Page 126 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 126
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
From then until the end of 1916 Lanzhou was Percy’s home, and his memories of it were happy ones
as he played with his Chinese friend John, the Pastor’s son, and rode his donkey around the
compound. On one occasion he fell off and broke his right arm. The Mission doctor set and reset it
three times before he was satisfied it was right, much to Esther’s disgust! This period when he was
unable to use his right hand made Percy ambidextrous for the rest of his life. He could use both
hands with equal ease, but for doing some things always preferred his left hand to his right. He was a
left handed bowler in cricket, which sometimes gave him, what the opposing side felt to be, an unfair
advantage.
He also invariably used his left hand for eating a boiled egg! It may have been this accident to which
his grandmother Andrew referred in writing to Esther at that time, when she spoke of his having been
‘at death’s door’.
Percy’s father often took him at this time with him into the surrounding country when he went out on
evangelistic trips. So his early life was spent in an environment where things Chinese as well as the
Chinese people and the Chinese language were as familiar to him as his own family. In fact, there
were times in later years, when I became his wife that I used to think that even his way of thinking was
Chinese!
Gansu Province was liable to earthquakes, and the children had vivid memories of being hurried out
into the courtyard several times during those years by day or by night, when tremors threatened
something more serious. On one occasion, after heavy rain, an area near the house enclosed by a
little wall, became flooded, so the children made a raft out of a board and played on it till it sank under
their weight.
QINGJIANG
By July 1916 they were on the move again. Percy’s father had been asked to take charge of a small
temporary language school for men at Qingjiang on the Grand Canal. Because of the War (1914-
1918), few young men were coming to China as missionaries at that time, and the Moores, whose
furlough was overdue, could not return to England. Percy was almost seven, and over the age for
starting school, so a move nearer the coast seemed advisable.
The journey from Lanzhou to the railhead in Henan was a long and dusty one through the loess
country of north Shaanxi and the children were old enough to remember it. They travelled by mule
litter, made comfortable by putting their luggage in as a base first, then covering it with their bedding to
make a comfortable seat when they wanted to ride.
As the long cavalcade jogged along, the children often got out and walked. At times the track was
narrow and the mules picked their way along the edge of the mountainsides close to alarming
precipices. As they got into the flatter country near Xi’an in Shaanxi, and then out of Shaanxi into
Henan, the loess soil created a lot of dust, and their father urged the children not to stir up more than
necessary. It was sheer delight when they found a rippling brook under a bridge one day and could
paddle in cool, refreshing water.
At nights they had to stay in primitive inns where, after bargaining with the innkeeper, Percy’s father
had the inn swept while his mother threw the groundsheets across the brick ‘kangs’ which were what
the northerners slept on, sprinkled the edges with insect powder and then laid their own clean bedding
on top. Often they pasted fresh paper over the windows to keep the local children from staring in, but
this didn’t always work, as they soon poked their fingers through the fresh paper also. Sometimes
126
Amy Moore
From then until the end of 1916 Lanzhou was Percy’s home, and his memories of it were happy ones
as he played with his Chinese friend John, the Pastor’s son, and rode his donkey around the
compound. On one occasion he fell off and broke his right arm. The Mission doctor set and reset it
three times before he was satisfied it was right, much to Esther’s disgust! This period when he was
unable to use his right hand made Percy ambidextrous for the rest of his life. He could use both
hands with equal ease, but for doing some things always preferred his left hand to his right. He was a
left handed bowler in cricket, which sometimes gave him, what the opposing side felt to be, an unfair
advantage.
He also invariably used his left hand for eating a boiled egg! It may have been this accident to which
his grandmother Andrew referred in writing to Esther at that time, when she spoke of his having been
‘at death’s door’.
Percy’s father often took him at this time with him into the surrounding country when he went out on
evangelistic trips. So his early life was spent in an environment where things Chinese as well as the
Chinese people and the Chinese language were as familiar to him as his own family. In fact, there
were times in later years, when I became his wife that I used to think that even his way of thinking was
Chinese!
Gansu Province was liable to earthquakes, and the children had vivid memories of being hurried out
into the courtyard several times during those years by day or by night, when tremors threatened
something more serious. On one occasion, after heavy rain, an area near the house enclosed by a
little wall, became flooded, so the children made a raft out of a board and played on it till it sank under
their weight.
QINGJIANG
By July 1916 they were on the move again. Percy’s father had been asked to take charge of a small
temporary language school for men at Qingjiang on the Grand Canal. Because of the War (1914-
1918), few young men were coming to China as missionaries at that time, and the Moores, whose
furlough was overdue, could not return to England. Percy was almost seven, and over the age for
starting school, so a move nearer the coast seemed advisable.
The journey from Lanzhou to the railhead in Henan was a long and dusty one through the loess
country of north Shaanxi and the children were old enough to remember it. They travelled by mule
litter, made comfortable by putting their luggage in as a base first, then covering it with their bedding to
make a comfortable seat when they wanted to ride.
As the long cavalcade jogged along, the children often got out and walked. At times the track was
narrow and the mules picked their way along the edge of the mountainsides close to alarming
precipices. As they got into the flatter country near Xi’an in Shaanxi, and then out of Shaanxi into
Henan, the loess soil created a lot of dust, and their father urged the children not to stir up more than
necessary. It was sheer delight when they found a rippling brook under a bridge one day and could
paddle in cool, refreshing water.
At nights they had to stay in primitive inns where, after bargaining with the innkeeper, Percy’s father
had the inn swept while his mother threw the groundsheets across the brick ‘kangs’ which were what
the northerners slept on, sprinkled the edges with insect powder and then laid their own clean bedding
on top. Often they pasted fresh paper over the windows to keep the local children from staring in, but
this didn’t always work, as they soon poked their fingers through the fresh paper also. Sometimes
126
