Thursday, March 14. We overslept a little this morning, and did not get started until 6:45. We noted that in every village we passed no girl child could be found whose feet had not been bound. It is a pitiful sight to see tiny children crippling along on a pair of stubs. I had thought that this custom had been done away with in China, but the traveler who passes through these interior villages quickly realizes that this feature of civilization has not yet touched there. We also saw many men wearing the queue.
Friday, March 15. Early this morning the chang kuei ti (head coolie), wishing us to make an early start, called us at three o'clock. When we turned on our flashlights and discovered the hour, we told him to go back to bed and sleep awhile. It was still dark and very cold when we finally got away—so cold, indeed, that after a few Ii we could go no farther. We stopped at the next village, where a kind family built a fire in the middle of their floor and thawed us out. We paid our thanks for this kind hospitality, and sped on.
This day showed the first real wear on our carts. Inner tubes began to leak, and ball bearings to break. This being Friday, we hoped for a place where we might stay over the Sabbath. We stopped early in a village a little larger than usual, called Sanchiaochi, and rented two rooms. The proprietor was a small boy of twelve years, whose father was dead and whose mother was sick. On inquiring concerning the mother, we were told that she was possessed of a devil.
We explained to the relatives, through Miss Ma, that our doctor would be glad to examine her if they cared to have this done. The family consented, and it was found that she had a deep-seated abscess on the left thigh, not ready for opening. We gave her medicine to relieve the pain, and she slept well all night. The next day she still insisted that the pain came from an evil spirit.
Sunday, March 17. A hard day, and desperately cold. We had to cross three rivers by rowboat. After the second crossing we came to another boo shuei (customs house), but because we were carrying medicines for the hospital, the officer did not tax our goods.
Monday, March 18. Today Doctor Nethery had occasion to ride to a large town some distance away, and it was decided that Miss Ma should go with him, leaving Mrs. Smith, Herbert, and me to travel the rest of the day alone. Roads were bad, and we had plenty of tire trouble. But in spite of this we made eighty-five li [twenty-eight miles], our best mileage for a single day.
On this day we crossed the border between Anhwei and Honan. At every step the soil grew more sandy, making bicycle riding very difficult. At nightfall Doctor Nethery had not returned. We tried at several villages to get a stopping place for the night, but all the hotels were full. Then just at dark, off the main road, we found a very small place, just large enough for three people. We "set up house" as usual, missing the strong arm of Doctor Nethery to help with our cots. Then supper, and to bed. The door of our room had no lock. We therefore put a heavy suitcase against it and a bicycle next to that, so that we might hear if anyone attempted to get in. We were a bit fearful, but in spite of this we slept well.
The next morning Doctor Nethery and Miss Ma caught up with us. They had tried in vain for several hours the previous day to locate us, as we had lost the road. Traffic on this road had been heavy, and in consequence hotel accommodations weer most difficult to secure. Each afternoon, starting about four o'clock, Doctor Nethery and Herbert rode ahead to reserve a place for us, and by this method we had fairly good lodging.
Thursday, March 21. The trip is now becoming most interesting, as we are only ninety li from Yencheng. One more morning, and we shall be home. It has been a bitterly cold day, with its usual fun and misery. At our evening stop in Dengtsai, we were informed that we were only eighteen li from Yencheng. The people of this village, at this distance from the hospital, knew who we were, and this did not at all decrease the number of onlookers.
Friday, March 22. We had lighter hearts than usual today. After six li, we stopped for a bite to eat—,Chinese cakes and hot canned milk. Then on to the next town. Already we could see the big smokestack of the used-to-be railroad station of Yencheng. Doctor Nethery pointed out historical places in the town as we rode along. But these seemed not at all different to us from all the rest in the towns through which we had passed. They will look different, perhaps, when we have learned to call this place home.
Soon we crossed a rocky, desolate section, and were told that the railroad used to pass over this ground. In front of us stood the skeleton of the station, all that was left after the bombing. We rounded a corner and climbed a bill, and were brought to the front gate of the mission, on which is marked in Chinese characters, "Seventh-day Adventist Mission and Hospital." We filed into the compound, there to be graciously welcomed by Pastor J. H. Effenberg, who invited us all in to the comforts of Doctor Nethery's home. There was plenty of hot water for baths, and in due course we sat down to a dinner the like of which we had not tasted for many a day.
Our compound is a lovely place, with its fine array of trees and plants and flowers. Besides the hospital there is a ten-grade school in the compound. The hospital has three buildings—a women's hospital, a men's hospital, and an outpatient department. The school has an enrollment of more than three hundred students, and the large church is filled every Sabbath. The Sabbath school has a membership of more than a thousand, and eleven branch Sabbath schools are conducted in the surrounding towns and villages every Sabbath afternoon.
An interesting feature of our work here is the refugee kitchen, which has been running now for more than two years. This provides a place to eat for those who have been driven from their homes and who have no work. A small piece of land that adjoins our property has been rented, and a wall has been built around it. Here ten thousand refugees are fed, five thousand on alternate days, so that the people eat every second day. They begin to come at four-thirty in the morning, and food is served until 8 A.M. They are fed a cereal that is something like cornmeal, called shim mi. The people sit on the ground, back to back, in rows, leaving a path along which the coolie passes with buckets to serve the food.
In the hospital, twenty-four nurses are in training. The boys outnumber the girls, and we have more men patients than women—perhaps because the men's hospital is larger. The hospital is built to accommodate sixty patients, but our average daily list is twice that. Even then we turn away many every day, because we have no room. Many of our patients come a hundred miles and more for treatment. The patients' dining room and the classrooms have been converted into wards. The outpatient department usually sees from one hundred to one hundred fifty patients in a forenoon. Both Doctor Tsao and Doctor Nethery are kept exceedingly busy.
