Wunwang's Story of His Life
(Little boy dressed as a Chinese.) I HAVE been asked to tell you the story of my life, so I will begin at the beginning. My home is in China. When I was a little baby, my mother tied a red cord about my wrists, to make me obedient, and another, with charms strung on it, about my neck, to keep me from having the colic or smallpox. When I was a month old, they had a party for me, to which my grandmother and a great many other people came, and brought me presents. They shaved my head, and gave me my milk name, which was “Little Stupid,” so that when the spirits heard my mother call me, they would think she didn't care much about me, and so let me live to grow up. When I was six years old, I had my real name, which is Wunwang, and I began to go to school; but I didn't think it was very interesting, for I couldn't understand what we were studying, and I got tired saying, over and over again, “Confucius; how great is Confucius!” One day, as I was going home from school, some big boys were fighting, and they ran into and knocked me down, and my leg was broken. They carried me home, and my father brought in a native doctor, who felt my pulse in five or six places, gave me something to take, put a knitting-needle into the fire until it was red-hot, then stuck it into my leg, and said I should be all well soon. I didn't get better, and I used to cry with the pain. One day a missionary was passing by our house, and came in to see what was the matter. When he saw my leg, he asked my father to let him take me to the hospital, where they could cure me. My father was afraid to let me go, for we both thought they might do something dreadful to me there. But at last he said Yes, and they took me on a wheelbarrow. When I saw the doctor coming to look at my leg, with some queer things in his hand, I thought he was going to take out my eyes, to make medicine of them. So I screamed and screamed. A lady came, and held my hand, and talked quietly to me, and had me smell something which put me to sleep, and when I woke, my leg was all nicely fixed. Now I can walk again, and my father is so happy that he says I may go to school where they teach about Jesus, who makes these foreigners so kind and good.— Mission Dayspring.