“Well, you need to repent of your sins and ask the good Lord to forgive you,” the old woman continued. “Do you want to do that?”
Mary nodded, forgetting that her friends were in the room. All she could see was the bright orange glow of fire. “I would,” she finally said, meaning it.
The old woman led Mary through a simple prayer, and soon afterwards the girls left her house. As they walked back to their tenement building in the rain, they were all too embarrassed to mention what the old woman had said.
Much to her surprise, lying in bed that night Mary felt more peaceful than she could ever remember. It had been the thought of hell that had convinced her to pray, and now she had no fear of ending up there. But she felt something else, too. She had a wonderful feeling that God was watching over her and somehow things would work out for her.
The next Sunday, Mary told the Sunday school superintendent she had prayed to accept Jesus Christ into her heart and asked if there was some way she could be useful at church. The superintendent suggested she assist by teaching a Sunday school class for the younger children, an assignment Mary accepted with great enthusiasm.
Being a Christian made Mary glad for all she was learning in school at the mill. Mary was soon able to read passages from the Bible as well as storybooks. She especially liked to read missionary stories. And more than anything, she loved to read about David Livingstone, the missionary explorer in southern Africa. The more she read about Livingstone, the more she found herself identifying with him. They had much in common. David Livingstone was from Scotland, he was the second child in a family with seven children, and like Mary, he had worked in the cotton mills as a boy. But there were some big differences, too. David Livingstone was a man, and men got to lead much more adventurous lives than women. Livingstone was also a brilliant person who had studied and become a doctor so that he would have a practical skill to offer the natives in Africa. Mary had no skills anyone would want. True, she could tie threads on a weaving machine, but that was a skill that was not likely to be useful on the mission field.
Mary sighed as she read about David Livingstone. Their lives may have started out similarly, but she would never be able to do what Livingstone had done. Mary was a woman, and women didn’t do such things. So instead, Mary read about David Livingstone to her brother John, who was now also a Christian and eager to become a missionary when he grew up. Secretly, Mary hoped that one day she might be his assistant, as she had promised to be Robert’s before he died. Yet everything about her drab life told her it was a far-fetched dream. The family needed her wages so they could all eat, and if Mary followed the course of those women around her, she would work in the mills until she was either too old or too sick to work any longer.
When Mary was fourteen years old, she was allowed to operate a loom. She was now too old to go to the mill school for half-time school, but she did attend evening classes. This meant that she worked from six in the morning until six at night and then went to school for two hours before returning home. The night school teacher was impatient and had little time for tired students. If one of the students could not follow the work on the blackboard, the student would be made to stand for the remainder of the class in order to stay awake. This had happened to Mary on several occasions when she had been extra tired as a result of being awakened the night before by her father’s terrifying, drunken ravings.
The new loom job also meant that Mary was paid a few pennies more each week and could sit down to work instead of running or crawling for twelve hours a day. It was a good thing the job paid more, because in 1862, Mrs. Slessor was expecting another baby. This news was not a happy prospect. It meant that fourteen-year-old Mary would be the only steady source of income for the family while her mother took time off with the new baby. Later in the year, baby Janie was born. She was a particularly small, delicate baby, and no one expected her to survive more than a few months.
Mary worked harder than ever at the mill. Her aim was to get a promotion to one of the big new power looms, where the weavers were paid more than anyone else in the mill. As each day wore on and the shuttle flew back and forth across the loom in rhythmic monotony, Mary would pray for missionaries or plan in her head what she would teach to her Sunday school class.
Around this time, in the heart of the worst slum in Dundee, Wishart Memorial Church made plans to begin classes teaching children to read and write and learn about the Bible. Mary asked the Sunday school superintendent if she could become one of the teachers. At first he refused. Mary was petite, and the superintendent told her he was worried something bad might happen to her. After all, the roughest gangs in Dundee roamed the area and had already let the church know it would not be welcome in “their” territory.
Mary insisted she could do the job, and eventually the superintendent relented and allowed her to try it for a while. Mary had to promise, however, never to venture alone into the Pends, as the slum was called. She was to have one of the church elders with her at all times for protection. Mary agreed to this and delighted in her new teaching responsibilities. This new opportunity became all that kept her going through the long, dreary days at the mill.
It didn’t take long for the gangs to show themselves. In the third week, Mary decided to go to the classroom early. She needed to write a lesson on the chalkboard before the students arrived, but she had forgotten all about her promise never to go into the Pends alone. As she turned the key in the classroom lock, she was aware of someone standing close behind her. She swung around to see four teenage boys leering at her.
“So, Carrots, you’re going in to teach the Bible, are you?” one of the boys said, reaching out to pull her red hair.
“Yes, I am,” Mary replied firmly, swinging her head away. “Would you like to come in?” she asked, her heart beating wildly.
The biggest boy laughed. “Nay. But we’d like to have a bit of fun with you though. Hold her arms, lads,” he commanded.
Two of the other boys grabbed Mary’s arms, and although she struggled, Mary couldn’t escape their strong grip.
“Now, let’s see how you like this,” said the lead boy, taking a string from his pocket. Tied onto the end of the string was a piece of heavy metal with razor-sharp edges. “Tell me you’ll go home and forget this foolishness, and I’ll let you go. Otherwise we’ll see how brave you really are.”
Mary stared up at the piece of metal and then at the boy. Her blue eyes opened wide with fear and defiance. “Do what you want to me, but you’ll not get me to give up my Bible teaching,” she said, waiting to see what would happen next.
The lead boy held the string above Mary’s head and swung the razor-sharp piece of metal back and forth, letting it get closer to Mary’s face with each swing.
“Are you ready to give up yet?” taunted the boy on her left.
Mary didn’t say a word. The metal was only a quarter of an inch from her forehead now. A few more swings and it would hit her.
“This is how the Chinese torture people,” goaded the third boy, as the sharp piece of metal gouged a cut across Mary’s forehead. Blood flowed down her face, but Mary kept her eyes open and stared directly at her tormentor.
Suddenly, the boy stopped swinging the piece of metal. “That’s enough,” he said briskly and then added, “She’s tough, boys.”
The other boys released Mary’s arms. Mary reached for the handkerchief in her pocket and pressed it against her wound.
“Now you’ve had your fun, won’t you come in and see what this is all about?” Mary invited with a smile.
Whether it was because she was talking to them instead of screaming with fear, Mary did not know, but whatever the reason, the boys meekly followed her inside. Soon they were joined by twenty or so other children and teenagers, and before the day was over, the boy who’d tormented Mary with the piece of metal had become a Christian.
Mary often smiled when she thought about the incident. She was not the bravest person in the world, but the bullies at the door that day had taught her one thing: They had wanted her to be scared, and when she wasn’t, they had given up. It was a lesson she would not forget.
Though things were going well for Mary, tragedy struck the family again. This time it was Mary’s father, who developed a bad cough that turned into pneumonia, from which he quickly died. Mary felt many different emotions at his funeral. On the one hand, she was sad; she would miss him. When he was sober, he had been a kind father. On the other hand, when he was drunk, he had seemed like a cruel stranger who stole money from the family and spent it on alcohol, and Mary was relieved that there would be no more of his drunken rages at home. Her father’s funeral also made life seem short and very fragile to Mary. Of the six members of the Slessor family who had moved to Dundee four years before, only three were now alive. Still, life in Dundee was no better or worse for the Slessors than it was for the thousands of other families who had moved to the city in search of something better and instead found only tragedy and drudgery.
Mary’s skill at operating her weaving loom continued to improve until she was given two sixty-two-inch wide looms to run at the same time. This required a great deal of speed and coordination on her part, and although she was exhausted at the end of each day, she was thankful for the extra money she earned operating the two looms. Year after year, Mary’s looms turned out a variety of cotton fabrics: canvas for ships’ sails, cotton sheets, tablecloths, flour sacks, even dish towels for Queen Victoria’s palace in London.
When Mary was twenty-five years old, her brother John contracted tuberculosis. John’s doctor advised a change of climate as quickly as possible. All the family’s money was pooled and the furniture was pawned to cover the cost of a ticket to send John to New Zealand to recuperate. Mrs. Slessor and Mary and her two sisters prayed each night that John would make a full recovery and soon return to Scotland to train as a missionary. But it was not to be. A week after arriving in New Zealand, John died, half a world away from his mother and sisters.
While John’s death was a bitter blow to Mary, Mary’s mother was particularly depressed about it. Now both her sons were dead, and there would be no one bearing the Slessor name to carry the gospel message to foreign lands. There would be no missionary to make her proud. Or so she thought.
Chapter 4
A Post of Honor
With shaking hands, Mary untied her purse strings and pulled out a penny, which she handed to the newsboy waiting outside the mill. The newsboy took the penny and handed Mary a newspaper, which she carefully folded in half and tucked under her arm. As Mary made her way home for the night along the narrow cobbled streets, her sisters Susan and Janie, who also now worked at the mill, walked up behind her. They had seen the newspaper headline, too, and the three sisters walked home in silence. The front page headline echoed in Mary’s head as she walked: “Livingstone’s Body Arrives in Southampton.”
Mary wearily climbed the stairs and opened the door to their dingy apartment. Her mother was stirring a pot of boiling vegetable soup on the gas stove in the kitchen. “What’s the matter, lass?” she asked when she saw the look on Mary’s face.
Mary said nothing. Instead she took the newspaper from under her arm and spread it on the table. Her mother wiped her hands on her apron and peered at it. “I’m so sorry. To think such a wonderful man has left us. God bless him, and all who follow him,” she said, placing her arm lovingly around Mary’s shoulders.
Mary adjusted the lamp and sat down to carefully read the text of the news story. “So, it was all true,” she finally said when she’d finished reading. “It was Livingstone’s body after all. They’re going to bury him in Westminster Abbey.”
