Page 302 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 302
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
be dumb, there is no knowing what he knows and what he does not.
He is really funny and quite good fun for those who do not have the
exasperating responsibility of being his parents and having to teach
him! This morning he made us all laugh when he said, ‘I just hate to
see you doing the washing, Mum,’ He really looked so overcome
with distress that we could not keep from laughing. He thinks that,
because he and I are the two in the family who were born in Australia,
that there is no place on earth to compare with it, and he likes nothing
better than for me to tell him stories about the farm at Cunderdin, and
the things Win and I used to do and the things Jim and I used to do
when we were children. I told him of one of your birthdays, Mother,
when Jim and I had planned to get up at night after everybody was
asleep and creep out into the big thousand acre paddock to pick
wattle blossom and have it in the house as a surprise to you on your
birthday morning. I got up as planned, but Jim was well snuggled up
in bed and refused to budge. I remember creeping out of the house
alone and past the stables and the horses and out into the big
uncleared paddock to pick wattle.
Frank just loves that story and tells it to anybody who will listen, with
great gusto, specially the part where ‘Uncle Jim’ would not come with
me. I think he feels he and Uncle Jim have something in common as
he hates to go anywhere alone in the dark. Even if he wants to go
into the dining room to get a drink of water, he will take Dorothy with
him.
Percy was amused when he went to take a service in one of the
country churches recently, and one of the children shouted, ‘Here
comes Frankie’s father!’ They all know Frankie because he chatters
away to them in Chinese all the time. We were amused when we
saw his name written in Chinese. Because they hear us calling him
‘Frankie’, they have decided his name in Chinese must be Fan Ke
(Rice Guest). Knowing his capacity for eating rice, we thought this
rather amusing.”
It was during the cold winter days in February that all three children had the measles and I had them
all in bed more or less at the same time. Keeping the room warm and getting the washing done and
dry during the overcast and often wet weather, was a full time job and I could not get away from the
house very much.
It was just when the children needed it most that our goats, the big one we had bought from the
Parsons family and its first kid now full grown, both gave birth to kids and we found ourselves with
plenty of good fresh milk. I was getting 8 pints a day from the two of them and was able to give the
children all they could drink, so that it was not long before they began to look well again and to throw
off the effects of the measles which had pulled them down quite badly. Dorothy was the first to go
down with the measles and she was not too badly affected. She was just sick enough to be very cross
and to want attention all the time. Raymond got the infection from her and he was really ill and for
several days only wanted to sleep. His three years in the concentration camp and the very poor diet
they had during that time must have weakened him and given him little resistance to disease.
302
Amy Moore
be dumb, there is no knowing what he knows and what he does not.
He is really funny and quite good fun for those who do not have the
exasperating responsibility of being his parents and having to teach
him! This morning he made us all laugh when he said, ‘I just hate to
see you doing the washing, Mum,’ He really looked so overcome
with distress that we could not keep from laughing. He thinks that,
because he and I are the two in the family who were born in Australia,
that there is no place on earth to compare with it, and he likes nothing
better than for me to tell him stories about the farm at Cunderdin, and
the things Win and I used to do and the things Jim and I used to do
when we were children. I told him of one of your birthdays, Mother,
when Jim and I had planned to get up at night after everybody was
asleep and creep out into the big thousand acre paddock to pick
wattle blossom and have it in the house as a surprise to you on your
birthday morning. I got up as planned, but Jim was well snuggled up
in bed and refused to budge. I remember creeping out of the house
alone and past the stables and the horses and out into the big
uncleared paddock to pick wattle.
Frank just loves that story and tells it to anybody who will listen, with
great gusto, specially the part where ‘Uncle Jim’ would not come with
me. I think he feels he and Uncle Jim have something in common as
he hates to go anywhere alone in the dark. Even if he wants to go
into the dining room to get a drink of water, he will take Dorothy with
him.
Percy was amused when he went to take a service in one of the
country churches recently, and one of the children shouted, ‘Here
comes Frankie’s father!’ They all know Frankie because he chatters
away to them in Chinese all the time. We were amused when we
saw his name written in Chinese. Because they hear us calling him
‘Frankie’, they have decided his name in Chinese must be Fan Ke
(Rice Guest). Knowing his capacity for eating rice, we thought this
rather amusing.”
It was during the cold winter days in February that all three children had the measles and I had them
all in bed more or less at the same time. Keeping the room warm and getting the washing done and
dry during the overcast and often wet weather, was a full time job and I could not get away from the
house very much.
It was just when the children needed it most that our goats, the big one we had bought from the
Parsons family and its first kid now full grown, both gave birth to kids and we found ourselves with
plenty of good fresh milk. I was getting 8 pints a day from the two of them and was able to give the
children all they could drink, so that it was not long before they began to look well again and to throw
off the effects of the measles which had pulled them down quite badly. Dorothy was the first to go
down with the measles and she was not too badly affected. She was just sick enough to be very cross
and to want attention all the time. Raymond got the infection from her and he was really ill and for
several days only wanted to sleep. His three years in the concentration camp and the very poor diet
they had during that time must have weakened him and given him little resistance to disease.
302
