Her father, Eshoo, then a deacon, regarded her at
first with the aversion Nestorian fathers usually felt towards their
daughters; but her strong attachment to him while yet a child, so
won his heart, that when the Koords overran Gawar, in 1835, and the
family fled from their smouldering village, he was willing to be
seen carrying her on his back, in the same way that his wife bore
her younger sister. The family stopped for a time at Degala, and
subsisted by begging from door to door, lodging at night in a
stable. The fine intellect of the self-taught father soon brought
him to the notice of the missionaries; and one day Mrs. Grant, then
just about securing her long-cherished desire of a school for girls,
asked him, in her winning way, "Have you any daughters? and will you
not send them to our little school?" The inquiry revived a wish that
he had felt while yet in Gawar, that his daughter should learn to
read; and in the spring of 1841, when he moved from Degala to the
city, he sent her to the mission school. She had just entered her
tenth year--a tall, slender, dark-eyed girl, even then giving
indications of her early death, and though often a great sufferer,
she applied herself so diligently to study, that she soon became, as
she ever continued to be, the best scholar in the school.
Pages:
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176