The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1927, Page 167

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

167

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in good money. And I’ll warrant you don’t even
possess one pound with which to pay your tax next
month,” added the neighbor, scarcely believing what
he heard. “I'll admit that I haven’t even half my
tax-money yet and no work in sight, but as for
throwing away something, I can’t throw away what
I don’t possess. But I can keep what I do possess,
and that with a good conscience before God,” ex-
plained the father, joy lighting up his wrinkled, nut-
brown face.

“You believers think you are wise,” sneered the
old man, “but you do many funny things since you
began to read paper. Can’t you see what it will
lead to? Getting a wife for nothing! Who ever
heard of it? Who'll take care of something he
gets for nothing? Why, even his cookpot will be of
more value to him than his wife. You'll soon have
your daughter back at your kraal, beaten and
bruised. And whose fault will it be? Yours, the
father’s, who ought to know better than to follow
the idle teachings of the white men. I’ve lived
many more years than you, and I know that you'll be
sorry if you stand by this nonsense.” The old man
shook his head ominously as he rose to go.

“You are surprised because it has never before
happened in our country,” answered: the father,
rising to his feet, “but mark my word, it will not be
the last time. This teaching of the white man is
not idle nonsense, as you would soon find out if you
would listen to it. We have treated our wives and
our daughters like cattle and sheep too long as it is.
We have treated them worse than we treat our dog
or our goat, and that is one reason why we have
never made any progress. Our forefathers traded
their daughters for beads or hoes. We sell them for
twenty-five or thirty pounds, and we think we have
made wonderful progress. We buy a dog for a shil-
ling or two and a goat for five or eight, and we take
just as good care of these animals as we do of our
wives and daughters, yes, even better; for we don’t
beat our animals, but we do beat our wives and
our daughters. We protect our beasts from enemies,

‘but we do nothing to protect our wives and daugh-
_ters when the enemy lurks around. Why, for a
paltry shilling or two we're even willing to turn
them over to the enemy and forget about them for
an hour or two, knowing well the treatment await-
ing them.”

The wedding drew a crowd. From north and
south, east and west, they came, curious to see the
peculiar specimen of a man who could deliberately
throw away twenty-five pounds, and this girl, who
was willing to consider herself of less value than a

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hoe, a cookpot, or a mat. The other girls began to
talk: “We'll never consent to throw ourselves away
like chattels of no value. Huh! If we’re not worth
anything to the boys, let them go without wives.”

The boys also began to worry and say: “What
kind of teaching is this? How dare we marry a
wife who has not been paid for? She won’t mind
us a speck. She'll feel free to carry on with any
one else who attracts her. Huh! There’s no gain
in that.”

Others said: “What does this mean? Will we
get wives without having to go to the mines to sweat
for three or four years in order to earn the lobola?
Or will the girls refuse to marry us, so that we'll not
get any wives?” But that bride, all dressed in white,
all smiling and happy, consented. There must be
something after all in the new teaching that can

A Mission-Chapel in an African Village.

make a man and a girl do such a thing gladly and
willingly! Did not the father say that he gave his
daughter freely, of his own accord, without any
persuasion from the white man?

The father certainly looked happy when he stood
up in the church and told the people why he did it.
He signed a paper to the effect that he claimed no
lobola, and three others signed the paper with him
as witnesses. Queer thing, this!

A year passed, a year of unexpected and hitherto
untasted joy for the little bride. Whatever fears
she may have had in the beginning, —“for we do
not know how the man is going to: treat us,” —all
fears were soon allayed. Never was a native wife
treated with more consideration and gentleness than
Pompi treated his little wife.

Day by day they prayed in secret for the little
one that was coming to their kraal; for it was not
the custom to mention the unborn child to one an-
other. But the joy of expectation was all the greater
because the bane of the heathen’s life — fear of the