CHAPTER II.

GRAVE THOUGHTS.

ETHEL retreated to her room, and busied herself in learning her Italian lesson. She was very fond of learning languages; and she had lately been studying Italian with great zest; but somehow she found it hard to fix her attention on such interesting questions as "Have you the good tailor's gold?" "Will you send for some milk?" and so on.

Ethel was very sensitive to blame, especially from people that she loved; and she was apt to brood over it till she sometimes magnified a very slight censure into a serious grievance. Now, as she sat at her desk, with grammar and exercise-book before her, and with her eyes on the page, she found certain words of her brother's ringing in her ears, and giving her a very uncomfortable feeling somewhere,—she did not know whether it was in her heart or in her temper.

"If every one had been as much afraid of insects as you are, the gospel would not have been preached in India to this day. Cockroaches then would have been an effectual bar to the spread of Christianity!"

Ethel, as I have said before, had built many castles in the air on the foundation of her brother's mission in India. Ever since she could remember, ever since the first box of presents containing the curious figures of baked clay, dressed in the costumes of all the different castes, had come to her, a little girl of ten years old,—she had dreamed of going out to India with her brother as a missionary. Mrs. Bayard had an intimate friend and schoolmate who was attached to the mission in Persia, and with whom she corresponded. Ethel had helped to fill more than one box of pretty presents to be distributed among the girls of Miss Beecher's school, for she was very skilful both with needle and pencil. Miss Beecher was very much interested in Ethel, and had written her a good many letters; and Ethel felt a personal attachment to every girl in the school. It was very natural that Ethel should be interested in missionary work, and should think of becoming a missionary herself.

She knew of course that there would be many unpleasant things to be encountered; but she was apt, in her dreaming hours, to put all these things out of sight, and dwell only upon the pleasures, the delights, of travelling and seeing new and strange sights, the wonders of tropical vegetation and the luxuries of tropical fruits, and most of all the delight of helping her brother to convert and teach the heathen; for Ethel, with all her dreaminess, was honestly desirous of doing good. She had often pictured herself as meeting with some mother about to throw her baby to the crocodiles of the Ganges, and by her persuasions and arguments inducing the poor woman to turn to the true God, and save her child.

But the cockroaches! Ironton was a famous place for these humid insects—for humid they are— especially West Ironton. They had been imported by a lady who brought some boxes of sweetmeats from Havana, and they had multiplied till they were a serious nuisance: but they were seldom seen on the east side. Ethel well remembered the night she spent with Anna Burgers. The girls had been out at a concert together, and had some supper after they went up-stairs, and Ethel had dropped a bit of cake under the table. She could see it quite plainly by the moonlight as she lay in bed, and was sleepily wondering whether it would grease the carpet, and whether she ought not to pick it up, when the cake suddenly began to move rapidly toward the fireplace, as if it had become sensible that it had no business where it was. Ethel started up in bed with a little scream.

"What 'is' the matter?" asked Anna, sleepily.

"The cake!" exclaimed Ethel. "Don't you see? That piece of cake on the floor. It is running away!"

Anna looked and laughed. "I suppose a cockroach has got it," said she. "Yes, there he is! I see his back!"

"A cockroach!" repeated Ethel, more terrified than ever. "Do you have cockroaches?"

"Yes, indeed, and dreadful torments they are," replied Anna. "They come out as soon as the lights are out, and run over everything. But they don't bite that is one comfort—and they cannot get under the mosquito-bars—that is another: so you need not be afraid of them. We have tried every way to get rid of them, but without success so far."

Anna was asleep again in five minutes, but Ethel could not sleep. She well remembered now how she had lain and shivered all night; how, every time she dropped asleep, she had wakened with a start from a dream of the horrid creatures running over her; and how in the morning she found that one of them had taken refuge in the toe of her boot. She had fully decided that she would never spend another night with Anna Burgers.

But there were a great many cockroaches in India. Ethel knew that very well; and there were other creatures even worse, such as centipedes, and large spiders and lizards, which ran all about the houses, and were encouraged because they caught insects. And there were snakes, too,—horrible poisonous cobras and tic polongas. And then the wolves, and jackals, and the tigers! Ethel remembered the story her brother had written to her of a tiger which had walked into a friend's bungalow, in the middle of a terrible storm, and laid itself down at the gentleman's feet, trembling and foaming like a frightened dog. True, the tiger had retired and done nobody any harm, but Ethel felt that the very sight of him would have killed her. And then the storms; and she could never sleep in a high wind, and was dreadfully afraid of lightning. Then there was crossing the ocean; that could not be helped. To be sure, Henry talked much of returning to India by the way of California, when the Pacific railroad should be finished; but then there were such dreadful railroad accidents, and the Indians on the plains did such horrible things!

Ethel had known all these things all her life, but somehow she had never before thought of them as hindrances in the way of her favorite plan. Now, as she thought them all over, she began to see that her fears were likely utterly to defeat the great wish of her life.

"I wish I was not such a coward," she thought. "I don't see what I am to do. I am sure I should die if I should find a centipede on my dress. I should never wait to have him bite me; and then the snakes! But I don't see how I can help it. I am naturally timid. Sister Juliet said she really thought I could not help it, and Miss Carrington always said she hated strong-minded women. I am sure I 'cannot' help it if I was made delicate and nervous. But then to give up going on a mission after I have looked forward to it all my life. Oh dear, what shall I do!"

And Ethel laid her head down on her desk and fairly cried. It was very hard certainly to have one's cherished life-plan overset and defeated by cockroaches, and to see an army of spiders standing in the way of teaching the gospel to the heathen; but there seemed no help for it, so Ethel thought at last, for she was quite sure that she could never overcome her fears so as to face these dreadful dangers.

There was no use in crying about it, however; and if she had red eyes at the Italian class, that hateful Delia Wilkins would be sure to notice them and ask her what was the matter before all the girls. It would not do to neglect her lessons either; so Ethel dried her eyes and applied herself with new diligence to "sending the son of the good tailor for some milk." When her fears were not concerned, she was a conscientious girl; and she knew it was her duty to make the most of her school-days.

"Henry said he found all the languages he knew useful to him at one time and another. But, oh, those horrid cockroaches!"