An Unlikely Missionary by Skylar Burris

Author:Skylar Burris [Burris, Skylar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781492957348
Published: 2017-11-14T05:00:00+00:00

[*]

“I looked in on Mr. Collins this morning while you were at the schoolhouse,” Mr. Rivers said. “He seems to be improving.”

We were the first to arrive for dinner that evening. Both of us were early for the second consecutive evening. I had come to prepare the table for the others. Mr. Rivers’s motives were less easy to discern, for it was rather more usual for him to arrive late than early.

“Yes,” I replied. “I believe he is.” I was somewhat embarrassed by my husband’s apparent inability to recover. I was not unfeeling; I pitied him for his sickness and regularly strove to make him feel more comfortable, but at the same time I half-feared that his failure to adjust would reflect poorly on me. I knew it to be a selfish thought, even as I thought it. I had long desired to assimilate comfortably into society. The virtue in this was that I found no difficulty in humbling myself when required; the vice was that I thought too often of practical concerns and had no courage for ideals. I possessed the rare jewel of contentment, but I had stocked my treasure chest with a hoard of low standards.

“He said he might manage to join us for dinner this evening,” Mr. Rivers replied, looking at me with curiosity. My distraction must have been apparent. Perhaps the stigmata of self-examination had surfaced to my face.

“Oh,” I said, shaking off at once both my selfish concern and my self-condemnation. “He must have changed his mind. He asked me to bring him his food again.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you.” I wished to circumvent the subject of the illness, and so I inquired after his nephew: “And where is John this evening? You did not bring him with you?”

“He is with the Hamiltons,” replied Mr. Rivers. “They will bring him to dinner. He stayed with them when I . . . when I disappeared for those three days.” As he spoke, he ran his hand absently across the top of the crude wooden table. “They care for him well, and he loves them very much.”

“You will get splinters doing that,” I said mechanically. I was watching the movement of his hand, but I was thinking of my place in this world. I had been certain that I would not belong in India, just as I had once been convinced that I could not survive England unwed. Nevertheless, I had established a routine here. I had not fallen ill like my husband. I had not sunk into depression over my lack of luxury. I had not been unprofitable, and I had made at least a minor contribution to the operation of the school.

Even so, I reflected, I had done and could do nothing on par with these bold men and women who had built a Christian community in the midst of a foreign wilderness, against great adversity, and at no small risk to themselves. I had merely walked into a pre-fashioned society and had found a niche within it.

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