When Paul returned from his vacation in West Runton, a pile of letters was waiting for him. Several of the letters were from his father, who tended to do most of the letter writing. Paul’s heart skipped as he picked up the envelopes. His father wrote such interesting letters, and these were no different. Paul opened the letters in the order they were dated. The most recent one was three months old by now.
“Remember the old Poosari at Kirangadu? Very old, first man to have a tooth out. One day last week he appeared and asked Mama if she would take an orphan baby. Mama could not believe her ears, so she brought the man to me.” Paul smiled to himself as he read, remembering that his father spoke Tamil like a native while his mother struggled with the language. “He had a girl baby about a year old whose parents had both died, and he wanted us to take her. We told him to bring her along the next morning. He turned up with a lad carrying the baby, pretty, with large, dark eyes.”
Paul could imagine the scene: his mother taking the little girl; the old man disappearing before she changed her mind; his mother bathing the baby in the bucket (the same one she and Paul had used to bathe so many sick children); his mother feeding the child rice and bananas and putting her to bed. Paul felt a sudden pang; perhaps the baby was sleeping in his bed.
The next letter demonstrated that Jesse Brand had received a letter from Aunt Eunice. Paul grimaced as he read. “The report that came this week, Paul, was a disappointing one. I don’t mind low marks in some subjects, but what I object to is a remark like ‘Could do better if he tried.’” Paul felt chastised by his father’s remarks. He promised himself that he would do better at school when the new term began.
When school did start again, however, Paul fell into his old habit of studying only the things he enjoyed. He loved to read, and he marveled at all of the books so readily available to him. He read during lunch hour and after school. Unlike most of the other boys, he was not interested in organized sports, though one particular day everyone at school learned that Paul was as fit and coordinated as any of the institution’s star sportsmen.
By now Paul had transferred from Miss Chattaway’s private school to the junior branch of the University College School in nearby Hampstead. Given his love of climbing trees, Paul decided to try his hand at climbing up the brick and concrete corner post of the old school building. The boys gathered at the bottom to watch as inch by inch Paul worked his way up the outside of the building. When he was about forty feet up, Paul took out his locker key and, to the amazement of the other students, scratched his name into the concrete. He then scrambled back down to the ground. In the history of University College School, only one other student had managed to climb higher up the corner post of the building, but he had been unable to steady himself enough to scratch his name into the concrete.
As he grew, Paul searched for ways to stay connected to his parents’ missionary work in India. One day he, Connie, and two of their cousins hit upon a great idea that would not only raise money for a new girls’ home and school in India but also keep the family and church informed about what was going on there: they would create a newsletter.
The children titled the sixteen-page publication The Superior Newsletter. They wrote all of its content, which included poems, stories, puzzles, jokes, riddles, a section called “Tips and Gadgets”, and, of course, news about what was happening with the Brands on the mission field in India. They wrote and designed the pages using pens with special ink. These pages were then used to make master pages in a film of gelatin, which in turn was used to print pages on a hectograph, or jelligraph, as it was more often called.
When they had produced a new edition of The Superior Newsletter, the children sold copies to family members and friends from church and sent the money they collected to Jesse and Evelyn Brand in India. Paul was proud of his contribution to the mission work of his parents. He was especially proud when he was able to announce in 1925 that the new girls’ home and school had been completed. Now his mother had somewhere other than the family mission house in which to house all the young Indian girls she cared for.
Throughout each year that passed, Paul’s parents continued to faithfully write and tell him about their missionary work in India. Jesse was busier than ever. Six mission stations workers were now spread across the Kolli Malai highlands. Jesse visited each one regularly, as well as the ninety or so villages dotted around the mission stations. In one year alone he preached over four thousand sermons.
Then there was the job of overseeing the girls’ home and school, not to mention Jesse’s usual work of providing medical care; teaching the locals about agriculture and building; and teaching other practical crafts, such as weaving, carpentry, and brickmaking.
Jesse had also set up a small loan cooperative that loaned money to local farmers at affordable rates. Until then, most farmers were forced to borrow money from lenders down on the plains, who charged extremely high interest rates, usually 35 percent or more. Jesse also intervened in land and other disputes on behalf of the people and usually found a fair solution to the dispute.
People living in the Kolli Hills area had been neglected by the government for years, and Jesse decided to do something about it. He convinced the government to put up the money to build all-weather trails around the region. With the money, Jesse hired local laborers and supervised the building of thirty miles of horse trails.
As he read his parents’ letters, Paul was proud of what they were accomplishing in India. Paul’s mother seemed to keep as busy as his father. Not only did she often travel with Jesse as he visited the outlying villages and mission stations, but also she cared for the girls in the home and school.
Despite the pride Paul felt in his parents’ accomplishments, he missed them greatly and looked forward to the following year when they would return to England on furlough. Then one day in April 1929 he received a crushing blow. Only a few months before his parents were due back in England, a letter arrived from them. Paul anxiously tore it open, hoping to find out the exact date of their arrival, and began reading the typed page. “We are disappointed to give up our furlough this year,” the letter began. A lump formed in Paul’s throat as he read on. “But there is another man in the mission who needs it more than we do. Looking forward to next year, we think that the first week in March will be the probable time of our setting sail. That will land us home in time for the Easter holidays.”
Another missionary needed rest and relaxation more! And his parents had agreed to delay their furlough by one year so that the missionary could come home instead! Paul could scarcely believe it, and he tried to hide his sadness. He was now a fourteen-year-old English boy, and he was not supposed to show his emotions, but it was difficult not to let the disappointment show of having to wait another year to see his parents.
Paul distracted himself with new hobbies. He delved into conducting scientific experiments, which did not always go as planned. On one occasion he was in the basement breakfast room boiling methyl spirits in a can over a candle. He was hoping to capture the gas produced and use it to fuel a small camp stove. But things went wrong. The tube he was using to collect the gas melted, and the boiling methyl spirits burst into flame and exploded from the can throughout the room. The maids rushed to Paul’s aid and helped him put out the flames. They then forbade him to do any more science experiments in the basement.
Paul turned his attention to another activity—building and walking on stilts. He started small and became very adept at maneuvering them. Once he had mastered that art, he began making longer and longer stilts until he had made a pair that he had to climb onto from a first-floor window.
The summer holidays finally arrived, and Paul spent the first week exploring local parks and woodlands with his cousin Norman. It disappointed him to think that his parents were not there for the summer, but at least he was outside, roaming and exploring nature and enjoying the unusually warm summer.
On Saturday, June 15, 1929, Paul and Norman returned from a long walk in the park. As usual their bodies were dirty and scratched from climbing trees and crawling around under bushes looking for frogs and insects. As they approached the front door of the house, Aunt Eunice was waiting for them with a peculiar look on her face. “Norman, you had better go home now,” she said. “Paul, come into the drawing room.”
Paul and Norman gave each other confused looks and then parted ways. Whatever was going on, it must be serious, Paul reasoned, because Aunt Eunice was allowing him into the drawing room all scratched and dirty from the park. Paul was even more puzzled when he noticed Uncle Bertie standing quietly in the corner, his head bowed. What could possibly be the matter? He had done nothing seriously wrong, at least not that he could think of.
Chapter 5
Finding His Calling
Paul was unnerved by the strange tension in the drawing room. He noticed a crisp piece of yellow paper in Aunt Eunice’s hand, the kind of paper telegrams were printed on. Aunt Eunice looked at Uncle Bertie, who cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak. No words came out. Watching his normally talkative uncle so tongue-tied frightened Paul. Had something terrible happened?
Since his uncle was having trouble speaking, Aunt Eunice stepped in. “We’re sorry to have to break the news so suddenly, Paul,” she said softly, a quiver in her voice, “but your dear daddy has gone to be with Jesus.”
Paul stood completely still while the world spun around him. Had he heard his aunt correctly? What did it mean? Was his father really dead? It seemed too much to take in. He could hear his aunt continuing to talk but could not distinguish the words or take in what she was saying.
After what seemed like hours, Uncle Bertie walked over and picked his hat up from the table. “I am going to get Connie from Guildford. I will be back in a few hours,” he said as he left the drawing room.
Meanwhile, Paul’s two aunts sat him down and brought him a cup of tea. Paul drank it, unsure of what to do next. What was there to do? His forty-four-year-old father was dead from blackwater fever, a complication of malaria, but everything else in Paul’s life was as it had been for the past six years. It had been that long since he and his father had been together.
Uncle Bertie arrived back at the house with Connie. Paul could tell immediately that his sister had been told the bad news. Connie’s eyes were filled with panic.
“You children will want to be alone together,” Aunt Eunice said, standing up. “You will have things to say to each other.” With that she reached down, took Paul’s elbow, and guided Paul and Connie upstairs to Paul’s room, where she shut the door firmly behind them.
Paul stood stiffly, his sister beside him, but no words came.
Connie broke the silence. “It’s dreadful, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” Paul replied. “I just can’t believe it.” He could not think of anything to add, and neither could Connie. They continued standing together in silence for a while, and then Connie returned to her own room.
The days that followed were a blur of confusion for Paul. His father’s weekly letters had been a lifeline. For a while letters Jesse had posted before his death continued to arrive each Friday. It gave Paul goose bumps to see his father’s meticulous handwriting on each envelope, with the Indian postage stamp and franking date. As long as the letters continued coming, it was all the more difficult for Paul to believe that his father was really dead.
Although it was painful to do so, Paul read each letter that arrived. The last one, dated May 12, 1929, read, “When I am alone on these long rides, I just love the sweet smelling world, the dear brown earth, the lichen on the rocks, the heaps of dead brown leaves drifting like snow in the hollows. God means us to delight in his world. Just observe. Remember. Compare. And be always looking to God with thankfulness and worship.”
