"It must be nicer missionarying in those foreign places," said
Persis, "because on 'Afric's shores and India's plains and other
spots where Satan reigns' (that's father's favorite hymn) there's
always a heathen bowing down to wood and stone. You can take away
his idols if he'll let you and give him a bible and the
beginning's all made. But who'll we begin on? Jethro Small?"

"Oh, he's entirely too dirty, and foolish besides!" exclaimed
Candace. "Why not Ethan Hunt? He swears dreadfully."

"He lives on nuts and is a hermit, and it's a mile to his camp
through the thick woods; my mother'll never let me go there,"
objected Alice. "There's Uncle Tut Judson."

"He's too old; he's most a hundred and deaf as a post,"
complained Emma Jane. "Besides, his married daughter is a
Sabbath-school teacher--why doesn't she teach him to behave? I
can't think of anybody just right to start on!"

"Don't talk like that, Emma Jane," and Rebecca's tone had a tinge
of reproof in it. "We are a copperated body named the Daughters
of Zion, and, of course, we've got to find something to do.
Foreigners are the easiest; there's a Scotch family at North
Riverboro, an English one in Edgewood, and one Cuban man at
Millkin's Mills."

"Haven't foreigners got any religion of their own?" inquired
Persis curiously.