UNDER MARCHING ORDERS * 8 SU 03 ? ETHEL DANIELS HUBBARD ■*£V GIFT or IL • 1 Mary Pouter Gamewell Under Marching Orders A Story of Mary Porter Gamewell ETHEL DANIELS HUBBARD NEW YORK YOUNG PEOPLE'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 1909 Copyright, 1909, by Young People's Missionary Movement op the United States and Canada TO THE CHINESE GIRLS STUDENTS IN THE MARY PORTER GAMEWELL SCHOOL IN PEKING WHO LEARN THERE THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD AND WHO PURPOSE TO WORK IT OUT IN DAILY LIVING THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED iii 381234 CONTENTS Chapter page Preface ix I Into a Walled City 1 II A Girl in the Making 17 III Bound or Unbound? 31 IV In a Peking Cart 49 V The Turning of the Road 67 VI A Chinese Mob 81 VII A Chinese Sunday School and a Chinese Church 99 VIII The Center of the Chinese Puzzle Ill IX Boxers and Barricades 131 X Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 153 XI The Coming of the Allies 173 XII A New World 193 Index 213 ILLUSTRATIONS Mary Porter Game well Frontispiece Typical Chinese Donkey with Driver Page 5 Mary Porter's Journey from San Francisco to Peking " 7 Map Showing Location of Tientsin and Peking. " 9 Outer Wall of Peking " 13 Hata Gate " 13 Mary Porter at Twelve Years of Age " 21 Women with the Scoop Bonnets " 29 Old Prison Hospital, Arsenal Island " 29 Mrs. Wang on Wheelbarrow " 41 Peking Carts on Rough Roads " 53 River Ferry " 53 Journey from Peking to An-chia-chuang " 61 Frank D. Gamewell and Mary Porter at the Time of Marriage " 73 Trackers on the Yang-tzu " 77 Sedan-chair " 93 Mrs. Gamewell and Chinese Bible Women " 103 Asbury Church, Peking, before the Boxer Uprising " 109 Peking, a City within a City " 115 Empress Dowager " 123 A Boxer m 127 Boxer Placard used to Incite Feeling against Foreigners " 127 Scenes in the Methodist Compound " 135 Barbed Wire in Front of Asbury Church — Captain Hall and the Key — The Auditorium as a Storehouse — On Guard Diagram, Line of March from the Methodist Compound to the British Legation " 149 Turning into Legation Street from Hata Men reet " 151 vii viii Illustrations British Legation, Peking Page 157 Gate to British Legation, Showing Fortifica- tion and Dry Canal " 157 Dr. Game well and Fortification Staff " 169 Sand-bag Fortification " 169 Ruins of the Hanlin Library " 177 Chinese Watching a Fire in the British Le- gation f! 177 House in British Legation, Showing Bombard- ment by Chinese " 181 International Gun, "Betsey" " 181 Last Message from Dr. Gamewell before the Siege " 185 First News of the Relief " 185 Joy at the Coming of the Allies " 189 Troops Arrive in Front of the Bell Tower " 189 The Mary Porter Gamewell School for Girls, Peking. " 207 Girls of the Mary Porter Gamewell School " 207 PREFACE To Girls and Boys Who Honor Their Flag This morning there was a patriotic service in the town where I live, at which hundreds of children sang and waved their flags. As they were singing a flag song, I wished that they would cheer the old dragon flag of China, and more than all the flags of all the nations, would I have them cheer the Church flag, which bears the sign of the cross. If , as a good citizen, you would follow your country's flag to the ends of the earth, if honor called you, would you not just as promptly follow the Christian flag anywhere it might lead? If you follow a flag, you put yourself " under marching orders,' ' and where the commander says go, the soldier directs his steps. There is in this book the story of a girl who loved the stars and stripes and loved them as long as she lived, even though she spent more than half her days under the national standard of China, and came to re- x Preface spect the coils of the dragon on its yellow field. But the flag of the cross was hoisted above the stars and stripes on the battleship of her life. Do you care to know how she followed the flag, and what adventures she met on the way! If so, you may like to read this narrative and become acquainted with a fellow soldier. Because she was an honorable soldier, who came through the fight with her colors flying, I have written her life for you to read. But before you pass beyond this page, will you help me pay respects to some of the men and women without whom I could not have written this book? By and by, as you read the last chapters, you yourselves will feel like saluting the man who, as much as any other, helped to save the lives of hundreds of foreigners and thousands of Chinese in the siege of Peking. He was the husband of Mary Porter Gamewell, and it is because he was willing to answer questions and lend diaries and scrap-books, that the material for this story could be gathered. A sister of Mary Porter Gamewell, Mrs. Charles D. Glass, told me stories for a whole day, and some of these stories you will find as you Preface xi read. Then there were three people, two of whom were in China with Mary Porter Game- well, and they drew from their memories and gave me incidents which are woven into the text of the book. The names of these are: Miss Clara M. Cushman, Mrs. Miranda Croucher Packard, and Miss Elizabeth C. Northup. I am also grateful to a former teacher of mine in Wellesley College, Miss Sophie Jewett, who kindly gave some sugges- tions relating to the language of my manu- script. And there is yet another, Mr. Ealph E. Diffendorfer, whom I am especially glad to have you know, because it was he who helped me to realize the interest that boys and girls have in tales of adventure and heroism. There are two books which were nearly al- ways on my desk as I wrote. Later on, if you should care to read again about Mary Porter Gamewell, or to learn all about the siege of Peking, I advise you to hunt up Dr. Tuttle's Life of Mary Porter Gamewell and two bulky red volumes galled China in Convulsion, written by Dr. Arthur H. Smith. And now turn the leaves and read, if you xii Preface will, the story of a girl who lived under three flags, and did honor to them all, because above her own life waved triumphantly the red, white, and blue flag of the Christian Church. Ethel Daniels Hubbard. Wellesley, Mass., May 31, 1909. INTO A WALLED CITY I INTO A WALLED CITY "Too low they build Who build beneath the stars." It was a twelve-mile ride and the donkeys ' moods and legs were uncertain. In the mind of the donkey there is no room for sympathy, but rather the grim humor which loves the practical joke for its own sake without mercy for the victim. The perverse animal stands by in mocking silence when his pranks have tortured his rider into despair. There is no sense of responsibility in his mental make-up. Thus at the outset of the ride, knowing the distance and the donkey, one knew not whether to laugh or cry. Then again there were memories that haunted, brought out by the contrast between the United States of America and China of the Far East. Con- sequently the five riders looked into one an- other's eyes, whenever there was equilibrium sufficient to look into anything, and ques- tioned. Meanwhile, the donkeys boldly demanded 4 Under Marching Orders an undue share of attention, and their de- mand was met without hesitation. Eiding astride one cantankerous little beast was an American girl. She was slender and wiry, and her blue eyes fairly shone with deter- mination to stick to the back of her donkey at all hazards. She had ridden frisky horses before this, and had never known fear. Should a humble Chinese donkey bring her to terms 1 But despite her intention and her skill in horsemanship, the donkey had his way, as he always will, and many times she was compelled to alight hastily and inglo- riously on the ground. ; Her saddle was anything but American, Mexican, or comfortable. It was simply a stuffed pack of uncertain shape, with stir- rups which were hung on ropes across the pack, and which usually dangled just out of reach at the sides. It was a task worthy a professional acrobat to keep one 's balance on a Chinese saddle while riding over Chinese roads. These roads were paved with huge stones worn into ruts nearly a foot deep by the heavy wheelbarrows which had bumped and thumped over them for years — yes, for centuries. Into a Walled City 5 The face of the girl was alive with fun in the rare moments when the donkey gave her a chance to appreciate the experiences of her companions. A sudden exclamation from behind called her attention to a moving pic- ture of dramatic interest. The rider was trying to maintain a precarious position on the sloping back of his donkey, which was kicking out vigorously. Just then the driver, who walked by the side, threw himself over the flying heels of the beast and cast both arms about his body in the effort to hold him down to earth. By way of climax, the dig- nified escort was presently seen sailing out over the head of his donkey, umbrella in hand and opened wide, the donkey for the instant standing head down and heels in the air. Throughout, it was a close struggle between will of beast and will of man, and the girl had her full share of battle. In the end, the little gray beasts of China bore their unwonted burdens from the "West, all, or nearly all, the twelve miles from T'ung-chou to Peking. At last, in the dusty shadows of the dusty wall of dusty Peking, the travelers dismounted the donkeys and mounted — the Peking carts! The girl with the undaunted look in her 6 Under Marching Orders eyes had traveled many a Chinese li, 1 many an ocean league, and many a good American mile since she left her home in Iowa six months before. In the country, in childhood, haven't you often climbed the near-by hill eager to see what is just beyond! And haven't you found that there is always an- other "just beyond"? You would fain press on and on until you come to the very end of the earth, to that mysterious " jumping-off place" which, like the North Pole, seems very difficult of discovery. So it was with the girl. There was a voice in her ears which said, "Come," and there was some- thing deep down in her soul which said, "Go." The soul of man must be made for movement, for exploration, because it is sure to answer that summons to climb yet another hill and get the broader view. Thus the girl was lured out from the home town and out from the homeland across the sea to China. All told, it had been a wonderful journey. The girPs bright eyes and quick sense of fun had helped her to see and enjoy, as well as to make the best of trying situations. She was alive with interest when the ship an- i A li is about three eighths of a mile. — • — . ■ , ' , ■ — W> ^ From Yokohama - Honolulu and* '■[■■■■\rM'^W^' -*'•■• San Francisco ^^ > \ «■ — <* Mary Porter's Journey from San Francisco to Peking 7 8 Under Marching Orders cliored in Yokohama Bay. She had read the papers and kept pace with the times, and she knew that little Japan was making history fast. When they sailed throngh the lovely Inland Sea, she realized that Japan had beauty of nature on her side to help her men and women become trne and strong and loyal to the empire. Eleven days later she landed in China, after the six solid weeks on ship- hoard. Even in those days Shanghai, the port, was a bustling city threatening to be- come a rival on the other side of the world to New York. The girl, however, could not and cared not to linger in Shanghai, for she was bound for the capital city of the empire — mighty, mysterious Peking. With character- istic eagerness she longed to be off and away on the journey north. In 1871 America did not know as much about China as she knows to-day, and there had been no one in the home country to tell the girl traveler that the last vessel sailed north from Shanghai before the cold of winter began. Peking is a good one hundred miles from the coast, and Tientsin is its port. But Tientsin lies on the west bank of the muddy Pei Ho (North River), some twenty- Map Showing Location of Tientsin and Peking Distance, Taku to Tientsin, 27 Miles Distance, Tientsin to Peking, 79 Miles Into a Walled City 9 five miles from the sea, and the river freezes in cold weather. So, in the days before the railroad reached China, Peking was a goal not easily reached from the coast during the winter season. The girl learned cheerfully to accept the unexpected, and sailed away in the coast steamer to another city, Foochow, where she remained until the spring thaw opened navigation. There are some rough, tumbling waters between Shanghai and Tientsin, and the stoutest of travelers is usually brought low. Even nature in China has its streaks of per- versity. The ship anchors on the ocean side of the sandbar which blocks the entrance to the crooked Pei Ho. The wind is then likely to blow the water off the bar, until there is scarcely enough left to float an Indian canoe. The poor people at the mercy of the short, choppy waves think appreciatively of the "man who was so seasick that he feared he would die, and afterward was only afraid he would not die. ' \ By and by, the captain, who is a man of action, can brook delay no longer, and over the bar the steamer goes, scraping and grinding through the sands like a plow through the stubborn soil of New England. 10 Under Marching Orders In all these ways the girl was gathering ex- perience for her storehouse of wisdom. From Tientsin up to T'ung-chou, the end of navigation, the girl had her first expe- rience in a Chinese house-boat. She had often wondered what these strange craft were like, but she had never dreamed that there could be anywhere in one spot such a jam of boats and such a swarm of people. What yelling and pushing and shouting there was before they escaped from the wedge of boats! At last the wind filled the sails and they were off. At night they tied to the bank, and sailed away in the gray light of morning. The river bed is in some places higher than the surrounding country, and when the floods come of course the water breaks through the banks, which are not firm and strong and high like the Holland dikes. It gives the house-boats a fine chance to keep to a straight course instead of following the twisting curves of the river. Any sensible captain would choose to send his ship in a straight line when possible. Sometimes they were carried over whole fields of kaoliang, or broom-corn, which stood at least ten feet Into a Walled City 11 high. Little villages built on slightly higher land were veritable islands. It was a mirage experience, and the girl could hardly credit her senses. Chinese facts are often stranger than fairy tales, and nature seems to do her full part. Another Chinese puzzle was the famous pontoon bridge, or Bridge of Boats. How should they find a way through? It was easy, however, for a clumsy barge dropped out of its place in the line, and the waiting boats filed through this opening. The girl watched with interest the workings of this strange type of drawbridge and compared it with the government bridge which con- nected her own home town with the opposite shore of the broad Mississippi. The two bridges were another instance of the differ- ence between slow-moving, bulky China and wide-awake, alert America. She was just beginning to learn another lesson — a lesson taught by painful degrees in the days and years to come in China. To be willing to become a source of unfailing amusement to her fellow men was not such an easy task as one might think. Along the edges of the break in the bridge hovered a 12 Under Marching Orders motley throng of foot-passengers. They ob- jected not at all to the delay in their journey, for what a rare chance to stare at the queer- looking foreigners in the house-boat! The girl decided that they looked upon the group of Americans in much the same mood as they would view a monkey show or an exhibition of performing bears. So, through experiences, some as new as the daylight, and others as old as the human race, the girl came toward the end of her journey. Out on the plains, on the back of the donkey, she had her first view of the wall of Peking. It seemed literally to reach to the sky, and to shut out everything — every- thing except the dust. She had read of the walled cities of the ancient world, but only seeing is believing and understanding. There it stood, fifty feet above the plains, grim and forbidding as only a wall can be. The sun was already hidden by the wall, and the world was left in gloom before its time. It was just that funny donkey ride which saved the girl from an awful attack of home- sickness. ' l The long, long thoughts ' ' of home were vigorously pushed out by the perform- ances of the donkey, which compelled atten- Outer Wall of Pektxg Hata Gate Into a Walled City 13 tion. Thus for once the contrary little beast served as a benefactor, though of course he knew it not. Had he known, he would have changed his tactics. Everywhere and always "discretion is the better part of valor," and on this principle it is wise for the foreigner to enter a Chinese city as quietly as possible. Thus, outside the east gate of Peking the travelers ex- changed the donkeys for the Peking carts. It seemed to the girl as if she were climbing into a dog kennel on wheels as she mounted for the first time one of these carts. Pres- ently they were off, each cart swaying from side to side like a plunging boat in the surf. First one wheel, then the other made a sharp descent into the ruts worn in the stones, so that it took some mental equilibrium to keep one's head from violent contact with the sides of the cart. It was almost dusk, and the great iron- bound gate was soon to close. Along the street the Chinese rushed and scrambled to escape from the city while yet there was time. Others lined up on either side to watch the exciting dash for the gate. It was like i run- ning for the last train home. Like the safe 14 Under Marching Orders with the time-lock, the gate is not opened until sunrise when once it is closed and locked. Those who are out can in no wise get in, and those who are in cannot by hook or crook get out. The traveler who approaches the city on horseback, leaving his baggage and bedding to follow in the tardy cart, passes through the gate himself, but the chances are the cart is left outside. In this case there is no remedy for a sleepless night, since in China the traveler usually supplies his own bedding or does without. Meanwhile the carts turned from the stone road into a narrow, unpaved street. The thumping and bumping ceased for a time and the girl looked out of the opening at the stretch of street ahead. As far as she could see were dusty, gray brick walls on either side, with not a tree growing anywhere in sight. The street was probably not much wider than her own room at home. Here and there in the walls were heavy floors, all tightly closed. Evidently there were houses behind the walls, though not even a scrap of roof was visible from the street. Walls, walls everywhere, and walls within walls! A walled empire, walled cities, and walled Into a Walled City 15 houses! Perhaps a walled people? the girl questioned. Just then the carts came to a sudden, jerky stop. A door swung open, and the girl's journey was at an end. This was home. There had been a star in her heavens, which, like the guiding star of old, had lured her from her home in the West to the walled house in Peking. Why had she cornel The Chinese wondered — some of her friends at home wondered — but she herself never won- dered. She knew. A GIRL IN THE MAKING 17 n A GIEL IN THE MAKING "What man has dreamed, that man must do." In the woods which bordered upon the clearing, two fearless children roamed at will. The younger of the two was a slight, wiry little figure with a mass of golden curls and big blue eyes. They had read in their fairy books that sometimes real babies lived in the hollow trunks of great forest trees. So every day they searched in every hollow trunk, peering deep down to find the hidden treasure. Their mother had often to leave the house in the clearing and hunt anxiously for the little girls, who, before she had time to miss them, were off on their tour of dis- covery. There were wild beasts not far away, and dangerous snakes, but of these the children took no heed. Their fearlessness was their protection, and they played in safety under the shiny hemlock trees on the slopes of the Alleghanies. But the years hastened on, and the happy hunting-ground of the children was changed. 19 20 Under Marching Orders It was no longer the mysterious forest, but a big, gray house in the center of a busy, western town. The good times continued just the same, for the house was large and roomy, and the family large-hearted and hos- pitable. The house faced directly upon an open common, and not far away was the Court-house Square. Tall trees marked their shadows upon the green grass of the com- mon opposite. There was life and stir in the streets of the town, and on the great river sturdy steamboats towed the heavy barges, which carried flour, grain, and other freight. As to a magnet were drawn to this town on the Mississippi grain from the fields, ores from the mines, and timber from the forests, while from it manufactured products of many kinds were sent to all parts of the nation. Across the broad river to its eastern shore, the Chicago and Eock Island Eailroad had built a huge drawbridge, the first bridge across the Mississippi. By and by, as war became inevitable, Davenport, because it was in the center of things north and south and east and west, was chosen as a mustering-in place for Iowa soldiers. North and east of Mary Porter at Twelve Years of Age A Girl in the Making 21 the town there sprang up as in a night the tents and barracks of "Camp McClellan," "Camp Roberts," "Camp Hendershott, ' ' and others. On Rock Island, where the gov- ernment arsenal now stands, were built the large wooden buildings in which at one time twelve or fifteen thousand Confederate soldiers were imprisoned. Exciting tales drifted through the town, tales of how the prisoners plotted to escape, planning to walk across the river on the ice to the main- land and thus away to freedom, or perchance back again to battle. So it came to pass that things happened in the gray house in the square ; things funny, sad, and eventful, and the heart of them all was the same merry dreamer of a girl who followed fearlessly into the woods, the girl who always followed fearlessly wherever there was the call to go. Her hair was still curly and golden, though in the sunlight it had a tinge of red. Sometimes her eyes positively danced with mischief, and some- times they had a quiet, far-away look, as if she were seeing into the future. She was, known as the girl who could always find a way out of every difficulty, believing with all 2£ Under Marching Orders her might the old proverb, " Where there is a will, there is a way." From the day when the Southern guns fired upon Fort Sumter until the day when the flags hung at half-mast because Abraham Lincoln was dead, Mary Porter lived in the great deeds of the war. With her mother and the other children she drove out to camp and watched the military drill, listening eagerly to the beat of the drum, and learning the bugle calls by heart. There she heard those songs which made the Southern soldiers say, after the war was over, that it was the songs of the men in blue that won the war. She knew how " Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching" and "Bally round the flag" could fire the soul so that one would dare anything and fear nothing. Later on, when the broken ranks of the regiments came marching back to Davenport, her clear, soprano voice sang the brave, sad songs, "Tenting to-night on the old camp ground," "The vacant chair," and others like these born out of the experience of war. Oftentimes the gray house opened its doors to the womenfolk who came from a distance to be near their husbands, sons, and brothers A Girl in the Making 23 who were soon to be ordered out of camp to the front. Then again the busy mother of the family welcomed other active women of the town, and together they planned diet kitchens and hospital supplies for the sol- diers. A vast deal of wisdom was stored in those heads which wore the big scoop bon- nets, and bright were the eyes which looked out from under the broad brims. As the war drew near its close, these same women planned a home for orphaned children of the soldiers who had died for their country, and located this home in Davenport. But there were yet other doings in the house in the square. Many a night a bevy of schoolgirls sought refuge there when their pranks had kept them so late after school that it was too dark for them to go to their own homes. Mary Porter, Mattie Scott, Cora Parkhurst, and Mary Sully were boon com- panions, sharing alike in glory and disgrace. They had entered into a solemn compact whereby if one missed all would miss, and if one had to stay after school all would stay. So well known was their confederacy, that whenever there was sign of disturbance in the schoolroom, without looking up, the 24 Under Marching Orders teacher would call the names of the four girls. It was one night around the fire in the Porter house that the famous high school escapade was recounted in glowing terms. The high school had outgrown its quarters in the building with the graded schools, and the town had purchased for its use a large, half-built church. The rooms down-stairs were used for the school, while overhead, the unfinished auditorium served as gym- nasium, recess-hall, and general rallying- place of the boys and girls between sessions. Ropes with rings attached hung from the ceiling, a suggestion of gymnastic apparatus. On the wall, a makeshift ladder, made of strips of board nailed across between the studding, had been left by the workmen. It was the particular joy of the upper-class girls to climb this ladder and perch on the beams above to eat their luncheons. One day a brilliant idea entered the heads of the younger girls and was acted upon at once. Beginning, of course, at the top, they pulled off the thin strips of board until not a splinter of the ladder was left. Then they returned to the schoolroom with as much un- A Girl in the Making 25 concern as they could assume. Naturally the teacher inquired for the missing girls. ' ' They were up there when we came down, ' ' replied one of the four. The adventure ended merrily as it began. The helpless girls on the beams did not want the principal to know of their ignominious plight, and the teacher must put her wits to work to devise a way of getting them down. By dint of repeated effort she threw the gymnastic ropes within their reach. Grasping these, and swinging out into the air, one by one they reached the floor. Mary Porter finished her sophomore year in high school when the armies of the North and South had disbanded and the tired men had scattered to their homes. The nation's war was over, but the fighting days of her life had just begun. The bugle-call sounded in her ears, and like a soldier she fell in line. In the deserted barracks of Camp Eoberts the orphan children had been assembled in school. Teachers were urgently in demand, and there was a girl in Davenport ready to go wherever she was sure she was needed. This girl found out something during the year with the children, something which she 26 Under Marching Orders had hitherto suspected, that you really have the best kind of a time when you are doing things for other people. The notes of the bugle were growing clearer, and by and by she would know exactly their meaning. Something else had taken place in her life, even before that merry freshman year in high school. It was a real thing, though she did not talk much about it at the time or afterwards. Those were great days for boys and girls to be alive ; days when heroes were on every side, even where one did not dream of finding them. Deeds of daring and sacri- fice in war were told daily by the fireside. Men like Abraham Lincoln, Eobert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and William T. Sherman stirred the blood and put iron in the will. And yet the girl knew that there was a Hero greater than these, even he whose courage was back of the war generals, and whose love was in her very own soul. He should be her Commander General, and his marching or- ders she would gladly and instantly obey. During that same year, when she was fifteen years of age, she joined the church in her town, a willing recruit for service in a world- wide army. A Girl, in the Making 27 After teaching one year, Mary Porter went back to high school, and doing two years' work in one, graduated with her own class. It was a hard, forced march, and the girl- soldier almost fell by the way. Then she learned what it meant to pray to God, and to depend upon his help. Long years after, her letters told of the battle fought in this senior year. "I used to ask God to help me with geometry, Latin, chemistry, and every- thing in which I was likely to stagger from overwork. I have sat down at my desk so weary and discouraged with everything that I could have almost cried ! But in my need I would remember God, and I felt his help! And so the puzzles disappeared, and I won- dered where I had found them. ' ' The principal of the high school was proud of his star pupil, and asked her to go as teacher to Grandview Academy, where he had accepted a position. So it came to pass that the girl of twenty taught classes of young men and women, and many of them were older than herself. Brain and hand were taxed to the utmost in those busy days at Grandview. There were singing-lessons to be practised daily, besides her regular sched- 28 Under Marching Orders ule of teaching. Furthermore, the people in the little church in the town had chosen the resourceful girl as superintendent of the Sunday-school. Finally, in every odd mo- ment she was studying persistently in order to enter college with advanced standing. But a dream of another sort came all un- bidden and came to stay, and by and by this new dream absorbed the ambition for college. There was a huge, old-world country, with five times as many people as the Eepublic and nearly sixty times as many as the Dominion of Canada, where teachers were very scarce, and where pupils were as the sand of the sea for number. Might not she be needed there ? From what she had heard, she was sure those pupils were in need of lessons. They did not know the simplest things about geography or history or science, and the girls among them didn't even know how to read. At that time girls weren't considered worth teaching in that ancient land. Moreover, the people did not know about God, and heaven, and Jesus Christ. Should she not go and teach them? She was now under marching orders, and when an army regiment is ordered to the ends of the earth where is the soldier who Women with the Scoop Bonnets Old Prison Hospital, Arsenal Island A Girl, in the Making 29 hesitates 1 The bugle-call had sounded again, and this time there was no mistaking its meaning. So it came about that Mary Porter, to the surprise of her friends, and somewhat to the surprise of herself, decided to spend her life in China. A strange coincidence was discovered while she was making ready to go to China. A person by the name of Mary Porter was already living in Peking, the city to which she was to be sent. Mail matter would cer- tainly be confused, so she must put a middle letter in her name to identify herself. "What shall it be? Query ?" she asked of her sister one day. ' ' Q stands for query, let it be Q," and Mary Q. Porter it was until that day in China when she changed her name* for that of another. The gray house in the square was left behind for five years at least when the train pulled out of Davenport for the west and the girl of the house began her long journey. It had been arranged by her friends that a gentleman whom they knew should meet Miss Porter at San Francisco and take her to the steamer. He walked through the train closely scanning each passenger, but did not 30 Under Marching Orders find any one he thought could be the new mis- sionary. As he came back through the car, he stopped nearly opposite her seat and said, "I am looking for Miss Porter who is going to China. Do any of you know her?" "I am Miss Porter, ' ' came a demure voice from the depths of the seat. The gentleman turned and looked at the slip of a girl with her golden curls loose in her neck, and her blue eyes shining with amusement. "You!" he exclaimed with some emphasis; "I was look- ing for an old maid ! ' ' It was no wonder the good man was surprised, for this girl of twenty-three was one of the youngest mis- sionaries ever sent out of the country. In San Francisco she found Miss Maria Brown, a young woman from New England, who was also on her way to China. Together they went on board the steamer and sailed out through the Golden Gate, sailing west in order to go most directly to the Far East. And now you know, do you not, why you found the American girl riding her donkey toward the great wall of Peking that April afternoon in 1872?. BOUND OR UNBOUND? si in BOUND OR UNBOUND? "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? " One December evening in the sitting-room of the "Long Home'' in Peking, Mary Porter and Maria Brown sat on the floor in front of the stove in which a coal fire was brightly burning. The chill of a northern winter had settled npon Peking, and the clanging bells of the camel trains which brought the supply of coal from the western hills to the city were a most welcome sound in the ears of the foreigners. Here, within the walled court of a Chinese compound, and beneath the tiled roof of a Chinese house, was a room distinctively American. A sofa of familiar pattern stood against the wall. In the center of the room was a large table covered with books, and by its side a big, friendly arm-chair. An open I desk was in one corner, and a medicine-chest with its rows of labeled bottles waited in trim readiness for use. There were pictures S3 34 Under Marching Orders on the walls, and a straw matting covered the boards which had replaced the brick-paved floor. The soft light of a shaded lamp shone through the long, narrow room, and the two glowing eyes of the stove added further gleams of brightness. This was home to the two young women from America, and here, in the quiet of Sun- day evening, they faced and settled a momen- tous question. From the beginning, girls had been admitted to their school only on condi- tion that the bound feet should be released from the tight bandages and allowed to grow naturally. No other girls' school in China insisted upon this rule. Should they continue to do so? Moreover it had to be acknowl- edged that some of the small band of pupils already gathered in school had been taken away solely because their feet had been un- bound. Teachers who had been in the country years instead of months said that it would not do to break down such an old Chinese custom all at once, that parents would never allow their girl-children to go to the Chris- tian school if so cherished a tradition must be sacrificed. Here then was the question, and the two Bound or Unbound? 35 young women, as they sat before the fire that Sunday evening, knew that only one answer was possible. The yards and yards of cotton bandage must be removed, and the poor, cramped toes and overgrown insteps restored to normal size and use. The hollow-eyed, sad little girls of China, hobbling about on their doll-like feet, should become, in the Christian school, rosy, healthy children, run- ning and playing like the other small folk of God's world. The human body is God's own creation and gift, and to distort it is more than a cruel national custom ; it is a sin. Thus Miss Porter and her companion rea- soned together, and thus the question was settled. That night's decision reached far into the future and touched hands with a certain edict from the throne of China proclaiming in the year 1907, that the girls of the empire should henceforth escape the torture of foot- binding. And when the girls' school of Peking became the largest school for girls in all China, there were those who remem- bered the Sunday night in the sitting-room of the ' ' Long Home, ' ' and who readily believed that the mighty Master himself was present 36 Under Marching Orders at that conference and prompted the daring decision. The l ' Long Home ' ' had been so christened because of its peculiar dimensions. When Mary Porter stepped into the weed-grown court on her first morning in Peking, she turned to look at the little house which she had entered in the darkness of evening. There it was, peering out at her from under its overhanging eaves and heavy, tiled roof. There were three rooms in a row with a veranda across the length of the house, which, like most Peking houses, was only one story high. It was still a typical Chinese house, although the Americans who lived in the compound had exchanged the paper windows for glass, and had laid boards over the damp, brick floors. As Miss Porter walked down the path, a great dog of western breed bounded for- ward and greeted his fellow American by placing both paws upon her shoulders, mark- ing, in his descent to the ground, the front of her gown with streaks of Peking mud. She said afterwards "that the act made an im- pression upon her mind as well as upon her gown, whereby she remembered that it rained Bound or Unbound? 37 that April morning in Peking." In the months and years to come in China, she grew to welcome those days of dripping rain as an oasis in an endless desert of dnst. The path straggled through the weeds to a hole in the wall of the compound. This hole was a perfect circle six feet in diameter, and was the Chinese moon-gate. Near the gate was a small bnilding which served as chapel. In the court were two other houses, three fourths Chinese and one fourth American in appearance. These were occupied by the two families from America who had already made Peking their home. A brick-paved court led from the inside court to the great, double gate which opened on Filial Piety Lane. Here, then, was Mary Porter's new world, the world of her dream. A gray brick wall frowned like the wall of a prison. The long- drawn, oriental houses were picturesque, but musty and cheerless compared with the open, sunny house in Davenport. There were about ten other Americans to share her work and play. And here within this stuffy com- pound was the girl who once was lured by the attractions of college, and of large activ- ity in the homeland. Had she come to China 38 Under Marching Orders in vain? Listen! From the other side of the wall came a singsong of boyish voices shout- ing unintelligible sounds. The boys of the mission school were studying their lessons aloud in good old Chinese fashion. But out beyond those gray walls were hundreds of little girls, unloved and untaught. No school for girls had ever been provided by Chinese educators until the coming of the mission- aries. Was there not work for the American girl to do? The new school for girls grew slowly in its pioneer days. The first small pupil who came ran away as fast as her bound feet could carry her when she saw the queer look- ing foreigners. During that first year per- haps fifty girls came and went away again, while only seven came and remained. The Chinese told hideous tales one to another, tales of how the foreigners removed the eyes of Chinese children and used them for med- icine. Mothers would hastily cover the eyes of their children when they met the so-called "foreign devils" in the streets of Peking, lest somehow they cast an evil spell upon them. Parents who allowed their children to go to the Christian school were mostly so Bound or Unbound? 39 poor that they would accept any means to relieve themselves of feeding and clothing one more little body. Sometimes the girls were left in school only long enough to receive new, warm clothing, when they were taken home and their clothes sold or pawned. Among the seven bewildered little girls who dared to stay in the school was a strange child called Hui An. She had an unusually bright mind and understood the Christian teaching more quickly than the other girls, but her faculty for memorizing was meager. Consequently she was in perpetual disgrace with the old Chinese teacher to whom the aim and end of education was to learn by heart lengthy passages, and even entire books. In those days when the school was small, it was the habit of the girls to go each even- ing, one by one, into a quiet room where they knelt with Miss Porter and learned to pray to the God whom they had so recently come to know. One afternoon as soon as school was dismissed, Hui An knocked at Miss Porter's door and asked, "Please may I say my prayers now!" Miss Porter replied that she would better wait until the usual hour. But the girl was too much in earnest to be 40 Under Marching Orders refused, and her prayer was heard by Miss Porter, and the Father to whom she spoke. She arose from her knees with a contented face. Miss Porter again asked why she had come at that early hour. "By this time the child had gained a little more courage, and, standing upon one foot, toying nervously with her big sleeves, her face downcast, she said: 'I love so much to play that every day I just play as hard as I can from the time school is out until supper time, and after supper to prayer time, so when I come in to pray I just can think of nothing but the play, and all out of breath I want to rush through the prayer and be off to play again. And now/ she said, ' since I know that God knows about this kind of business and doesn't like it, I am afraid to do so any more. 9 " It was the same Hui An who, years after, was burned to death because she would not desert her post of duty. i i There are others depend- ent upon me, * ' she said, when asked to escape to a place of safety. The hardy spirit of the Peking school had mastered the Chinese girl and braced her to meet danger and death. Sarah Wang was another of Miss Porter's pupils in those early, formative days of the Bound or Unbound? 41 school. She it was who made the famous journey from her home in Shan-tung to Peking — on a wheelbarrow! It was a dis- tance of four hundred miles, taking sixteen days for the jerky ride over the uneven roads. Sarah's mother and sister Clara traveled with her, and the two girls were to be left in the Christian school. Mrs. Wang belonged to an old, respected family. There was by nature a certain queenly element in her which made her an undaunted Christian. She had become convinced that foot-binding was wrong, and thus she fully expected to have her daughters' feet freed from the bandages as soon as they entered school. When the new shoes and stockings were pro- duced and the unbinding process began, the mother at first smiled approvingly saying, " God's will be done, let the feet be unbound." Then her fine face quivered with emotion and the slow tears came. She wrung her hands and walked restlessly up and down the room. "Unbind only the feet of one, and let the other child's remain bound," she begged piteously. And then she reproached herself for her weakness. It was the conflict between the old life and the new, and it cost to give up 42 Under Marching Orders the old ways. The tiny foot was a sign of gentility, of high social standing, and family pride put in its claim. But the new faith tri- umphed over the old custom and Mrs. Wang's face became quiet and earnest. "Go on," she said, ' ' it shall be done. ' ' Thus the victory was won in the life of that stately woman of an ancient race. Some months later, Sarah went home to Shan-tung for her first vacation. As she rode in her cart through the country, her large feet provoked many comments. Beg- gars, taking her for a man, followed the cart crying out: "Venerable uncle, pity me, pity me I" If she spoke or laughed, thus betray- ing her sex, they said, "Venerable maiden.' ' If she walked along the road, children would come running from the fields to see this strange freak of a human being. She over- heard some one say, "This, finally, is what kind of a person? The head is that of a maiden, but the feet are like those of a man, and it has bound on ankle ties. What can it be?" Thus it cost Sarah as well as her mother to give up the old customs and dare the scorn of her tormentors. She was eleven vears old when she returned Bound or Unbound? 43 to school at the end of vacation. In her native village they had ridiculed and even insulted the girl who had come home with unbound feet, the first girl ever seen in that region with feet of natural size. Sarah went to Miss Porter crying as if her heart would break, and declared that never again did she want to go home. Then it was that the young American teacher who had herself faced crit- icism in the home country, and open hostility here in China, put nerve and courage in the shrinking Chinese girl. "It always means suffering to be a pioneer in any work and in any land. But for the sake of those who are to follow in the way you have trod, can you not bear it ? ' ' And then she appealed to the girl Christian in the name of her Christ. 6 • Can you not do this for his sake ? Will you not help his cause by bearing this hardship! Go home every vacation and tell your villa- gers that it is for love of a new-found God that you remove the bandages which deform the body he claims for his temple. Keep on telling, and after a while they will under- stand, and you will have served your Savior and made things easier for all other girls who shall unbind their feet. ' ' The girl responded 44 Under Marching Orders to this challenge in the same soldier-like spirit in which Mary Porter had herself an- swered the bugle-call to action. Never again did Sarah complain or falter as she went her way on the unbound feet. During these early years, experiences such as fall to the lot of the pioneer beset Mary Porter's life in China. She was more than an explorer in a new world. She had come as a settler, and therefore "what could not be cured must somehow be endured.' ' Inva- riably she took the hard things in the spirit of an interesting adventure, and was true to her reputation as the girl who was bound to find a way out of every emergency. One day Chinese workmen were building the walls of the new schoolhouse in the compound. The Chinese method of construction was to lay double walls of brick quite close together, with single bricks placed across between the walls at frequent intervals to serve as sup- ports. These connecting bricks were abso- lutely necessary for the stability of the wall. Mary Porter had kept strict watch of the wily Chinese, who were waiting for the chance to omit the third row of bricks if they could do so undetected. Every day, as the wall rose Bound or Unbound? 45 higher and higher, she climbed up and peered into the space between. One morning she heard a workman say, ' ' The wall is too high now for the girl to climb.' ' Thereupon she determined that they should see whether or not the girl could climb. She mounted the scaffolding, and with one push sent the shaky wall crumbling to the ground. After that the builders learned to respect the American girl whose blue eyes missed little of what was going on about her, and whose ears were quick to understand even the strange words of Chinese speech. As the months went on, novelty of life in the compound was worn threadbare. Every nook and corner, crack and crevice of the dusty old Chinese houses became familiar. Each and every object in the rooms could be located with one's eyes closed. At home in the United States, when monotony threatens, there is always the chance to go down-town and look in the shopwindows, perhaps to go to a concert of beautiful music, or better yet, walk for long distances in the open country. If Mary Porter ventured outside the double gate of the compound into the streets of Peking, the very children would cover their 46 Under Marching Orders eyes and run in the opposite direction. When at a safe distance they would join with others in the cry, "Foreign devil!" Then there were scenes in the streets which haunted her memory day and night. Dead cats and dogs were left unburied. Little dingy bundles wrapped in coarse matting were cast outside the gates of the houses to await the coming of the ox-cart which passed daily through the streets to bear the bodies of dead babies to burial. If a man were in mortal danger no Chinese would venture to his relief, lest he be dragged to court on charge of having caused the man's misfortune. An American bishop once said that he had discovered sixty- nine different unpleasant odors in unwhole- some Peking, besides a combination of sev- eral others which he could not distinguish. In the market-places and near the city gates the dust was unspeakable. Peking dust is unique among all dusts of the earth for its blackness, its stickiness, and its actual filth. No wonder then that Miss Porter chose to walk on the great wall of the city above the sights and sounds and odors of the street. Tall grasses sprang up unchecked between the stones. Myriads of birds flew high and Bound or Unbound? 47 low. Even the birds of China were different from their brothers of America. The pet pigeons had whistles tied to their tails, and as they flew their buzzing shriek could be heard in all directions. In the summer-time Miss Porter looked down from the wall into dense, green foliage through which the yellow tiles of the palace buildings gleamed like leaves of gold. There were once two travelers in Peking, one of whom said the city was treeless, and the other that it was a veritable forest ; the dif- ference being, that one traversed the city streets, and the other the city wall. The trees were all enclosed within the walls by which Chinese dwellings were surrounded, and be- cause the walls were high and the streets narrow, not a sign of a tree was visible from the street. There was always a sense of home-coming when Miss Porter returned from her walk on the wall to Filial Piety Lane and into the compound behind the double gate. Unques- tionably there was work to do in her new world, and work that was worth doing. One day she wrote a letter which traveled across the sea to that other home in America: "No, 48 Under Marching Orders I have had no regular — wonder if you did not mean irregular — fits of homesickness. I have longed to see you all, thought of you until the tears come — not common with me — but there is no despondency in it. I fully believe God has kept me from such feelings, and in an- swer to prayer. . . . An Influence has sup- ported me all the way that I did not feel in past days." In the i * Long Home ' ' each noon- time, Mary Porter and Maria Brown knelt together to ask God's blessing upon the new work which had come into being through their own lov- ing efforts. In some way one of their fellow laborers heard of the daily habit, and at his suggestion the noon hour was made a time of prayer for the entire mission. There in the musty compound, in a corner of the huge, alien city, nearly nine thousand miles from home, Mary Porter spent the years of her young womanhood. And those days of prolonged anxiety, even of fierce excitement and bitter peril which were yet to come, cast no foreboding shadow. It was with a great, glad hope that she marched into that unknown future within which, near or far, she would find her dream come true. IN A PEKING CART IV IN A PEKING CART "Made like our own strange selves, with memory, mind, and will; Made with a heart to love, and a soul to live forever! " Early one October morning, two carts drawn by mules passed through the Hata gate of the city. They were just ordinary Peking carts, having none of the insignia of official rank, such as the broad band of red cloth around the wooden sides, or the pomp- ous outriders on mules bedecked with tasseled trappings. Faded cloth of Chinese blue cov- ered the tops of the carts. By their side rode two escorts on horseback, one a Chinese boy, and the other a foreigner. It was the pres- ence of the Western stranger which excited the curiosity of the throng on the road out- side the gate. Eager eyes gazed into the openings at the front of the carts. Sure enough there were other ridiculous foreigners inside. Moreover they were women, Amer- ican women, and one had curly, light hair and blue eyes. What a laughable contrast to the 51 52 Under Marching Orders dark-eyed women of China, with their coils of glossy, black hair! Who but a Western barbarian would have curly hair! If the inquisitive Chinese could have peered still farther into one of the carts, they would have discovered satchels and books, and the usual supply of bedding without which no traveler, native or foreign, fares forth in China. On the back of the cart was strapped a large box containing dishes, cooking uten- sils, the small charcoal stove, and a generous provision of food. This was the portable kitchen and pantry combined, so necessary to the comfort of him who seeks the uncertain hospitality of Chinese inns. Two mules drew the cart. One was harnessed between the shafts and attended strictly to duty. The other was attached by a long rope fastened near the axle. He described a circle through the surrounding country, unless recalled by the long whip of the carter. On the side of the shaft sat the little man who wielded the reins and brandished the whip. Only to the foreigners was the Peking cart a doubtful convenience. To the Chinese, the springless box on wheels was a simple necessity, whose possible improvement was not to be consid- Peking Carts on Rough Roads Riveb Febby In a Peking Cart 53 ered. Even the long nails which fastened the rims on the wheels, and which dug their bris- tling heads into the ground, stirred no crit- icism. It was only the nervous Westerner who objected. Meanwhile the two carts and the two riders traveled steadily away from the cap- ital city out toward the borders of the royal province of Chih-li, southeast in the direction of Shan-tung. It was a long journey these wayfarers had planned, and stout must be the nerves and courage of him who endures to the end. It was like Mary Porter, like the venturesome girl of old, to start unhesita- tingly upon a trip never before attempted by a woman. Once, in the Peking compound, she wrote a letter home in which were these words: "I refuse to acknowledge that there is anything I ought to do which I cannot do. ' ' Nine hundred miles of travel in a Peking cart was a formidable prospect even to the strongest man, but with the call of duty in her ears, it could and should be done. Her fellow travelers were the gentleman on horse- back and his wife who rode with her in the cart. In the other cart sat Mrs. Wang, the mother of Sarah, who was now a Bible 54 Under Marching Orders woman, and often Miss Porter's companion on the country trips. Another of the mis- sionaries was to join them at Tientsin. Thus with the Chinese servant and the two carters, there were eight people to share the expe- riences of travel. Each day the carts covered the allotted distance for a day's journey, thirty miles. Tientsin had been left behind, and they were now in a country new and strange to the women from the Western world. About dusk the mules and horses drew up in Hsing-chi. It was one of those excitable Chinese towns where it was easy to stir up a mob. The carts bumped through the long village from one end to the other, but every inn was stubbornly closed against the foreigners. A crowd was rapidly gathering and following close upon them. There was nothing to do but start at once for the next village. On the outskirts of Hsing-chi they found a dirty little inn huddled down by the roadside. It was too forlorn even to raise a protest against the foreigners, so a refuge for the night was found at last. Miss Porter and her compan- ion slept in a room which had apparently been used as a stable. There was scarcely In a Peking Cart 55 any furniture save the usual brick kang (bed) under which the fire may be built. The walls were of grimy clay, and the floor of bare, brown earth. In the morning, in the midst of prepara- tions for an early start, a horse broke loose and ran down the road. One of the men of the party went in pursuit, and upon his return passed and repassed the little crouching inn before recognizing his habitation of the night. Afterward he remarked that he didn't think it possible for Christian people to have stayed in ' ' such a hole. ' ' Beyond Meng-ts'un, the carts turned aside from their course to search out the site of old Ts'ang-chou. New Ts'ang-chou is four- teen miles distant on the bank of the river. Legend has it that the inhabitants moved the town by passing one brick after another along two parallel lines of people which stretched from the old town to the new. True it was that only low mounds covered with stiff grass, and the famous lion wrought of cast iron, remained to tell the story of a once populous city. That peculiar silence which haunts deserted things, hung low over the uneven grass and the fallen lion. The head 56 Under Marching Orders had been broken from the body of the beast and lay on the gronnd a few feet distant. Still farther on lay the nose, which was of such great weight that no man conld lift it. The entire party sat down together inside the head, and the horses stood inside the body. The broken lion was another token of the age of that land which, though so old in years, was yet a child in wisdom. Hundreds of years ago, the lion, with a companion lion, guarded the entrance of a palace in the ancient town long since vanished. In the little chapel at Shang-chia-chai, the next stopping place, the Chinese Christians gathered for evening prayer and the singing of hymns. They had heard of the clear, soprano voice which led the singing in the compound at Peking, and Miss Porter's com- ing was hailed with joy. With childlike sat- isfaction they sang the old hymns of the Church, begging Miss Porter to correct their mistakes, as they had learned most of the songs from Chinese teachers. Frequently they stopped singing to tell her how eagerly they had hoped for good singers to come and teach them. The old tune of Greenville was their particular favorite, and they sang it In a Peking Cart 57 again and again with whole-hearted enthusi- asm. Miss Porter listened appreciatively to their original variation in one of the meas- ures, which was sung with keenest enjoyment. The music is written in this way : They sang it thus mm J_ 1 / A Kmk N '^J H il Etts I i T* - \ a • : j 1 '.-'I m 1 i * * J ■ ISp ■Hi . *, « i ■ M ll ' ir - . . . • A Chinese Mob 93 ceeding the Sunday of the Dragon Festival. Yet the little company of men and women within the walls were calm and trustful. Mrs. Gamewell said they felt the iron strength of the promise: "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. ' ' At the very instant when the frenzied Chinese broke through the barricades at the front, an excited messenger came to the rear gate bidding the missionaries make haste and escape while yet there was time. The magis- trate had sent sedan-chairs to bear them to his yamen, but they must speed away into the darkness before their flight was detected. Even as the mob was entering the court they slipped out at the rear, and were swiftly borne along the precipice overhanging the river. The weird, silent journey came to a sudden pause as the bearers made a quick turn through a gate and dropped the chairs before a house close by the wall. Into the small, stuffy room which the fugitives were com~ manded to enter, crowded a rabble of Chinese who remained to scoff. Trying beyond measure was the situation of the foreigners, until their guide reappeared and helped them 94 Under Marching Orders force their way through the struggling crowd to their chairs at the door. As Mrs. Game- well's turn came, and she took her seat, it was discovered that there were no more chairs, so Mr. Gamewell must be left behind while she was spirited away into the city streets. Her last look revealed him in the midst of an excited throng which shouted boisterously for him to wait, that he could not in safety walk across the city to the yamen. For Mrs. Gamewell and her companions there was another rapid rush along dark edges of the street, and a stealthy turn into a court where lights were forbidden. They were taken into a house and told to ascend a ladder which they found led to a windowless garret, totally dark and breathlessly hot. Silence was charged upon them, and there on the floor they sat for two or three hours. It seemed endless to Mrs. Gamewell, tortured as she was by fears for her husband. But she prayed to the God of her strength, and seemed to feel the assurance of Mr. Game- well's safety. At last the door was cautiously opened and a messenger brought the official summons of the magistrate to his yamen. There was an- A Chinese Mob 95 other hasty ride and the chairs came to a halt in a court where Mrs. Gamewell found her husband watching anxiously for her com- ing. He had been carried directly to the ya- men, and was alarmed at not finding her there. They met only to be separated at once, for Chinese custom demanded that the men occupy one court and the women another. Mrs. Gamewell and her companions were conducted through a series of dimly lighted apartments into the room which was to be their shelter for the night. Here they spent several uneasy hours, sleeping but little and not daring to remove their clothes. The morning light brought the haunting thought that they were homeless, and well-nigh friendless, in a city sixteen hundred miles from the coast. The mob had demolished every foreign house in Chung-ch'ing, having first seized as booty the cherished posses- sions of those who were strangers among them and who would so gladly have been their friends. During two weeks of suspense, not know- ing what an hour might bring forth, the for- eigners were kept in the yamen of the chief magistrate. From one day to the next they 96 Under Marching Orders knew not whether they would be dispatched on the swift currents of the Yang-tzu to the coast, or detained as prisoners to await an uncertain fate. The magistrate insulted and threatened, and with paradoxical insistence declared that he was taking care of them. "In America they kill Chinese," was his con- stant taunt. They were at the mercy of a fickle government, but they were also in the care of a steadfast God. In the night of this racking anxiety Mrs. GamewelPs faith shone forth like a star. In her diary of July 13th she wrote: "I have been reading the book of Daniel. God is good. He has drawn us very close to himself during these days of trial. Can we wander far again? I shall know how his love went before us each day and wonder that my eyes ever turned away!" Two days later, passports for the Amer- icans to leave the city were received. The magistrate bade his wife supply them with black cloth to cover their heads, and Chinese clothes to complete their disguise. They were to leave the city in the third watch of the night. On July 16, these entries were made in Mrs. Gamewell's diary: "5.45 a. m. A Chinese Mob 97 Up all night. Feast at 1.00. To boats about 2.00. Weighed anchor about 5.45. Left in darkness. Lanterns swinging in the fog. Soldiers seen in the dim streets guarding our way down to the boat, soldiers and yamen runners guarding and pointing the way. Magistrate came down and sat in his chair and exhorted the boat captains. So in the darkness we steal out of the city whose people have torn up every vestige of our home, and left us with none of the treasures we brought with us two years ago. ' ' In exactly four days the two boats rushed down the mad currents of the river to I-ch'ang, whereas the trip up stream had taken four weeks. The difference in time tells a story of wild mountain torrents, high winds, and daring skill of valiant oarsmen. Upon reaching Shanghai Mrs. Gamewell went on board the ocean steamer to return to the United States. Life in China had made heavy inroads upon her splendid health, and a rest in the air and freedom of home was a necessity. Mr. Gamewell turned his face toward Peking, to arrange a settlement with the imperial government to pay for the loss of property in the Chung-ch'ing riot. A CHINESE SUNDAY SCHOOL AND A CHINESE CHURCH vn A CHINESE SUNDAY SCHOOL AND A CHINESE CHURCH "Faith is nothing else but the soul's venture." One year and then another slipped back into history until some twenty years had passed since Mary Porter had her first vision of the gray walls of Peking. Inside those walls and out on the plains beyond, she had wrought with all her soul and strength for the victory which, though yet invisible, was surely to be made real. The joy of master- ing the difficult and seemingly impossible task had possessed her with its charm. There in the heart of dusty, crowded Peking she had found the one who joined her in her quest of the ideal. Far away inland, in high-built Chung-ch' ing, the two laborers in the name of their great Chief had laid firm strokes of honest effort which survived in triumph the wreck and disaster of a day's defeat. Beyond the ocean in wide-awake America they spent months of enthusiastic interest, profit- 101 102 Und-E.h Marching Orders ing in full measure by the stir of life, and rejoicing in the reunion with old friends. Yet persistently their thoughts had turned to that other unforgotten home across the seas in ancient China. The old call to service in the place where the need is greatest, the call which had dominated these two since child- hood, had again sounded its irresistible note. To the utter joy of the man and woman, their mission board sent them back to their original post of duty in the compound in Peking. Mr. Gamewell was assigned his task in the university which had grown out of the boys' school of pioneer days. Around Mrs. Gamewell gathered the women from the scattered communities outside Peking, to be taught the Bible lessons which she could make so vivid and throbbing with life. Her com- mand of the Chinese language was so com- plete that they often said, "She talks just like one of us." From the spell of her per- sonality, women of the type of Mrs. Wang went forth into the country districts to carry light and joy into hundreds of hopeless Chinese homes. Thus the influence of one shining character reached far and wide in northeastern China. A Chinese Sunday School 103 As the years went on, another work, new and promising, was laid in her willing hands. It was the wonderful Peking Sunday-school. In the beginning the Christian students and the servants of the compound were the only pupils, but in course of time a few children from the neighborhood strayed in. They were familiar with the tale that "foreign devils" used children's hearts and eyes to make medicine ; so, naturally, their approach was cautious. About this time a young woman from New England joined the mis- sion, bringing with her a love for children and a quantity of picture cards. To the chil- dren from the streets of Peking these cards were like leaves from a fairy book. Each Sunday groups of small folk assembled, until the class became too large to meet with the main Sunday-school. It was given a room of its own, and speedily that room was filled to overflowing. Children sat on seats and on the backs of seats; they sat on each other's laps ; they sat on the floor ; they sat on the table and under the table. The teacher was obliged to take her place before the children came in, and when all had pressed inside she had just standing- 104 Under Marching Orders room and no more. If visitors called she could not move an inck to receive them, nor could they go beyond the half-open door. They exclaimed, ' ' Wonderful ! Wonderful ! ' ' It was not long before a whole Sunday- school was formed of this one class. In the morning the Christians of the mission met in classes taught by the missionaries. In the afternoon the children of the city and any adults who cared to come formed a second Sunday-school, the pupils of the forenoon becoming the teachers of the afternoon. Just here a catastrophe loomed up before them. The supply of cards would soon be exhausted ! An urgent letter was sent to America asking that small packages of cards be dispatched at once by mail, and boxes sent by freight later. From Maine to Maryland, and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi this letter was read and answered. Packages of all shapes and sizes were received by the missionary in Tientsin whose duty it was to forward the mail to Peking. Usually he employed a courier and one donkey for the purpose, but when the cards began to crowd the bags, he had to hire three donkeys for the enlarged A Chinese Sunday School 105 postal service. In the spring the boxes arrived, and before summer there was a room in the mission solidly packed with boxes, bags and barrels of cards. The new Sunday-school grew as the class had grown. The mission chapel seated four hundred, but often five hundred children were present. A group sat on the altar steps, others were held on the knees of their com- panions, and still there were those who had to stand throughout the session. Many of them came shivering in grimy rags of cloth- ing. Among them were some "pinched-faced little folks ' ' who sometimes bartered the cher- ished cards for food. One cold day Mrs. Gamewell saw a child not more than six years old give her card to a pedler while he put in her hands a cup of hot soup. Most of the chil- dren came from homes in comparison with which the chapel was ' ' a paradise of warmth and cheer.' ' For them the Sunday-school hour was the one bit of color in seven gloomy days. At noon on Sunday groups of children began to gather in Filial Piety Lane, until at three o 'clock, when the bell rang, a small mul- titude pressed through the gate. And these were the same children who had once scam- 106 Under Marching Orders pered away in fright whenever the queer for- eigner came toward them. A second trouble threatened, and at the same time a great hope dawned in Mrs. Gamewell's boundless horizon of purpose. The mission chapel was unmistakably on the verge of collapse. The walls had already cracked, and now they were bulging as if ready to crumble. The heavy tiled roof leaned dangerously. Stays were put against the walls and extra supports under the roof. The days of the old chapel were numbered with fatal certainty. Thereupon Mrs. Game- well dreamed a dream and set herself to work out its achievement. Her first move was to send a letter to the mission board in New York. This is what she wrote : "We are in trouble. Let me tell you our trouble, and please help us. The mission chapel is giving way. We began to prop and mend it a year ago, but now the walls lean worse, the cracks are wider, and the timbers bend more threateningly. If you could stand by the old weather-beaten chapel and hear its history, so interwoven with all the mission's joys and sorrows, and its hopes past and future, and realize how much depends upon A Chinese Sunday School 107 our mission chapel, your voice would ring out with energy of speech and song that would win for us the help we need. It is no shame for the chapel to fall. It has stood nearly twenty years and cost only two thousand dollars when it was built. We knew it could not be long-lived because there was not money enough to build substantially. It is now the oldest building in the mission." The letter further told of the Sunday- school, unique in all China for its size and character. If the church should fall in ruins, what would become of the hundreds of chil- dren who gathered within its tottering walls each Sabbath afternoon? "Do you understand what it would mean to shut our gates for weeks and months with no promise as to the near future 1 Suspicion would follow disappointment, and the Chinese would think we had ceased to want them in our chapel, reasoning in the same way as when, believing all missionaries to be doctors, they think we do not cure their diseases be- cause we do not want to. Work so slowly built up would fall to pieces before our eyes and we would be powerless to help. "Besides the Sunday-school, every other 108 Under Marching Orders department of our Peking work depends in a measure upon the chapel. The university students meet there for morning prayers. Preaching services and prayer-meetings depend upon it. The chapel is the only assembly-room for funerals and weddings. Christmas is celebrated there. There is no place for commencement exercises but in the chapel. What will become of these interests if the chapel falls? When it was built its size seemed so out of proportion to the num- bers assembled, and the work then under way, that our friends remarked: 'You must have great faith to build so large a house with any hope of filling it.' The faith has been rewarded. The work has so outgrown the chapel accommodations that for several years we have felt the need of a large church, but schools and country work have been in such urgent straits, and we need such a big church next time one is built, that we have delayed asking for an appropriation, hoping that the time might come when we could ask, with a hope of receiving it, about ten thousand dol- lars to build a church that would answer mis- sion purposes for the next twenty years. If you find it in your power to help us to a new A Chinese Sundat School 109 church, you will be sending a broad beam of cheer into the shadows, that will lift us up and strengthen us to a degree that perhaps you little imagine." Mrs. Gamewell 's letter was a challenge which some large-hearted people in America could not refuse to accept. By return mail the first instalment of a large sum of money was forwarded to Peking, and later, while on a furlough in America, Mr. Gamewell secured the help of a competent architect to prepare plans for the new church. They were build- ing, as they thought, for twenty years at least, and the workmanship must be substan- tial. A structure made of brick and wood, with seating capacity for fifteen hundred, was designed, and Mr. Gamewell returned to Peking to superintend its erection. In course of time the wonderful new build- ing was completed and christened Asbury Church. It was the architectural pride of the compound, and also the largest Protes- tant church in the whole empire. Almost immediately the Sunday-school sent its regi- ments of children down the aisles and into the seats of the auditorium. By this time the school had become so famous that travelers 110 Under Marching Orders visited it as one of the sights of Peking. In- variably their comment was : * ' There is noth- ing like it in China. ' ' In place of the old mocking cry, "foreign devil,' ' which Mrs. Gamewell had learned to expect every time she ventured beyond the gate of the compound, children on every side wistfully inquired: "Teacher, teacher, how many days to next Sunday ?" On the streets could be heard childish voices singing in the walled courts of Chinese houses, "Jesus loves me," "There's a land that is fairer than day," and other songs which Mrs. Gamewell had taught them. Do you wonder that her hands and brain and heart were full of eager work and abundant joy in these golden years in the mission in Peking! THE CENTER OF THE CHINESE PUZZLE 111 VIII THE CENTER OF THE CHINESE PUZZLE "O, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till earth and sky stand presently at God's great judgment seat; But there is neither East nor West, border nor breed nor birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth." It is likely that you have seen one of those stolid, wooden Dutch dolls, and that you have taken it apart only to find another within, and so on down to the last doll of the series. Or surely you have handled those soft, pliable baskets, each one of which in succession fits like magic into the next larger in size. If you have experimented with any of these objects within objects, you will understand the con- struction of the northern city of Peking. It is a city within a city, within a third city; each enclosed by its own wall; the outside wall being sixteen miles in circumference. Within the Tartar city is the Imperial City and within the Imperial is the Forbidden 113 114 Under Marching Orders City. These three cities were built in the thirteenth century by that famous Mongol invader, who lives anew in the imagination of him who reads the poem of Coleridge which bears the hero's name, "Kublai Khan." Just south of the Tartar city is the Chinese city, the original Peking, which came into being some three thousand years ago. Like a pedestal to a statue, it serves as a base to the more imposing structure of the Tartar city. Thus Peking entire consists of four cities in one. About twenty-five miles of grim, gray wall surround the whole. At intervals of two or three miles are the massive iron- bound gates, each gate surmounted by a three- storied tower, rectangular in shape. Around and through the city runs an ancient canal with water-gates. Trains of camels from the deserts of the north carry their Mongol riders through the streets. Mule litters, slung be- tween poles, the red sedan-chair of the bride and the white chair in the procession of the dead, the approach of each heralded by music, carts and wheelbarrows, horses ridden by foreigners, and " darting, dodging pedes- trians' ' vie with one another for passage The Center of the Chinese Puzzle 115 through the crowded thoroughfares. Green- tiled temples, with their gray-gowned priests, TARTAR I MPERIAL CI TY a n Forbid- den City IF c i It y c h I N E S E I T Y Peking, a City Within a City stand at ease and in musty splendor. And in the center of all this strange life rise the pink walls of the Forbidden City, shielding from 116 Under Marching Orders ruthless eyes the royal palace buildings. For its myriad forms of life, its ancient magnifi- cence, its brooding mystery, Peking becomes indeed the "goal which beckons to every one. ' ' In 1644, when the early settlers were break- ing soil in America, the long line of Chinese monarchs gave way before the oldtime foe from the north, and the Manchu Tartars claimed the Dragon throne. Unto this day they have been the royal family of China, calling their reign the Ch'in or Great Pure Dynasty. During the years when Mr. and Mrs. Game- well lived in the southeastern corner of the Tartar city, where most of the foreigners had their dwellings, the greatest of the Manchu rulers was secluded behind the vermilion pillars and underneath the green and gold ceilings of the royal palace. It was the em- press dowager, or as she might be called, the Chinese sphinx. A perplexing puzzle has she been to the thousands of Westerners who have lived in her realm, and to those who, across the seas, have read of her strange deeds. It is a question if the Chinese them- selves have understood her perverse freaks The Center of the Chinese Puzzle 117 or have been prepared for her sudden, mad whims. People have held the most curiously diverse opinions regarding her. Some have called her the " grand old woman" of China, while others have likened her to heartless, brutal Catherine of Eussia. She might have been a composite of Queen Jezebel and Queen Elizabeth, this capricious and yet far-sighted woman, who held sway over one fourth of the human race. The empress dowager was the daughter of a Manchu soldier of high rank, though not of royal descent. Since she was a Tartar maiden, her feet were not bound. Her hair and eyes were black, and her skin a rich olive. A kind of fiery intelligence shone in her face. As she grew into womanhood, the emperor, Hsien Feng, chose her for one of his wives. When a son was born in the West Palace where Tzu Hsi lived, the emperor, contrary to all custom, advanced the mother to the position of empress, by the side of the reign- ing empress. At the death of the emperor, the boy T'ung Chih succeeded his father, and the two empresses were appointed joint re- gents. In 1875 T'ung Chih died, and his 118 Under Marching Orders cousin Kuang Hsu was selected by the council of princes as the new ruler of China. When four years old he climbed with true imperial dignity into the " chair of state.' ' His sub- jects bowed low before him, knocking their heads on the ground in token of loyalty. In 1881 the empress of the East Palace died, and empress dowager Tzu Hsi became sole regent. When Kuang Hsu reached the age of nine- teen, according to the Chinese reckoning which counts a child a year old at birth, a decree was issued to the effect that her majesty the empress dowager considered him fit to rule. Upon this not wholly flattering declaration, he said (or was made to say) that "the announcement caused him to tremble as if in mid-ocean, with no knowl- edge of the land." After uttering these sentiments befitting a modest young emperor, Kuang Hsu mounted the throne, and the empress dowager withdrew behind the scenes, to await the cue for her reappearance on the stage of action. Now it afterwards appeared that Kuang Hsu had a mind of his own, and for some years he had his way in the ancient em- The Center of the Chinese Puzzle 119 pire, in spite of his contriving aunt. It was due to the presence of the wide-awake "West- erner in the sleepy Eastern world, that he be- came the youthful and hot-headed reformer, who for a brief time was a striking figure in Chinese affairs. When he was a small boy, humored and indulged by the palace attend- ants, a store was opened on Legation Street in the foreign quarter of Peking, which ac- tually had something to do with the life story of the emperor and his empire. The royal boy loved toys, and the more complex they were the more delighted was he, particularly if he could take them to pieces to see what made "the wheels go wound." His rooms were filled with watches which could strike the hour, eccentric clocks which would strike to music, or from which a bird would emerge and announce the time in his own character- istic call. As the boy grew older, tales of unending wonder reached his ever-open ears; tales of the telegraph and telephone, the electric and steam cars of the Western world. Naught would content the imperious lad until a small railroad was built along the shore of the beautiful Lotus Lake in the palace grounds. 120 Under Marching Orders Official messengers were sent to Peking Uni^ versity, refusing to return to the palace with- out the coveted "talk-box" (phonograph) of which the emperor had heard. Grapho- phones, X-ray apparatus, and everything known to modern inventive genius were sought by the curious young ruler. Soon he began to grant permission to for- eign companies to build railroads, to estab- lish telephone and telegraph systems, and to operate steamship lines. Slow-going officials in distant parts of the empire were shocked beyond recovery to receive imperial edicts in the form of telegrams. Formerly, stately documents written with the vermilion pencil on yellow paper were delivered by courtly couriers who spent a month on the journey. Ignorant peasants believed that the rusty rain-water dripping from the wires was the blood of outraged spirits who would take speedy revenge. In the province of Hu- nan they sawed down the poles and cut the wires. The "fire-wheel cart" (steam engine) was rudely disturbing the earth dragon and would bring sure disaster upon the land. When the railway from Tientsin to Peking was built in 1897, peasants and coolies firmly The Center of the Chinese Puzzle 121 believed that the piers of the bridge over the Pei Ho, as well as the sleepers for the entire eighty miles of track, were laid on the bodies of Chinese infants. Verily the enterprising Kuang Hsu was upsetting the peace of mind of his subjects, and his day of reckoning was drawing nigh. When the empress dowager reached her sixtieth year of age, the Christian women of China, about eleven thousand in number, sent an edition of the New Testament, printed in large type, and bound in silver and gold, as a birthday gift to her majesty. Soon after the casket containing the present had been delivered at the palace, Kuang Hsii sent messengers to the American Bible Society to procure copies of the Bible for himself. In the compound in Filial Piety Lane the wel- come news was heard that yonder in the For- bidden City the emperor was studying the Bible daily, that he was learning to pray, and that he was willing to have Christianity taught in his wide domains. The mission- aries hoped that the openmindedness of the young ruler would infuse new sap and life into the old, withered empire of China. Kuang Hsu's next move was to reach out 122 Under Marching Orders for all the foreign books which had been translated into the Chinese language. He collected every book on education, science, and religion, published in the land. For three years he pored over his books, and as a result, issued his edicts of reform — those edicts which made the people sit up and rub their eyes and finally start forth in vigorous protest. The first decree established a great, central university in Peking, of which one of the mis- sionaries was invited to become president. In all the colleges and universities founded by Kuang Hsu, the presidents were men who went to China as missionaries. They were the keenest scholars among the foreigners, and also knew China and her people most closely. Throughout the spring and summer of 1898, edict after edict proceeded in sharp succession from the throne. One proclaimed that schools should be founded in every im- portant city, another, that Buddhist temples should be turned into schoolhouses. Kuang Hsu became impatient if his com- mands were not carried out at once. In his enthusiasm he forgot that great reforms do not come in a day, even in a lifetime, no ^jm *Oa By permission of Dr. Headland, author of Court Life in ('/,:• Empress Dowageb The Center of the Chinese Puzzle 123 matter if the heart of the reformer breaks in the delay. If only he conld have possessed that snre vision of the future, together with a mighty patience such as dominated Mrs. Gamewell and her associates, he might have been the prophet soul who led his people out of darkness into light. But that type of leadership belongs to the Christian faith, and Kuang Hsu was just emerging out of hea- thenism. In a tumultuous time he stood for what he believed, and that is the beginning of heroism. The trouble was he had attempted to do what Mr. Kipling calls "hustling the East." It was as if he had sought to make the slow-moving camels of the desert travel with the speed of a Western mail train. At this dramatic moment the empress dow- ager appeared again on the scene of action. In sullen resentment at being set aside, she had been amusing herself with her flowers and boats in I Ho park. But now she would once more play her part in the exciting events of her country's history. A number of dis- satisfied officials and imperial clansmen rallied round her, and plotted the over- throw of Kuang Hsu. Hearing of the con- 124 Under Marching Orders spiracy, he tried to outwit them, but a trusted official betrayed him into the hands of his enemies, and the new day for China came to a sudden, stormy close. Kuang Hsu. was dethroned and practically made a prisoner in an island palace. The empress dowager be- came the ruler of the nation. Upon the down- fall of Kuang Hsu trouble for the foreigners began. With the spitefulness of the old Greek Furies, the empress Tzu Hsi set herself to undo all that Kuang Hsu had t done. The official newspaper, Peking Gazette, fairly "bristled" with her angry edicts. She crushed every reform measure which had come into existence. The young man who was the chief adviser of Kuang Hsu barely escaped to Tientsin and then by steamer south. For more than a year the empress offered large rewards for his capture, alive or dead. Because her wrath failed to reach this leading offender, she seized his younger brother and ordered his execution. On Sep- tember 28, 1898, he, with five other young men, was beheaded; six martyrs who gave their lives for the future liberty of their country. As they went to their death, they The Center of the Chinese Puzzle 125 declared that multitudes of others would some day arise to take their places. It was not long before the eagle eye of the empress dowager was turned toward the for- eigners, the cause of all this upheaval in the old, placid empire. Who had ever desired their presence in the celestial kingdom? They had come to trade, and the Chinese, though born traders, scorned the practise as far below their scholarly dignity. They had also come to entice China into that bond which exists between all civilized countries, the "sisterhood of nations." But China, like a blind, foolish child, preferred to be let alone. She hated the very word "treaty," for it meant that she had been forced into relations with people whose manner of life she spurned. "When a thing is as good as it can be, you cannot make it any better. ' ' This was exactly what nearly all the people of China thought concerning their country. Moreover the foreigner was responsible for these detested reforms. And worse yet, some of the European nations, particularly Germany, were trying to seize Chinese ter- ritory and call it their own. From a Chinese point of view, the foreigners were bent on 126 Under Marching Orders devouring China piecemeal. "What could the Dragon do but turn upon his enemies f Thus the dowager empress let her wild fury run away with her reason. Down deep in her heart she knew that her country owed a vast deal to outside nations, but her intelli- gence went down before her childish peevish- ness and her lust for power. The only way to keep the Manchus on the throne was to side with the conservatives against the foreigner. And so the explosion, which this woman by a single stroke of the vermilion pencil could have prevented, burst in a whirl of frenzy about the foreigners and Chinese Christians. In the neighboring province of Shan-tung, a famous secret society, of which there are many in China, was drilling its troops, thus making ready to rout all foreigners out of China, perhaps even the Manchu rulers them- selves. Buddhist temples were turned into camps, and excited men were practising strange rites in every village. The organ- ization was known as the I Ho Ch'uan (Fists of Eighteous Harmony), or the Great Sword Society. As the Chinese word for " fists' ' signifies wrestling or boxing, they became known as Boxers. |»iE MfS$ block j 0OCTeHS M Jk,.l. .; . J $TUO£NTi BJLOCl IsTVt r^lfy stows pt;v,'> r£A<.»e«s House £$^&& iTABtes^ British Legation, Peking Gate to British Legation, Showing Fortification and Dry Canal Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 157 the ranges within the buildings. Stores of coal and grain, and deep wells, were prom- ises of future provision. It seemed as if God himself had prepared this fold for his Chinese flock. Meanwhile the American missionaries halted within the shade of the United States Legation, where Mrs. Squiers, wife of the First Secretary, served an informal luncheon for the entire company. After two hours' parley, it was decided that the American Legation was too close to the wall to be a safe place for women and children, and that the British Legation was the least exposed area. Consequently the weary wanderers filed into the courts already crowded with a motley throng of people and their belongings. There were Jesuit priests, French Catholic sisters, Legation students, merchants, tour- ists, and missionaries — as diverse a gather- ing as ever before in history inhabited six acres of earth. Boxes, bundles, trunks, baby carriages, and mattresses had been dropped anywhere and everywhere. Carts and coolies deposited odds and ends of furniture, and raced back for another load while yet there was time. Through all this chaos the mis- 158 Under Marching Orders sionaries pressed their way to the Legation Chapel which was reserved for their use. On the seats and in the corners bundles of all shapes and sizes were hastily thrown, while aisles and vestibule became literally choked with mattresses and bedding. Within the legation quadrangle there were now assembled nearly four thousand people, representing seventeen different nations. Nearly one thousand were foreigners, four hundred and fifty of whom were the soldiers who constituted the entire military guard. All but one of the eleven legations were to be garrisoned and held until their resources failed, when a last united stand was to be made at the British Legation. Each national detachment of soldiers guarded its own lega- tion, except the Japanese and Italians. The legation of the latter was destroyed early in the siege, and that of the former was wholly within the firing lines, and needed no further protection. Therefore these two bands of soldiers were stationed in the park which sur- rounded the Su Wang Fu to shield the Chinese Christians from attack. All other foreigners were harbored within the British Legation, although the ministers of the dif- Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 159 ferent countries abode with the soldiers at their respective headquarters. While the women missionaries tried to bring order out of chaos in the British Chapel, a number of the men, accompanied by a squad of Chinese, went back to the Meth- odist compound to rescue some of the provi- sions stored in Asbury Church. It was a sad experience, this return to the deserted com- pound. The homes, the schools, and the church were still standing, but at any moment they might be reduced to a heap of broken bricks. A foreboding told the missionaries that they were looking for the last time upon these buildings which their toil had made possible, and which they loved as a sculptor loves the figure he carves out of the rough marble. But upon these thoughts there was no time to brood, for their work must be done with utmost speed, if they would return before the attack began. Food supplies in large quantities were gathered into sheets and quilts, and borne by the Chinese to the church within the legation lines. A few carts were found which transported bedding, clothing, and other property. Yet when all was done, possessions worth thousands of dollars had 160 Under Marching Orders to be left behind for the ruthless hands of the looters, who were even then at work. Precisely at four o'clock in the afternoon, twenty-four hours after the command to leave Peking had been received, Chinese imperial troops opened fire upon the legations. Mr. Gamewell with Mrs. Jewell, one of the teachers, started forth from the Fu just as the first bullets whizzed through the street. Voices from across the way cried, "Go back ! Go back ! ' ' After waiting a few min- utes, they crouched low and ran across the perilous street to be received within the lega- tion gate. Thereafter all women were for- bidden to cross this dangerous thoroughfare which lay between them and their Chinese Christians in Prince Su's palace. While rifle shots were hissing through the air, the evening meal was being served in Legation Chapel. Men, women, and children sat on benches and bundles, on the altar steps, and on the floor, while odd bits of food were distributed to them. Porcelain-lined plates had been secured that afternoon from the stores on Legation Street, and stood the test of constant use through the many days to come. After the meal was over, the dishes Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 161 were handed through a window to Chinese servants outside, who washed and returned them, after which they were stacked on the altar close by the tall candlesticks, and in front of a beautiful painting. The pulpit, too, soon became a cupboard for cups and saucers, knives and forks and spoons. The darkness of the first night settled gradually upon the tired camp, and strange preparations for sleeping were everywhere in order. Mattresses were laid on the chapel floor, and families and other groups of people divided the floor space into as small fractions as possible. Others utilized the church benches, placing them face to face, and spreading thereon such fragments of bedding as they chanced to possess. Many of the people had no pillows, sheets, mattresses, or blankets, but in siege days he who has two of anything, promptly shares with him who has none. Dr. Arthur H. Smith, the historian of the siege, said that the sleeping arrange- ments in the chapel resembled the "ground plan of a box of sardines. ' ' Yet there was not room for all the seventy. Several of the men sought the uncertain shelter of pavilions, verandas, and benches under trees — any place 162 Under Marching Orders where a faint measure of safety might be found. A message was brought to the chapel from Lady MacDonald, wife of the British ambassador, to the effect that four or five women could find refuge in a room in the stu- dents ' quarter. Mrs. Gamewell and others responded at once to this summons. Through a labyrinth of Peking carts and boxes, they found their way to the long, two-story build- ing which Mrs. Game well said seemed to be an "eruption of people and things." The first floor was solidly packed with people, but to their surprise they found unoccupied rooms on the floor above, in which they spread their bedding and lay down without removing their clothes. The veranda outside was congested with people who preferred the protection of the front wall to the room in- doors. At the rear of the building a volley of rifle-shot poured over the north wall of the legation. Mrs. Gamewell lay quietly on the floor of the unfamiliar room, conscious of the wakefulness of the people all about her, her mind asking questions to which the dark- ness gave no answer: "What would the night bring forth ! Was death really near 1 Would the relief column come with the morning? If Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 163 not, how near and what the end!" Even yet the thoughts of the people turned wistfully to Captain McCalla and his troops, not know- ing, as did the Chinese, that they had been defeated and driven back to Tientsin. As the night deepened, the rifle-fire intensi- fied. A fierce attack was in progress at the north, and the Chinese soldiers had the range of the rear windows of the building. Mrs. Gamewell and her companions were almost on the firing line of battle. By and by she heard the guard come in, and realized that Mr. Gamewell had been stationed at a window at the end of the hall. Presently there was a hurrying to and fro. Armed men hastened through the room, stepping over the women as they lay on the floor on the direct route of the soldiers from post to post. Finally, out of the horror of the night another day dawned, bringing its blasting heat and its pressing work. In the morning an invitation came to the little group of women to spend the next night in Lady Mac- Donald 's ballroom. Other women had al- ready gathered there, but on its broad floor there was sleeping space for all. There Mrs. Gamewell spent the remaining nights of the 164 Under Marching Orders siege. Some one gave her a piece of a mat- tress, while a laundry bag, enclosing shoes and sundry personal possessions, served as a pillow. It was on the second day of the siege that Sir Claude MacDonald rallied about him the missionaries who had already proved their ingenuity and perseverance in the work ac- complished in the Methodist compound. Mr. Gamewell was immediately appointed Chief of the Fortification Staff, and was given entire charge of the work of fortifying the British Legation. It was a delicate matter for a civilian to have authority beyond the military officers, but later events showed that in nothing did Sir Claude MacDonald mani- fest his wisdom so clearly as in giving Mr. Gamewell full liberty to build the fortifica- tions according to his own ideas and his alone. Other committees were created at the same time. There were a General Committee of Public Comfort; a committee on San- itation, made up of missionary physicians and others; a Food Supply committee; a committee to enlist the labor of the Chinese, as well as committees to watch against fires, and to provide fuel for fires of another sort. Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 165 Promptly after its appointment, the Food Supply Committee started on a foraging tour in Legation Street. In this street were lo- cated a number of native and foreign stores, whose proprietors had either fled outside the area occupied by the foreigners, or had sought the protection of the British Legation. An incredible amount of foodstuffs had been left in these shops. If the provisions were not given voluntarily by the owners, a care- ful record was kept by the committee of all goods appropriated, in order that future pay- ment might be made. In one store several tons of rice were discovered, most of it being the musty, yellow variety which is hard eat- ing for the foreigner. A native shop close by the canal was stacked high with cylindrical baskets containing fresh, new wheat just brought in from Hu-nan. There were found to be at least eight thousand bushels of this wheat. Eleven stone mills were a part of the outfit of the grain-shop. In the days to come, early and late, in sunshine and rain, and under the incessant fire of rifles, these mills were made to grind meal and flour for for- eigners and Chinese. In other shops was an abundance of white and yellow Indian corn 166 Under Marching Orders and pulse, as well as bags of coffee, sugar, beans, and an assortment of canned goods. There were many horses and mules in and about the legations, and the time came when they also were a welcome addition to the daily diet. Within the British compound were eight wells, which furnished an inex- haustible supply of clear, cold water — a wonderful blessing in the city of Peking. "When more than three thousand people gathered at noon on the 20th of June, within the legation lines, there was not food enough at hand for one meal. Within a day, sufficient provision had been found to sustain life for two months. To some, it seemed a miracle as great as any recorded in the Book itself. This indication of God's loving care gave heart to the hard-pressed people during every day of the long struggle. From the moment when Mr. Gamewell was given charge of the fortifications until the end of the siege, he worked day and night to make the British Legation as nearly like an impregnable fortress as was possible under the conditions. Often four hours out of the twenty-four were his allowance for sleep. By means of a much-used bicycle he seemed Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 167 to be everywhere at once, superintending the building of barricades, seeking reinforce- ments of Chinese laborers, and always watch- ing for weak points in the defenses which were immediately to be strengthened. One day when Mrs. Gamewell was inquiring for her husband, some one replied : ' ' If you stand right where you are for five minutes, he will be likely to go past." And the prediction proved true. Often after the furious attacks which came in the midnight hours, he would go to the threshold of the ballroom where the group of women were trying in vain to sleep, and would give them an account of what had happened, telling them that it was never as bad as it had seemed to be from the sounds. His reassuring words comforted them so that they could relax for a few hours ' sleep before the morning sun summoned to the tasks of a new day. When the refugees entered the legations, there were no fortifications except a barri- cade at each end of Legation Street, and the natural protection afforded by the walls. One of Mr. Gamewell 's first moves was to fortify the great gate. The stable gate was also most important. A wall eight feet thick 168 Under Marching Orders was built inside this heavy, double gate. The enemy set fire to the posts of the gate, and posts and gate were totally consumed. If this gate had not been strengthened Chinese rifles would have had clean sweep of the legation court, and Chinese troops could have rushed inside the lines. In the region of the Mongol Market, in the southwestern corner of the legation, solid barricades five feet in thickness were con- structed. In exactly five hours after these defenses were finished, the Chinese had loop- holed every house opposite, thus showing how necessary it was to have this remote corner protected. The director of the fortifications gave end- less time and thought to the eastern side of the compound, which was the strategic sec- tion. The Su Wang Fu was separated only by the narrow canal road. If the Fu should have to be abandoned, as had already seemed likely, the enemy could mount their guns on the mounds of the flower garden, only fifty yards away from the residence of Sir Claude MaeDonald. To prepare for such an emer- gency, thick, high walls were built of earth and braced by heavy timbers. Countermines Dr. Gamewell and Fortification Staf Sand-bag Fortification Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 169 were dug in order to stop mines projected by the enemy. This elaborate barricading was a herculean task, and literally could not have been accomplished without the patient, uncomplaining labor of the Chinese Chris- tians, whose presence was at first deemed by some to be a menace and a nuisance. As soon as Mr. Gamewell began to plan the fortifications, he foresaw the need of sand- bags, an endless succession of them, to repair breaches, to surround the sentinel at his post on the outer wall, to barricade the hospital and other buildings, and to shield the men as they worked on the defenses. The chapel became the headquarters of the bag-making industry and the women the incessant labor- ers. There was never a day when some one was not making bags. A number of sewing- machines appeared as suddenly as if a magic wand had called them into being, and spools of thread multiplied in the same enchanted fashion. Deserted shops and Chinese houses were ransacked, revealing untold lengths of silks, satins, and brocades, priceless stuffs, which were speedily turned into bags. Lady MacDonald sent exquisite portieres, while soldiers contributed their army blankets. 170 Under Marching Orders Fabrics worth tens of thousands of dollars were cut and stitched into shape, to be packed with earth taken from holes dug in the yard. In the chapel, the whirr of sewing-machines added to the general confusion. In this one room, forty-three feet long by twenty-five feet wide, nine meals were served daily, breakfast, dinner, and supper being provided in relays. Flies, in sticky, black swarms cov- ered ceiling, walls, people, and food. In this room babies and children slept and played. Here it was that the choking heat was in- creased by piles of sand-bags on the window- ledges, which kept out light and air as well as shot and shell. In this little English chapel, men and women, with worn, haggard faces sang and prayed together each day. And here the women, Mrs. Gamewell in the midst, worked every minute of the daylight. The food must be cooked and served, the chapel floor must be mopped, bedding for the hos- pital must be supplied, and always and ever there was a cry for "bags, bags, bags!" So expert did the bag-makers become, that they could produce an average of one bag in four minutes, several hundred in two hours, and two thousand in a day. Between forty Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 171 and fifty thousand were made in all. If the demand for bags was urgent, the women would leave their sewing and resort to the ditches where they held the bags and men shoveled in earth. One day Mrs. Conger was seen standing in a deep, dusty hole, holding bags open while a long-robed priest of the Greek Church filled them; a little Chinese boy tied the strings, and the English chaplain bore away the finished products. Some- times Chinese and foreign children trotted jinrikishas full of bags to the gate or wall where eager men received them. A large part of the history of the siege is the story of these bags of many colors, made and filled by many hands, and saving from cannon- shot and bullets, many hundreds of people. In the stifling chapel, through the courts where bullets dropped unceasingly, in the ballroom during nights of terror, Mrs. Gamewell lived her cheery, buoyant life as of old. Her ready smile and quick appreciation gave courage to the dispirited soldiers. The unfailing twinkle shone in her eyes when the funny things happened, and funny things there were in the very heart of the sad. And the look of triumphant vision crowned it all 172 Under Marching Orders as if she "endured as seeing him who is in- visible. ' ' For all this fiery trial she had been preparing in the old war days in Davenport, in the pioneer years in the Peking compound, in the disturbed months at Chung-ch'ing, and throughout her varied, eventful life. In it all she had been tried and had not been found wanting. But the great struggle was telling with fatal certainty upon mind and body. That glad energy which had always been given without stint to those who had need was spending itself to the utmost, those summer days in the siege of Peking. THE COMING OF THE ALLIES 173 XI THE COMING OF THE ALLIES "Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope." From the palace courts within the Forbid- den City, tall rockets sent lines of fire into the air and dropped in tiny balls of brightly colored flame. The empress dowager was flinging aloft her daily signal to imperial troops and " loyal Boxers" for a fresh, furious attack upon the foreigners. A deluge of shot and shell regularly obeyed the royal command. By fire, shot, explosion, or star- vation she would annihilate the official repre- sentatives of the great nations of the world and their people who had rallied around them for defense. What consternation would ensue if the President of the United States should order the national army to shoot bullets and cannon-balls into the legations where the foreign ambassadors live in Wash- ington! Yet this was exactly the treatment Americans, Europeans, and Japanese were receiving in China at the hands of the gov- ernment pledged by treaty to protect them. 175 176 Under Marching Orders For national treachery, the act was beyond parallel. On the second and third days of the siege, Chinese troops made the most fiendish at- tempts to destroy the British Legation by fire. They ponred kerosene upon their own buildings which were close to the legation walls, and burned them in the mad hope that the quick, fierce flames would consume the foreigners. At the same time they kept up a perpetual fusillade of rifle-shots, thinking thus to damage the defenses. Eeckless beyond belief, they set fire to the Hanlin Yuan, their library of rare old books and ancient records. So sacred had this na- tional museum been considered that none but Chinese had ever passed beyond its doors. But now, in the frantic desire to expel the foreigner, they would willingly sacrifice the empire's treasures. The library was located at the north of the British Legation, not far from the dwelling of Sir Claude MacDonald. A gale of wind was blowing from the north and would vastly aid their efforts to bear the flames to the ambassador's house. Over in the legation courts, men of all ages and races carried water-buckets, manipulated the small Ruins of the Hanlix Library Chinese Watching a Fire in the British Legation The Coming of the Allies 177 fire-engines, and cut down trees to prevent their dry branches from spreading the fire. It was a tragic scene ; men fighting for their lives and for the lives of women and children against fire and wind and hosts of frenzied Chinese. No power on earth could possibly save them, and it was no human power which made the wind suddenly shift to the north- west and quickly die away just when the danger was keenest, carrying smoke and flame away from the imperiled legation. For the remainder of the day and throughout the night, soldiers and civilians worked inces- santly, checking every vestige of fire, and re- moving all inflammable material. In the early morning they came in, spent, dirty, hungry, but triumphant. A week or more after these first savage onslaughts of the Chinese, a handful of Amer- ican soldiers made the most remarkable charge of the whole siege, which for sheer daring was almost unparalleled in military history. The United States Legation lay in the shadow of the city wall which separated the Tartar and Chinese cities. From the Ch'ien gate Chinese soldiers crept warily along the top of the wall and sent an ava- 178 Under Marching Orders lanche of shot into the legation below. It was evident that the wall must be captured and held, else Chinese sharpshooters would soon have the range of the entire legation area. The next day, under constant fire from the enemy, Captain Myers led his band of hardy American soldiers up the ramp (inclined ascent) to the summit of the wall, where by painful degrees they built two barricades somewhat resembling a rough fort. Day by day these marines guarded their post. Some of them had already learned the meaning of war in Cuba and the Philippines. There, after the battle was over they could return to camp for a snatch of rest, but on the Peking wall was no respite in sun or rain, darkness or light. Captain Myers stayed on the wall seven days in continuous succession. In the hours of the night the Chinese sol- diers wrought a twisting line of barricade from the gate toward the American position, ending with a tower only a few feet distant, from which they threw bricks and stones at Captain Myers and the marines. A return charge must be made at once if the wall would be held, and the Chinese repulsed. Captain Myers rallied his men with a few The Coming of the Allies 179 direct words of challenge, telling them that the obstacles were great but that the lives of women and children depended npon their valor. He then leaped boldly over the bar- ricades followed by the Americans aided by a group of British and Eussians. In the dark, desperate struggle about seventy-five foreign soldiers fought unknown thousands of Chinese and drove them back in confusion. Their barricades were captured, and were held for seven heroic weeks, although Captain Myers was so seriously wounded in that night's sortie that he could not resume his post on the wall throughout the siege. He and his dauntless marines were likened to the band of three hundred Spartans who fought against the entire Persian host at Thermo- pylae more than two thousand years before. Not only in the hearts of American marines must bravery dominate, but all alike must learn a new code of courage for these days of sharp peril. In the legation courts rifle- shots fell like hail upon the trees, severing leaves and branches and scattering them upon the ground as if a hurricane had passed that way. Children filled hats with bullets which they picked up under the trees. Forty can- 180 Under Marching Orders non-balls of different size were stacked in front of Sir Claude MacDonald's dwelling. The firing of hundreds of shells and rifle- shots at the rate of one hundred and twenty a minute proved that the Chinese possessed modern equipment and plenty of it. Minister Conger said that nothing in the Civil War could compare with the fury of these onsets. Chinese sharpshooters hid like birds in the branches of trees outside the legation walls, and chose their deadly aim, their smokeless rifles giving little clue to their whereabouts. One day Mrs. Gamewell was hastening across the court, when a bullet whizzed so close that she thought it must have passed through her dress. She turned and saw a soldier fall. He had received the shot which she had es- caped only by a fraction of a second. One hot evening she was going with another woman to the well, and as they stepped into a patch of light cast by a lantern, a bullet bored into the ground at their heels. Every day told its tale of startling, hairbreadth escapes. Bullets passed through the open fingers of a hand, through a fan held in the hand, through the hair of a man who leaned incautiously out of a window, through the House in British Legation, Peking, Showing Bombardment by Chinese International Gun, "Betsey' The Coming of the Allies 181 cuff of a sleeve, and one smashed a bottle which Dr. Ament carried, leaving him un- scathed. To return what Dr. Smith called these " in- cessant attentions, ' ' large guns were sorely needed. There was only one cannon within the legation lines, an Italian one-pounder, which was frequently moved from one post to another, to give the impression of five or six guns. It was at this juncture that a Chinese carpenter, foraging for tools in a blacksmith shop, unearthed a battered Chinese cannon, which was borne in triumph to the British Legation. The Italians hunted up an old gun-carriage, the Russians con- tributed the shells, which belonged to their machine gun left at Tientsin, and Mitchell, the fearless American gunner, applied a Japanese fuse to Chinese powder, and the first shot was fired ! No wonder the gun was christened the " International, ' ' though the soldiers found this name too bulky for prac- tical use, and called it " Betsey.' ' It did val- iant work for such a rusty, ancient weapon, on one occasion sending a shell through three walls into the Imperial City. Hardest of all the trials of these desolating 182 Under Marching Orders days, was the sight of wounded soldiers as they were borne from the outer barricades to the hospital. Within three weeks, fifty of the four hundred and fifty marin es had been killed, and sixty injured; the gritty little Japanese having lost the largest number of men, as well as having won the most con- stant praise. With the diminishing garrison, the murderous efforts of untold thousands of Chinese, the total silence of the outside world, there was large need of faith in God. Each morning in the Legation Chapel men and women prayed together for strength to out- last the day. There were countless distrac- tions, children crying, sewing-machines buzz- ing, people coming and going incessantly, and yet withal a reverent worship which was a comfort and support. Bibles opened almost of their own accord to the Psalms which seemed exactly to describe the daily distress and peril, and the utter dependence upon God for deliverance. ("If it had not been Jehovah who was on our side, when men rose up against us; then they had swallowed us up alive, when their wrath was kindled against us." "The angel of Jehovah en- campeth round about them that fear him, The Coming of the Allies 183 and delivereth them." j The two hymns most frequently sung at these morning services were, "The Son of God goes forth to war," and "Peace, perfect peace." Late in the afternoon of July 17 Minister Conger came to the door of the chapel, hold- ing in his hand a slip of paper. Intense in- terest answered his appearance. Could it be that a message from the relief column had been received at last? Eager people rallied about him to hear the coveted news. It was a cablegram from the Chinese minister at Washington and read thus: "Conger, send tidings, bearer." Hardly did it seem possible that the communication could be genuine, so mysterious had been its coming. Major Conger wrote the following reply in cypher, to be forwarded to the government in Wash- ington: "Surrounded and fired upon by Chinese troops for a month. If not relieved soon, massacre will follow." Thus it was that the first word from the besieged people in Peking reached the waiting world and was scarcely credited, so bewildering was its meaning. The Chinese ambassador in Wash- ington had steadily declared that Boxers alone were responsible for the excitement, 184 Under Marching Orders and that the legations were safe. The State Department of the government demanded proof of his statement, and the cablegrams received and sent by Minister Conger were the result. The dispatch which said Chinese troops were attacking the legations was a puzzle they could not solve. On the next day, a Chinese Christian who had been sent by the Japanese from Peking to Tientsin, June 30, stumbled into the lega- tion lines, worn from hardship and danger, but triumphantly bearing a letter from the Japanese consul at Tientsin to the Japanese minister in Peking. Excitement ran high as the people gathered about the bulletin-board in the pavilion of the bell-tower, and read this thrilling message from those who were plan- ning their relief: "A mixed division consist- ing of 2,400 Japanese, 4,000 Eussians, 1,200 British, 1,500 Americans, 1,500 French, and 300 Germans leaves Tientsin on or about the 20th of July, for the relief of Peking. ' ' No- body knew how many days would yet have to be lived through before the troops could fight their way to Peking, but they were com- ing, coming, and that assurance was enough to give new zest to life. THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY. I CABLE MESSA INCORPORATED ■Mil on the Me«aur« tlaoks pro.ldwl i.y th THQ3. T. ECKERT. PresiAontjind, General toahager. ir...!].,' y ihli Cooipany f TWO AMERICAN CABLES FROM NEW YORK TO CREAT BRITAIN. CONNECTS »t*o w,th FIVE ANCLO-AMERICAN *« D ONE DIRECT U. S. ATLANTIC CABLES. DIRECT CABLE COMMUNICATION WITH CERMANY AND FRANC*. CABLE CONNECTION *ith CUBA. WEST INDIES, MEXICO «no CENTRAL «"■> SOUTH AMERICA. MESSACES SENT TO, AND RECEIVED FROM , ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD. opFICBU IN AISERIOAl All Offices (21,000) of the Western Union Telegraph Company and its Connections. LlMl LIVERPOOL: No. 8 Rumford Street. CLASCOW: No. 29 Cordon St. and No. BRISTOL: Backhall Chamber*. RECEIVED at fiUA, HU/>K? it. /rWt«W . , liuZfeLu _^ ^- /» ^5 al"M "VIA COMMERCIAL CABLES," -. il 'lltf /allowing Cablegram received^ pubjert to the terms and eon il it Ion* p the back hereof, -which are ratified and fireed to WKB» OHCTOO IX pejcim3 believed all veubers missioi 8afe well davis oameteu First News of the Relief The Coming of the Allies 185 It was more than a week before a second commnnication from Tientsin was posted on the bulletin. On the 4th of July a Chinese boy, disguised as a beggar, and carrying a bowl of porridge in which was hidden a letter wrapped in oil paper, had slipped stealthily through the Boxer lines and started forth on his hazardous journey to Tientsin. He had now returned, bringing a letter from the British consul at Tientsin to Sir Claude Mac- Donald. ' ' Tientsin, July 22 : There are 24,000 troops landed, and 19,000 here. There are plenty of troops on the way if you can keep yourself in food." The vagueness of this message was disheartening to those who had longed so desperately for definite tidings, but at last there was proof that the outside world had not totally forgotten, and that the armies of the nations were sometime coming to their relief. This very contact with the " great, living, throbbing world was felt by the be- leaguered garrison, and it braced itself for the days of holding on that must elapse before the allies should arrive at the gates of Peking. ,, As the sun went down, and the work of the day slackened, a group of people gathered 186 Under Marching Orders about the bell-tower, and almost unconscious- ly broke forth into singing. Mrs. Game well drew near, her thoughts traveling far beyond the walls of Peking to the country across the sea. "As the strains of America floated out upon the night air, in what solemn radiance dawned visions of the homeland! Facing death every moment of the day, the heart had so certainly turned to the home beyond, that the home of this life had faded, until it was as unreal as the future life usually is. Now, with a bound the sweet possibilities of home and friends were brought near." Her rich voice sang with them the "Star Spangled Banner," "The Battle Hymn of the Re- public," "Marching through Georgia," and ' ' Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are march- ing," — those vibrant old war-songs which she had sung in the gray house in Davenport. The singers then tried "The Marseillaise," and the French from their pavilion across the way applauded gratefully. With the British soldiers they sang "God Save the Queen," with the Germans, "Die Wacht am Rhein," and finally the Russians sang their sadly beautiful national hymn. The music of that night would long haunt the memory of The Coming of the Allies 187 those who realized that a common danger united all hearts, erasing the national enmi- ties of the past. A new song of hope gladdened each man and woman in the besieged legation. Every morning brought expectancy, and every night the disappointment of the day was lost in the thought that even while they slept, the troops might be drawing near the city walls. Ears were strained to catch the first boom of guns which might herald their approach. 1 ' Will they come to-day ? Under cover of this night's darkness will they enter the city?" Knowing too well that foreign armies were on the march, Chinese soldiers made the most of these last days of opportunity. At- tacks were made with a sharpness and persist- ency such as belong to the final extremity of warfare. New Mannlicher bullets, shot with a low aim, cut through the air in hot succes- sion, and because of their penetrating quality riddled barricades as never before in the siege. Mr. Gamewell was kept on the alert every instant, repairing breaches in the de- fenses, digging countermine ditches, and everywhere inspecting and strengthening the fortifications. In the chapel, the daily labor 188 Under Marching Orders of preparing food, making hospital supplies, and stitching bags innumerable, continued without respite. On one never-to-be-forgotten night, Au- gust 13, excitement ran riot. Sleep was far removed from the people, and there were many who did not even seek their beds throughout the night. Shells crashed through walls with a resounding explosion. Bullets dislodged bricks and tiles from roofs, send- ing them with a deadly thud into the courts below. But hearken ! What is that strange, new sound away in the distance? The " rat- tat-tat' ' of a machine-gun somewhere beyond the east wall of Peking ! The foreign troops ! Must it not be true, or have the Chinese ar- mies added this modern gun to their equip- ment ! The courts were thronged with people, listening and questioning. At three o 'clock in the morning, Mr. Gamewell went to the ball- room door to tell his wife and her companions the news which hardly seemed real, so long had the waiting been. The troops were surely coming! Immediately Mrs. Gamewell arose and went outside to join the rejoicing people. As daylight broke over Peking, the boom of cannon was heard to the east. Nearer and ■ ' ■" '■ ' :,BB- *^ ^"jf ^ J ■— . _fli*p Joy at the Coming of the Allies Tboops Abeive in Fbont of the Bell Toweb The Coming of the Allies 189 nearer sounded the roar of heavy guns. Soon after two o'clock in the afternoon, an American marine on the wall sighted the ap- proaching troops, and word was swiftly borne to Sir Claude MacDonald. With a little group of Europeans, he went in haste to the bank of the canal, where already a throng of Chinese Christians had gathered to greet the foreign armies. There they come, British troops, almost running in their eagerness! Through the Watergate which leads into the Tartar City under the American barricade on the wall, they press their way, until they are inside the legation walls. Sir Claude MacDonald and the handful of Europeans try their best to raise a cheer, but in vain. Their voices are not equal to the strain of such great joy. Under the British flag, Sikh soldiers from India, wearing their white turbans, led the glad march into the British Legation. Then came the British soldiers, with their helmets, and finally the American Fourteenth In- fantry, "our boys," Mrs. Gamewell called them, "with their slouch hats and pitifully haggard faces." There followed "such a riot of joy as is seldom seen in Asia, and such 190 Under Marching Orders as was never seen in the capital of the Chinese empire.' ' Mrs. Gamewell stood with the throng of rescued people, waving, cheer- ing, weeping, but there was ' ' a cold clutch on the thrilling gladness " when she was re- minded of those who were absent from this great rejoicing, but whose lives had been given in sacrifice to make it possible. The allied forces of seven of the great nations of the world marched into China's capital city, August 14, 1900, and the siege of Peking was ended. Never in history had there been a siege so unique! It was com- puted that nearly two million bullets, and 2,900 shells and solid shot had been fired at the legations. Yet within the British Com- pound only one woman received injury, and that on the day of the relief. None of the children suffered harm, although they played freely about the grounds. Cases of measles, typhoid and scarlet fevers, and even small- pox developed here and there in the congested quarters, but there was never a suggestion of an epidemic. Often the temperature was 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but none succumbed to the heat. The Chinese Christians, whose presence was not wholly welcome at first, The Coming of the Allies 191 proved by their unremitting labor that with- out them the defenses could not have been built, and the legations held for seven long weeks. To Mr. Game well more than to any other man was due the preservation of the lives of the foreigners. This was the feeling expressed in a letter of appreciation sent him by Minister Conger. Some one inquired of General Gaselee, the commander of the allied troops, his opinion of the fortifications, and he replied that they were ' i beyond praise ! ' ' But back of all the brave, unflinching work done by men and women, foreign and Chinese, was the God who had responded to their trust, and had led them through tribulation to victory. August 22, a caravan of army wagons, each drawn by four army mules, stopped at the legation gate. Mr. and Mrs. Gamewell climbed into one of these wagons, sat upon their trunks, and proceeded thus into the streets of the devastated city, on through the Ch'ien gate, into the southern city, and thence through the east gate out into the great world beyond the walls of Peking. As Mrs. Game- well turned for a last look at the dusty old walled city, she thought with joy of the new 192 Under Marching Orders days to come, for with her sure look ahead she knew that out of the darkness of these troubled nights, a daylight, white and glori- ous, would dawn for ancient China. That she had had the chance to help in hastening its coming would be cause for eternal grati- tude. At T'ung-chou the travelers went on board a rice-boat which made its slow way through the shallow water of the river to Tientsin. From Tientsin they went to Na- gasaki, Japan, and thence across the Pacific to the United States. Through the shining waters of the Golden Gate the great steamer brought to her native shores the woman who, twenty-nine years before, had sailed away into the new, untried life in China. Expe- riences so rich and varied had filled those years that she had almost lived two lives in one; and, as she came again to her girlhood home, there was an undying song of joy in her heart, that to the bugle-call of duty she had risen up right early and obeyed. A NEW WORLD 193 'A. NEW WORLD "The work of the world is done by few; God asks that a part be done by you." The church was brightly lighted and, ex- cept for a reserved section in the center, filled with people. A sense of expectancy was in the air and a thrill of enthusiasm touched every responsive person. Flags of different nations, with their varied colors and designs, suggested a patriotism of world-wide scope. Elaborately wrought Chinese banners gave richness and tone to the unusual decorations, and at the same time spoke of valued services rendered by Americans to that Far Eastern land. In the midst of flags and banners hung the pennant which had fluttered from the masthead of Admiral Dewey's flagship as it sailed into Manila Bay. The impulse of the place was outgoing, unselfish, broad as the bounds of the earth. In the audience were people who had come from all parts of the United States to counsel together concerning the great "unfinished task" of the Christian 195 196 Under Marching Orders Church. On the platform were assembled those men and women who had gone forth under marching orders to the utmost borders of the world. Gradually the organ music seemed to weave all these influences into one, and to express in sound the mighty motive of service. Sing- ing one of the martial hymns of the Church, a long procession of girls, dressed in white, marched down the aisle and filled the central seats. Then, as the audience settled itself, and through the opening hymns and prayers became a unit of attention, a woman, intense, alive in every inch of her being, came to the front of the platform and began to speak. Entering, as was her wont, into the spirit of the gathering, she said with girlish delight: 1 'I am having a good time here to-night, ' ' and then, with no thought of herself, swung into the story she had come to tell. It was the story of an old-world country in which dwell one fourth of all the peoples of the earth; a country torn between the customs of vast ages and the vision of the twentieth century ; but where, out of the fury of the conflict, an enlightenment, calm and sure, is rising into life; a country where the followers of the A New World 197 great Christ met death by Boxer torture rather than betray their trust, and whose lives laid down have proved the most wonder- ful testimony to the power of their Leader. Step by step she led her hearers until they stood with her in the presence of that i * cloud of Chinese witnesses" and of the Lord they had died to honor. It was the glory of the work, the golden opportunity for usefulness among a people ready and waiting, which possessed this slender woman, and conveyed itself to her audience. Her voice carried to the farthest corner of the church, and her vivid words made distant places and people near and real. But beyond all was the im- pression of a life glowing like a white fire with the intense joy of self -forgetting service. Since her return to the United States, Mrs. Gamewell had traveled from one city to an- other addressing large assemblages of people. Often a series of gatherings was held at which she was the only woman speaker, tak- ing her place on the platform by the side of bishops, United States Minister Conger, and other well-known men. Bare among women was her gift of swaying an audience by the power of speech. An enthusiasm like that of 198 Under Marching Orders a political meeting was usually produced by her message and her own animated self. On one occasion, when she was expected to speak and word was brought to the assembled people that she was sick and unable to be present, they received the announcement with tears of regret. There were those who were willing to go one hundred miles to hear her story, which always possessed variety and freshness of appeal. On one of her trips she was accompanied by her sister, who, at each of nine conventions, listened to incidents she had never heard before. Thus, in the United States as in China, Mrs. Game well was disclosing a vision of high, noble living to thousands of people. In the home of a man and woman newly married, was fastened on the wall a newspaper print, whose black lines indistinctly portrayed a woman's face. Some one entered the home who recognized the face and inquired of the bride if she too knew Mrs. Gamewell. "No," was the reply, "I have simply heard her speak, but I have felt the power of her per- sonality; and I want her ideals to dominate my home. That I may not forget, I keep her picture before me." A New World 199 Still another tribute was paid Mrs. Game- well in the midst of equally unexpected sur- roundings. It was one winter evening in 1902, at a wedding where many of the guests were naval officers. Their full-dress uni- forms, lustrous with gold lace, made a strik- ing picture as they moved in and out among the throng. A young officer, having been pre- sented at his own request to a certain lady, began at once an eager conversation to which she responded with interest. ' 1 1 am delighted to meet you here," he said, "for your hus- band tells me that you are a friend of Mrs. Gamewell, the missionary who was in Peking during the Boxer uprising." As she replied affirmatively he continued: "I was there also in command of the marines who were ordered up from the Asiatic squadron to guard the American Legation until the allies arrived. I have no words at my disposal which can convey to you just what Mrs. Gamewell meant to our boys at that time. From morning until night and from night until morning, con- fronting a fate beside which death itself as- sumed the guise of a friend, that white-faced little heroine never wavered. It seemed as if she were omnipresent, and her bright, ready 200 Under Marching Orders smile and cheery words helped us more than she ever knew. I know fourteen of us men in the service who will salute all the mission- aries with respect as long as we live, in mem- ory of that one frail woman with a hero's heart. ' ' It was Captain Hall, now advanced to the rank of Major, who could not miss this opportunity of doing honor to the soldiers' friend. Even as he spoke his appreciation of Mrs. Gamewell, she herself was beginning to pay the price exacted by those weeks of hard- ship. It was not alone the siege, but the sum of the years in China, which was gradually conquering her once splendid health. The girl who rode through the gates of Peking in 1872 had possessed abounding vigor, but the dust and general pollution of a wholly insanitary city had poisoned her system through and through. The wonder was that she had endured so long and worked so hard. As she felt the grip of physical weakness, the old zest of battle was upon her. With burning energy she set herself to work in all the ways her varied resources made possible. In the home in New Jersey which was ever ready to welcome her and her husband on A New World 201 their return from conferences and travel, she spent day after day at her desk, writing. The Chautauquan and other magazines published her lucid accounts of life in China. Letters by the score went forth to people, near and far, young and old, who had a claim upon her interest, and many were inspired to more earnest living because of the messages which came from that desk and that writer. In one letter was found this characteristic bit of description : ' ' On the whole, a tree is the most sympathetic object in nature, not so awfully set as the mountains, not so fickle and treach- erous as the sea, more substantial than the clouds, not so perishable as the grass and flowers — always there, steadfast and strong, with its shifting lights and shadows, soft sigh- ing or brisk tossing, or drenched brightness, seeming to enter into every mood of its friends. It sighs sympathy, whispers peace, murmurs comfort, waves refreshment, or shouts exhilaratingly, according to whether the breeze be gentle or high, whether the day be bright or dripping. ' * Another letter carried this ringing chal- lenge : * ' To young people amid careless life, happy life, times of unrest and aspiration, 202 Under Marching Orders longings and yearnings unutterable stir with- in. Trust the stirring within. It is the voice of God. You may not interpret into action just as God intends, but trust and go ahead. God will see that you go right. You may hear a voice saying, ' Come up higher, higher, to the heights/ and you see looming before you magnificent heights, and it seems to you all glorious. You seek the way up and find that you only go down. A voice says, ' Come up.' Your footsteps seem forced downward. It seems as if the voice were of the imagina- tion, and that God mocks. Trust, if for no other reason than because for you there is no other better than that same voice. Trust, even though the way seem down. Trust, and God will take you over what will prove to be a valley between you and the real upward way — perhaps the valley of humiliation which skirts the mountains of God. Trust, and you shall stand upon heights glorious with the glory of God, so high above your own inter- pretation of God's will and ways that your own interpretation has sunk out of sight in the prospect that spreads below, as the hills are hidden and are lost from the mountain- top.' ' A New World 203 Constantly Mrs. Gamewell's thoughts reached out to those whom she had left be- hind in China and she made eager plans to go back as soon as her health would allow. Letters, rich with her unfailing optimism, traveled to the compound in Peking, where at the end of the siege the " giant tree" alone survived the ravage of the Boxers, but where now the work of rebuilding was going on with quickened zeal. In distant villages in the provinces of Chih-li and Shan-tung, Bible women and girl graduates of the Peking school knew that the woman who had spoken to their very souls still remembered and cared. It was for them, these Chinese women and girls, that her life had been poured out in service. In the fall of 1906, Mrs. Gamewell came again to the home in New Jersey, and with the same courage with which she had taken up her work years before, she now laid it down. For as many weeks as she had lived behind the walls of the British Legation, she lay helpless in the room where sickness, in- stead of shot and shell, held her captive. And just as she had gone out from Peking into the freedom of the country she called home, 204 Under Marching Orders her real self, her shining, unconquerable spirit, passed on to that country of perfect freedom, where new work, new joy, and eter- nal vigor awaited her in the visible presence of her Christ ; into that new world which lies outside the range of our sight but not beyond the reach of our love. In a little Chinese village in the province of Shan-tung, within a family courtyard, an outdoor school has already begun its morn- ing session. Adobe houses enclose the court on three sides, but the sunshine streams in unhindered through the opening at the south. Twelve girls, ranging in age from five to ten years, form an irregular semicircle about the teacher, sitting on broad, flat stones, on in- verted tubs and baskets, upon any of the familiar household objects which can be made to serve as a school bench. Twelve little wadded figures sway back and forth, or from side to side, keeping time to the rhythm of the Chinese characters which they are studying aloud, each in a voice keyed to a different pitch. One girl has practised her lesson to her satisfaction, and comes forward to recite. With her back turned upon the A New World 205 teacher, she races through the lesson like a swift runner to a goal. Notwithstanding the speed of delivery, the teacher is quick to follow and detect the accuracy, and to com- mend the pupil for her perfect recitation. With beaming face the child returns to her seat, and applies herself to the newly- assigned task. A wee girl, scarcely more than a baby, leans against the teacher's knee, and timidly recites her lesson, while her older sister stands by her side, listening with intent face, as if the small sister's success were of greater moment than her own. By and by two mothers, mere girls in years, but old with care, come to visit school, finding the tidy court a restful change from their crowded, disorderly homes. As they enter, the twelve pupils rise, and one by one give the guests a ch'ing-an (courtesy). An older girl strays in from the street, and half- bewildered, half -wistful, watches the exer- cises of the school, which are so entirely strange to her. The shoe upon which she is supposed to work lies forgotten in her hands, as she thinks new, unfamiliar thoughts. She had not heard early enough of the religion which brings enlightenment to the desi)ised 206 Under Marching Orders girl, and thus her childhood chance of study had gone. But how did this Christian school find its existence in the distant pagan village, and who is the dignified, intelligent-faced teacher ? Its history traces directly back through the years to the little struggling school for girls which Mary Porter opened in the compound in Peking, in 1872.- In the life of Clara Wang, one of the first pupils in that school, there was born a great purpose because of contact with the young American teacher. After her marriage she went back to her home in An- chia-chuang, determined to live out her Christian ideals of womanhood at whatever cost. Upon Mrs. GamewelPs suggestion, she taught a girls ' boarding school, and later the day-school on her own door-steps. Already some of her pupils, even her daughter, have become teachers, and many others have mar- ried and are creating real Christian homes in the midst of ignorant heathen villages. Thus scores, hundreds of lives have been made strong and useful, because one woman dared be true to her dream of duty, giving up home and ease to work for these Chinese girls. Even in the remote inland city of Chung- The Maky Portep Gamewell School for Girls, Peking B^flH^Ssfil *B *i^^''W&^L ! W ' i Girls of the Mary Porter Gamewell School (UrPER Row) A New World 207 ch'ing, reached by the long, perilous trail of the Yang-tzfi, this one life has left its impress. The work which was shattered and broken that July night in 1886, was reestablished a year or two later and has grown in power and beauty from year to year. The property on the great road, destroyed by the mob, is now replaced by a splendid hospital building, scarcely surpassed in China for size and equipment, by a boys' school, a Bible train- ing school, a church, and the homes in which dwell the seventeen missionaries from Amer- ica. The girls' boarding-school in which Mrs. Game well taught has been removed to Ch'eng-tu, the capital city, because it has larger opportunity there for reaching the girls of the province. There are over one thousand Christians in the district of which Chung-ch'ing is the center, and everywhere the people welcome the foreigner whom once they scorned and derided. But what of Peking, the mysterious old walled city, still dusty and dirty, but yet alive, alert, progressive, and just as attractive as ever? It was in the heart of its varied activ- ity, within the compound in Filial Piety Lane, that Mrs. Game well spent almost half the 208 Under Marching Orders years of her life. What is the harvest of those years of toil, the ingathering from that life of radiant purpose? On the train from Tientsin a group of Chinese girls are journey- ing toward Peking, laughing and chatting together exactly like boarding-school girls in America returning for the fall term. These are the girls of New China on their way to the Peking Girls ' School, traveling by a west- ern railway instead of the Oriental wheel- barrow of the days of Sarah Wang, and in companies of fifty, sixty, or one hundred, instead of the shy, solitary girl who ventured in from the streets, in 1872. At the Peking station in the Southern City, they leave the train, and step into jinrikishas, or possibly Peking carts, to be borne with careless ease through the Hata gate, along the broad street to the compound of the Methodist mission. Passing through the great gate and hastening along the central highway in sight of the homes of the mission- aries, the new Asbury Church, the hospital and the boys' school, they pause in front of a three-storied brick building — the Mary Porter Gamewell School. Two hundred and forty-four girl students are reassembling for A New World 209 the new year of school and they include in their number all classes of society, even the great-great-niece of Li Hung-chang, the most renowned statesman China has yet produced. The school has recently been made a part of the North China Educational Union, which means that it has a recognized academic standing, and its graduates can go straight on to college and medical school. The school which Mary Porter Gamewell founded in those pioneer years, has been the forerunner of a great educational move- ment for girls, promoted by the Chinese government itself. After the empress dow- ager returned to the Dragon Throne, in the fall of 1900, and entered upon her career of reform, schools for girls were established in all parts of the royal province, in each of which the unbinding of the feet was the con- dition of entrance. Thus that daring decision of the two young women in the sitting-room of the "Long Home" thirty-seven years ago has led directly to an effort among the Chinese themselves for the freedom of women. Schools, schools, everywhere, pro- claim the new day in China. In a single province the viceroy founded over five thou- 210 Under Marching Orders sand schools for boys and girls within the space of a few years ! Teachers ! Who shall say teachers are not needed for this awaken- ing multitude of pupils 1 In one year fifteen thousand young men were studying in Japan, and four or five thousand more were students in the universities of Europe and America. The dowager empress is no longer the dominant figure in Chinese affairs. In the fall of 1908 there were two sudden and inex- plicable deaths in the palace within the For- bidden City, and the empress dowager and the deposed emperor, Kuang Hsu, lay in royal state, while their nation donned the white garb of mourning. To-day, Prince Chun, the new regent and older brother of Kuang Hsu, leads along the broad road of progress and enlightenment. When ten thousand Chinese Christians laid ? down their lives rather than deny their Lord, the people wonderingly asked : "What is this religion for which men are ready to die?" Thus hosts of Chinese faces are turned in- quiringly and even wistfully toward the faith which has made men ready to die for the sake of the love they bear their Leader. No wonder that those who know China and who A New World 211 know the power of Jesus Christ declare that the opportunity to-day is the greatest which has been offered to the Christian Church since the days of Martin Luther, if not since the lifetime of the Apostle Paul. The China of this first decade of the twen- tieth century is literally a new world; "old things are passed away : behold, all things are become new." And Mary Porter Gamewell stands in the front rank of those men and women who have helped bring about this resurrection day in the most ancient empire of the world. INDEX 213 INDEX Alleghany Mountains, 19 Allied Forces, 145, 184 Amazon River, 74 Ament, Dr., 181 America, 210 American Bible Society, 121 American, missionaries, 37, 48, 69, 92, 103, 207; soldiers, see United States, military forces during siege of Peking Americans, 175 Ancestral, tablets, 63; worship, 63 An-chia-chuang, 61, 62, 65, 206 Arsenal on Rock Island, near Davenport, 21 Asbury Church, Peking, 109, 133, 159, 208 Babies, burial of Chinese, 46; putting in door of mis- sion compound, 79, 80 Barricades, 134, 135, 167- 171, 178, 179 "Betsey," international can- non, 181 Bible, promises of during siege, 184; training school, 207; women, 53, 73, 102, 203 Bicycle used by Mr. Game- well, 166 Birds, Chinese, 46, 47 Boats, Chinese, 10, 58, 59, 75, 76 Boxers, the, 126-133, 136- 139, 148, 183, 197, 203; united with imperial troops, 145, 155 Boys' schools, 38, 102, 207, 208 Bridge of Boats, 11,65 British, consuls at Chung- ch'ing and Tientsin, 91, 92, 185; Legation at Peking, place of refuge during siege, 156-190; military forces during siege of Peking, 179, 184, 189 Brown, Miss Maria, 30, 33, 48; married to the Rev. George R. Davis, 72 Buddhist temples, 122, 126 Bullets, shells, and solid shot during siege, 179, 180, 190 Camel trains, 33, 114 Camps of Union soldiers, near Davenport, 21 Canada, 28, 74 215 216 Index Cards, as an attraction to Peking Sunday-school, 103-105 Carts, Chinese, 13, 51-53, 114, 157, 159 Charms used by Boxers, 127 Chautauquan, the, 201 Ch'eng-tu, 207 Chicago and Rock Island Railroad, 20 Chih-li, 53, 203 Ch'in or Great Pure Dy- nasty, 116 China, 3, 74; acts with Boxers to de- stroy foreigners, 148; first experiences in, 3-15; relative population of, 28; wonderful changes in, through mission influ- ence, 209-211 China in Convulsion, xi "China's Girdle," 74 "China's Sorrow," 58 Chinese, ambassador in Washing- ton, 183; birds, 46, 47; carts, 13, 51-53; Christians, see Christians, Chinese; City, in Peking, 177; curiosity concerning Occi- dental people, 11, 12; fear of foreigners harm- ing their children, 38, 45, 46; house-boats, 10; imperial troops used against foreigners, 148, 155, 160-187; rivers, 8-10, 58; roads, 4; schools inspired by mission work, 209, 210; students in Japan, Europe, and America, 210 Ch'iu-fu, 64, 65 Cho-chou, 128 Christ, see Jesus Christ Christians, Chinese, 56, 57, 63; in siege of Peking, x, 135- 138, 146-160, 184, 189, 190; martyrs among, 128, 138, 197, 210 Chun, Prince, 210 Chung-ch'ing, 72-75, 78, 83, 91-97, 207 Civil War, 20-23, 146, 180 Coleridge, S. T., 114 Committees created for siege days, 164 Compounds, mission, 33, 37, 45, 65, 69, 71, 133-150 Confucianism, 62, 92 Confucius, 64 Conger, E. H., 135, 137, 148, 197; letters from, 144, 191 ; Washington cablegram, 183, 184 Conger, Mrs., 171 Congregational mission at Tung-chou, 136 Index 217 Cornell University, 70 Cushman, Miss Clara M., xi Davenport, Iowa, 20-29 Davis, Rev. George R., 72 Diffendorfer, Mr. R. E., xi Donkeys, riding of, 3-5 Dragon, Festival, 85; Throne, 116, 209 Dust, evil of in China, 5, 12, 14, 37, 46 Empress dowager, 116-129, 209, 210; daughter of a Manchu soldier, 117; early becomes empress, 117; later is sole regent, 118; receives gift of New Testa- ment, 121; supplants Kuang Hsu, 124; tries to destroy the for- eigners, 125, 126,129,175; very sudden death, 210 Europe, 210 Europeans, 175, 189 "Face," 90 Filial Piety Lane, 37, 47, 65, 105, 150 Fire, destructive use of by Chinese in siege, 138, 139, 176, 177 Flags, of China, ix, x; of Europe, 145; of Great Britain, 189; of Japan, 145; of the Church, ix, x, xii; of United States, ix, x, 145, 195 Foochow, 9 Food and grain found in Legation Street, 165, 166 Foot-binding, not permitted in Peking girls' school, 34, 35; influence of the decision, • 35, 36, 41-44, 209 Forbidden City, 114,115, 175, 210 "Foreign devils," expression used by Chinese, 38, 46, 59, 84, 139 Foreigners, danger and de- liverance of, in Peking, 125-191 Fortification work during siege, 133-135, 165-171 French military forces during siege of Peking, 184 Fu, the, see Su Wang Fu, the Gamewell, Frank D., x, 70, 84, 85, 109, 137, 144, 163, 188; education, 70, 71; enters the China field, 71 ; marriage, 72; proceeds to Chung-ch'ing and works in West China, 72-96; riot compels retirement from West China, 97; service in home field and Peking University, 101, 102; 218 Index superintends fortifications during siege of Peking, 135, 164-169; tributes from Minister Con- ger and General Gaselee, 191; voyage to the United States, 192 Gamewell, John M., 70 Gamewell, Mary Porter, x, 80, 83, 123, 135, 138, 146, 162, 163, 180, 188; childhood and education, 19-27; conversion, 26; Grandview Academy, teaching, 27, 28; heeds call to mission work, 28, 29; journey to Peking, 3-15, 29, 30; map, 7; letters, 48, 78, 84, 104, 106- 109, 201-203; main service as a mission- ary teacher, 38; makes courageous her pu- pils and Bible women, 39-44; marriage to Frank D. Gamewell and journey to West China, 72; memorial school, see Mary Porter Gamewell School; notes and exposes the dis- honesty of the builders, 44,45; prefers city wall for her walks, 46, 47; record trip to An-chia- chuang, 51-65; map, 61; risks life to restrain the mob at Chung-ch'ing, 85-91; return visit to United States, 97-102; secures by letter funds for new Peking church, 106- 110; Sunday-school work, 28, 103-110; sympathy and thoughtful service during siege days, 140-142, 151, 170-172, 186, 189, 190, 199, 200; uniforms made for sol- diers, 142-144; varied activity in home field, 192-203; work finished, promotion, and enduring influence, 203-211 Gaselee, General, 191 Gates, of city, 13, 14, 114, 138-140; of compound, 37, 47, 135, 141, 150; of British Legation, 167, 168 German military forces dur- ing siege of Peking, 184 Girls, American, 19-26; Chinese, 28, 35-38 Girls' schools, in Peking, 34, 35,38,39,147,208; in Shan-tung, 204-206; in West China, 83, 207 Index 219 Glass, Mrs. Charles D., x God, 28, 43; the real protection in the siege, 156, 182, 191 Golden Gate, the, 30, 192 Grandview Academy, 27 Grant, Ulysses S., 26 Great Wall, 137 Greek Church, 171 Greenville, tune of, 56 Gun, taken from Mrs. Game- well at Chung-ch'ing, 87- 90 Gymnastic apparatus, 24 Hall, Captain, 135, 140, 150, 200 Hankow, 75 Hanlin library, 176 Hata gate, Peking, 5, 150, 208 Homesickness, 12, 48 Hospital, mission, 83, 84; temporary, during siege, 182 House-boats, 10 Houses, Chinese, 36, 79 Hsien Feng, 117 Hsing-chi, 54 Hui An, 39, 40 Hu-nan, 165 Hymns sung, by Chinese Christians, 56, 57; by those besieged in Pe- king, 147, 183 I'chang, 75-78, 97 Imperial City, 113, 181 Inland Sea, 8 Italian military forces during siege of Peking, 158, 181 James, Prof., 156 Japan, 8 Japanese, 175; consul at Tientsin, 184; military forces during siege of Peking, 158, 182, 184; minister in Peking, 184 Jesus Christ, 26, 28, 35, 43, 57, 62, 64, 80, 204, 210, 211 Jewell, Mrs., 160 Jewett, Miss Sophie, xi Jinrikishas, 171, 208 Kalgan, 137 Kang or bed, 55 Ketteler, Baron von, 148, 149 Kipling, Mr., 123 Kuang Hsu, 118-124; love of new things, 119, 120; many progressive steps, 120-122; obtains copy of Bible, 121; sudden death, 210 Kublai Khan, 114 Lang-fang, 137 Lee, Robert E., 26 Legation, Chapel, 158, 160, 182; Street, 150, 151, 160, 165, 167 220 Index Life of Mary Porter Game- well, xi Li Hung-chang, 209 Lincoln, Abraham, 22, 26 Lion, of cast iron, 55 London Times, the, 148 "Long Home," the residence of Mary Porter in Pe- king, 33, 35, 36, 48, 209 MacDonald, Lady, 162, 163, 168, 169 MacDonald, Sir Claude, 164, 176, 185, 189; gives Mr. Gamewell full authority in fortifying Legation, 164 Machine-gun, sound of, 188 Magistrates, Chinese, 88-97 Manchu Tartars, the royal family of China, 116 Mary Porter Gamewell School, 208 McCalla, Captain, 137, 145, 163 Meng-ts'un, 55 Methodist, mission, 136, 146, 208; street chapel destroyed, 138 Meyers, Captain, 178, 179 Mills for grinding grain in siege, 165 Mission work, call to, 28, 29, 71, 192; heroism of, 30, 53, 80, 85- 91, 93, 95-97, 141, 147, 150, 151, 163, 180, 182, 199, 200; value of, 38-48, 101-110, 191-211 Mississippi River, 20, 74; first bridge across, 20 Mitchell, American gunner, 181 Mongolians, 114 Mongol Market, 168 Moon-gate, the, 37 Morrison, Dr., 148, 156 Mule litters, 114 Nagasaki, Japan, 192 Nanking, 75 New England, 30, 103 New Jersey, 200, 203 New York, 8, 57 North China Educational Union, 209 Northrup, Miss Elizabeth, xi Odors, unpleasant, in Pe- king, 46 Packard, Mrs. M. C, xi Palace buildings and courts, Peking, 116, 175, 210 Pao-ting fu, 128 Pei Ho, the, 8, 9, 145 Peking, 5, 12-15, 29, 33, 36, 46, 51, 65, 71, 97, 102,' 113-116; diagram of, 115; girls' school in, 34, 35, 38- 41,46,208, 209; remote from water and walled, 155; siege of, see Siege of Peking Index 221 Pigeons, whistles attached to, 47 Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, 70 Porter, Mary, see Gamewell, Mary Porter Prayer, 27, 39, 40, 48, 56, 147, 170 Railway from Tientsin to Peking, 120, 155 Rivers, Chinese, features of, 9-11, 58, 74 Roman Catholic, cathedrals destroyed at Chung- ch'ing and Peking, 92, 138; Christians in siege of Pe- king, 156, 157 Russian military forces dur- ing siege of Peking, 179, 184 Sand-bags for fortification work, 169-171 San Francisco, 29 Schools, mission, 34, 35, 38, 39, see also Girls* schools Sedan-chairs, 93-97, 114 Shang-chia-chai, 56 Shanghai, 8, 9, 74 Shan-tung, 41, 42, 53, 60, 65, 126, 203, 204 Sharpshooters, Chinese, 178, 180 Sherman, William T., 26 Siege of Peking, x, xi, 151- 191 Smith, Arthur H., xi, 161, 181 Songs, at Davenport, 22; by Chinese children, 110; during siege of Peking, 186 Souls, Chinese belief concern- ing, 63 South America, 74 Squiers, Mrs., 157 St. Lawrence River, 74 Sunday-school in Peking, 103-110 Su, Prince, 156 Su Wang Fu, the, 156-160, 168 Taku, 144, 155; forts taken, 144, 145 Tartar city, 113-116, 177 Temples, 115, 139 Tibet, 58, 73, 74 Tientsin, 8-10, 54, 104, 144, 148, 155, 184, 185, 192 Trackers on the Yang-tzu, 77 Trees not easily seen in Chinese cities, 47 Ts'ang-chou, 55 T'ung Chih, 117 Tuttle, Dr., xi T'ung-chou, 5, 10, 192 Tzu Hsi, 118-124, see also Empress dowager United States, 3, 28, 57, 74, 97, 195; Legation, 144, 157, 177, 199; 222 Index military forces during siege of Peking, 135, 136, 178, 179, 184, 189; minister in Peking, 135, see also Conger, E. H.; treatment of Chinese, 92 University of Peking, 122 Walls, of Chinese cities, 12, 14, 46, 47, 78, 79, 187; of compounds, 37, 79; of houses, 14, 15, 47; of legations, 162, 167, 176- 180, 189 Wang, Clara and Sarah, 40- 44, 62, 206, 208; Mrs., 41, 42, 53, 61-65, 102 War-songs, 22, 186 Wellesley College, xi Wells in British Legation, 166 West China mission work, 73, 83, 84, 206, 207 Wheelbarrows, Chinese use of, 4, 114; Mrs. Wang's journey, 41 Women, American, at Daven- port in war times, 22, 23; record trip as missionaries in China, 51-53 Women, Chinese, 41, 42, 52 Yamen of magistrate, 93-97 Yang Ssu, 65 Yang-tzu, the, 74-78 Yellow River, 58, 65 Yokohama Bay, 8 Forward Mission Study Courses " Anywhere, provided it be forward." — David Living* stone." Prepared under the direction of the YOUNG PEOPLE'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA Editorial Committee: T. H. P. Sailer, Chairman A. E. Armstrong, T. B. Ray, H. B. Grose, S. Earl Tay- lor, J. E. McAfee, C. R. Watson, John W. Wood, L. B, Wolf. The forward mission study courses are an outgrowth of a conference of leaders in young people's mission work, held in New York City, December, 1901. To meet the need that was manifested at that conference for mission study text-books suitable for young people, two of the delegates, Professor Amos R. Wells, of the United Society of Christian Endeavor, and Mr. S. Earl Taylor, Chairman of the General Missionary Committee of the Epworth League, projected the Forward Mission Study Courses. These courses have been officially adopted by the Young People's Missionary Movement, and are now under the immediate direction of the Editorial Committee of the Movement. The books of the Movement are now being used by more than forty home and foreign mission boards and societies of the United States and Canada. The aim is to publish a series of text-books covering the various home and foreign mission fields and written by leading authorities. The entire series when completed will comprise perhaps as many as forty text-books. The following text-books having a sale of nearly 600,000 have been published: i. The Price of Africa. (Biographical.) By S. Earl Taylor. 2. Into All the World. A general survey of missions. By Amos R. Wells. 3. Princely Men in the Heavenly Kingdom. (Bio- graphical.) By Harlan P. Beach. 4. Sunrise in the Sunrise Kingdom. A study of Japan. By John H. De Forest. 5. Heroes of the Cross in America. Home Missions. (Biographical.) By Don O. Shelton. 6. Daybreak in the Dark Continent. A study of Af- rica. By Wilson S. Naylor. 7. The Christian Conquest of India. A study of India. By James M. Thoburn. 8. Aliens or Americans? A study of Immigration. By Howard B. Grose. 9. The Uplift of China. A study of China. By Arthur H. Smith. 10. The Challenge of the City. A study of the City. By Josiah Strong. 11. The "Why and How of Foreign Missions. A study of the relation of the home Church to the foreign missionary enterprise. By Arthur J. Brown. 12. The Moslem World. A study of the Moham- medan World. By Samuel M. Zwemer. 13. The Frontier. A study of the New West. By Ward Piatt. 14. South America : Its Missionary Problems. A study of South America. By Thomas B. Neely. 15. The Upward Path : The Evolution of a Race. A study of the Negro. By Mary Helm. x6. Korea in Transition. A study of Korea. By James S. Gale. In addition to these courses, the following have been published especially for use among younger persons: i. Uganda's White Man of Work. The story of Alex- ander Mackay of Africa. By Sophia Lyon Fans. 2. Servants of the King. A series of eleven sketches of famous home and foreign missionaries. By Robert E. Speer. 3. Under Marching Orders. The Story of Mary Por- ter Gamewell of China. By Ethel Daniels Hubbard. These books are published by mutual arrangement among the home and foreign mission boards, to whom all orders should be addressed. They are bound uni- formly and are sold at 50 cents, in cloth, and 35 cents, in paper; postage, 8 cents extra. 1 ys 2sm> U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES COMbVSHSHO 381234 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY I