She explained quietly, “Tata Fowells is especially interested in the birds. He has classified many kinds in this region that were never known before by the Europeans.”

Tata Fa-wells? Where had I heard that name before? I was racking my brain, while Mother and the Mrs. began an oh-so-polite argument about whether the family would stay for dinner. Mother apparently forgot we didn’t have one decent thing fit to eat, and little did that family know what they were in for if they stayed. Tata Fowells, I kept turning that over. Meanwhile Adah pulled her chair up next to him and opened one of the old musty bird books she’d found in this house, which she adores to carry around.

“Och,” he cried happily, “I’d forgotten these books entirely. How wonderful you’re putting them to use. But you have to know, I’ve many better ones down on the boat.”

Adah looked like she would just love to run down there and read them all backwards right this minute. She was pointing out different pictures of long-tail squawk jays and what not, and he was so bubbling over with information that he probably failed to notice Adah can’t talk.

Oh! I suddenly thought to myself: Brother Fowlesl That Brother Fowles! The minister who had this mission before us and got kicked out for consorting with the natives too much. Well, I should say so! Now everything fell into place. But it was too late for me to say anything, having missed the introductions on account of being the maidservant. I just sat there, -while Adah got bird lessons and Leah cajoled the shy little Fowles children to come in off the porch and sit on the floor with her and Ruth May and read comic books with them.

Then suddenly the room went dark, for Father was at the door. We all froze, except for Brother Fowles, who jumped up and held out his hand to Father with the left hand clasping his forearm, secret handshake of the Congolese.

“Brother Price, at last,” he said. “I’ve held you in my prayers, and now I’ve had the blessing of meeting your lovely family. I am Brother Fowles, your predecessor in this mission. My wife, Celine. Our children.”

Father didn’t offer his hand. He was studying that big Catholic-looking cross around the neck, and probably thinking over all we’d heard about Brother Fowles going off the deep end, plus every curse word ever uttered by the parrot. Finally he did shake hands, but in a cool way, American style. “What brings you back here?”

“Ah, we were passing this way! We do most of our work downriver near the Kwa, but my wife’s parents are at Ganda.We thought we might look in on you and our other friends in Kilanga. Sure, we should pay our respects to Tata Ndu.”

You could see Father’s skin crawl when he heard the name of his archenemy, the chief. Spoken in aYank accent, to boot. But Father played the cool cat, not admitting what a miserable failure he had been so far at the Christianizing trade. “We’re just fine and dandy, thank you. And what work is it you do now?” He emphasized the now, as if to say, We know very well you got kicked out of preaching the Gospel.

“I rejoice in the work of the Lord,” said Brother Fowles. “I was just telling your wife, I do a little ministering. I study and classify the fauna. I observe a great deal, and probably offer very little salvation in the long run.”

“That is a pity,” Father declared. “Salvation is the way, the truth, and the light. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And how then shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? ... As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!’“

‘“Glad tidings of good things,’ that is precious work indeed,” said Brother Fowles. “Romans, chapter ten, verse fifteen.”

Wow. This Yank knew his Bible. Father took a little step backwards on that one.

“Certainly I do my best,” Father said quickly, to cover his shock.

“I take to heart the blessed words,’Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.’“

Brother Fowles nodded carefully. “Paul and Silas to their jailer, yes, after the angels so considerately set them free with an earthquake. The Acts of the Apostles, chapter sixteen, is it? I’ve always been a little perplexed by the next verse, ‘And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes.’“

“The American Translation might clear that up for you. It says, ‘washed their wounds.’“ Father sounded like the know-it-all kid in class you just want to strangulate.