The church service inspired Mary. The congregation listened enthusiastically, clapping and laughing in response to King Eyo’s sermon. Native drums beat out powerful rhythms to the hymns that everyone sang with gusto. After the service, King Eyo approached Mary and asked her to join him for a meal at his palace. Mary could hardly believe it. She was going to eat with a king!
“I have no doubt you would like to see Creek Town,” King Eyo said. “I will have one of my assistants guide you. When you hear the cannons, you will know that dinner is about to be served.”
“Thank you so much,” Mary replied, startled to hear such perfect English coming from an African man.
Mary followed the king’s assistant through the alleys and streets of Creek Town, which was much like Duke Town, though not quite so crowded or smelly. As the pair walked along, most children ran and hid when they saw Mary. Mary was puzzled by their reaction until the king’s assistant pointed to her red hair. “Fire,” he said. “The white ma looks like her head is on fire.”
Mary laughed. Even in Scotland her red hair had been a topic of conversation. No wonder the children of Creek Town were terrified by it.
Boom. Boom. The cannon fire caught Mary off guard.
“The king is summoning us,” said her guide, pointing towards the rambling house overlooking the bay. “Follow me.”
Soon Mary and her guide were ushered into a large room. Woven mats covered the floors and walls, and a huge dining table ran the length of the room. Seated at the head of the table was King Eyo, looking splendid in a black top hat he had apparently worn just for the occasion. He motioned for Mary to sit at his right side which she did nervously. She had no idea what the correct manners for a dinner like this were or what might happen if she did the wrong thing!
For the first half of the meal, Mary was extremely tense. Since she was the king’s honored guest, she was the first to be served each course. As a result, she had no one to follow in what to do. She guessed correctly when a servant woman, wearing nothing but a flowery skirt, brought her a pitcher of water. Since there was no cup, Mary put out her hands to have them washed. The servant poured water over them, and a second woman came with a towel and dried them. Mary said a silent prayer of thanks—she had done the right thing with the water pitcher. She braced herself for the food that was sure to follow. Since she knew it would be an insult to the king to not eat the food offered her, she took a little from every platter. She recognized some of the food—roast goat, chicken, yams fried in oil, and green, leafy vegetables that resembled spinach. Sometimes, though, she had no idea what she was eating. One dish had tiny bones strewn among the meat. Was it a bird or a rat? Mary didn’t know. Another dish was soup with a jellolike substance floating in it. Mary concentrated on her conversation with King Eyo as she gulped it down.
At one point in the conversation the king looked puzzled. “You appear to know a lot about me,” he said to Mary in a questioning voice.
“Yes, I do, King Eyo,” she beamed. “Everyone in my church in Dundee has read about you and the honest way you govern your people. Why, my mother has prayed for you every Sunday for as long as I can remember.”
King Eyo stared at Mary, his eyes wide with surprise. “There are those in Dundee who know me?” he said incredulously. “And your mother cares for a king four thousand miles away?”
“Yes,” replied Mary enthusiastically. “We all belong to God’s kingdom, and many people are very interested in you.”
The king was silent for a long moment. “I would like to write to your mother,” he said. “Will you give me her address?”
Mary smiled. “Of course,” she said, thinking how thrilled her mother would be to get a letter from King Eyo himself.
Mary spent several more days in and around Creek Town before heading back down the river to the mission compound at Duke Town.
In early January, William and Louisa Anderson returned from their stay in Scotland. They were veteran missionaries, and both were people of action. Mrs. Anderson, or Mammy, as she insisted everyone call her, was a whirlwind of activity. She seemed to have tried her hand at everything from building roads to negotiating peace treaties to nursing sick seamen. To Mammy, life was run by the clock. Even in Calabar, where the only time the local people knew was sunrise and sunset, Mammy Anderson tried to impose civilization through accurate timekeeping. This was not always successful outside the mission compound—the natives thought nothing of being an hour or two late for a meeting—but inside the mission, the clock ruled supreme.
As much as Mary admired Mammy Anderson’s tremendous energy, she was not very good about being on time herself. As soon as Mammy arrived back in Calabar, she gave Mary the worst possible of all jobs: ringing the bell for morning prayers at 6 a.m. Mary had no way of waking up at that time each morning, and once, she had managed to stagger out half asleep and ring the bell at 3 a.m. She had mistaken the bright moonlight for sunrise! No one was happy with her that morning.
Another time, Mary was late to dinner, and according to Mammy’s rules, anyone who was not present at the beginning of the meal did not get to eat until the next meal. Mary accepted her punishment and retired to her room for the night to await breakfast. An hour later, she heard a soft knock on the door. Mary opened the door, and there stood the Reverend Anderson with a tray of biscuits and tea. The reverend handed the tray to Mary and smiled. Mary whispered thank you, and the Reverend Anderson crept away as quietly as he had come.
It took Mary a while to get used to the iron hand of Mammy Anderson, but Mammy Anderson accomplished so much that Mary grew to respect her tremendously. After a year they were great friends, although Mary still did not dare to be late to dinner.
Life for Mary fell into a regular pattern. She taught school during the week, and after school or on the weekends she visited with women and children in their yards. She also went to visit King Eyo Honesty in Creek Town fairly regularly. The king was always delighted to welcome her into his palace.
Despite Mary’s activity, something was missing. The townspeople Mary spoke to had heard the gospel message so many times they could repeat the Bible verses and tell their favorite Bible stories as well as she could. They made a big show of coming to church on Sunday, yet when Mary challenged them about their sacrifices to various gods and their treatment of each other, they were unwilling to change their ways. They still believed that evil spirits ran their lives. They didn’t see anything wrong with human sacrifice or owning and killing slaves at will. Mary grew frustrated trying to get them to see their need for change. Over time, she began to understand that many of the natives were sly, telling the missionaries what they wanted to hear to win favor with the trading captains. Yet she kept sharing the gospel message with them, trying to be wise to their ways. But what she dreamed of was traveling into the interior and sharing the gospel message with people who had never had the opportunity to hear it.
Mary knew it would take a miracle for a single woman to be allowed to go alone into the unmapped areas of Calabar. She felt trapped, so close to the “real” mission field as she saw it, yet unable to go there. She prayed that a way would open up for her to go, but her prayers seemed to go unanswered. Instead, she became ill, very ill, with malaria. At that time, no one knew what caused malaria, so there was no way to avoid catching it. It was every missionary’s dread. The only treatment was quinine, a medicine that was so strong it could kill a person as easily as cure her.
For days, Mary drifted in and out of consciousness. Sometimes she felt so cold her teeth chattered and her body shook uncontrollably. Other times she was so hot she thought her bed must be on fire. Mammy Anderson took special care of her, and eventually it became clear that Mary had escaped death at the hands of the disease.
Finally, one morning, Mammy Anderson came bustling into Mary’s room and drew the curtains, letting in a stream of golden morning sunlight. “It’s such a lovely day,” she said brightly.
Mary squinted at the light. “Umm,” was all she could manage to say.
“Well, it looks like you’re getting better. We thought we’d lost you a time or two, lass,” Mrs. Anderson said, leaning over to fluff Mary’s pillows. Then matter-of-factly she said, “Your timing couldn’t have been better. I went ahead and booked you passage on a steamer leaving for Liverpool next Friday. I almost thought I’d have to cancel it, but you’ll be well enough to walk on board by then. You can use the voyage to recuperate. What with the cool air, you should be a new person by the time you get to Liverpool.”
“But…,” Mary tried to say weakly.
“No buts about it; you need a furlough,” said Mammy Anderson cutting Mary off. “I know you’ve been here only three years, and it’s a year earlier than you had scheduled to go home, but Scotland will do you good. In a year or so when you’re feeling ready, you can come back to Calabar.”
Mary lay still in bed. Every muscle in her body ached as she tried to take in the news. She was going home next week; that was a fact. She knew there was no arguing with Mammy Anderson once she’d made up her mind. But Mary wasn’t going home the way she wanted to, as a healthy missionary with stunning stories to tell. Instead, she was going home a sick woman beginning to doubt she had done any good at all in Calabar. She had no great missionary tales to tell, only accounts of the steady plod of teaching boys the alphabet and visiting illiterate women in their yards. The last thing Mary wanted at that moment was to go home.
Chapter 8
Old Town
Mary sat quietly in the leather seat as the train jolted and swayed its way from Liverpool to Dundee. As the Scottish countryside rolled by, she tried to rest. A large crowd would be at the train station to welcome her. Mary knew that from experience, having been part of church groups who greeted returning missionaries in years past. As the train rolled along, she caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of the window. Although she had rested on the voyage home, she still looked gaunt and old, and she could walk or stand for only a few minutes before having to sit down and catch her breath and gather her strength. She hoped her appearance would not shock people too much, especially her mother and sisters.
Finally, the long journey came to an end, and the train jerked to a halt at the Dundee railway station. The waving crowd was waiting for her. Mary pulled herself to her feet and made her way out to greet them. Her mother was standing at the front, and Mary collapsed into her arms, glad to be home.
Mrs. Slessor took her daughter straight home and made her a strong cup of tea. Mary’s sisters, Susan and Janie, fussed over Mary, and after a few days, she felt well enough to venture out and walk to the end of the row of tenement houses and back. As she recuperated in the care of her mother and sisters, Mary came to a conclusion. Living in a tenement house with no running water, a shared toilet in a back garden, and a parade of dubious neighbors was no life for anyone. She wanted her mother and sisters to move out of Dundee into one of the villages that surrounded the city. Her mother and sisters thought it was a great idea. In fact, they had considered it themselves in the past, but they didn’t make enough money among them for it to be possible.
As Mary lay on the couch week after week, she came up with a plan to help make it possible. All United Presbyterian missionaries in Calabar were given the same amount of money—sixty pounds a year—to live on. Living at the mission station in Duke Town, though, was expensive. Everyone there helped pay for all the entertaining of Europeans guests as well as for the many servants who cooked and cleaned the house and the expensive imported food they all ate. This meant that Mary spent nearly every penny of her yearly income.
