhood?"

I couldn't say nothing.

Sure enough, WHERE ARE THEY?—Rose Terry Cooke, in the Congregationalist.