"Mary was her daughter by her first husband, you see. 'I begged Jacob
to give me the money to go on,' says she, 'and he wouldn't do it. I
tried to give up and stay, but I jest couldn't. Mary was all I had in
the world; and maybe you that has children can put yourself in my
place, and know what it would be to hear your only child callin' to
you from her death-bed, and you not able to go to her. I asked Jacob
three times for the money,' she says, 'and when I found he wouldn't
give it to me, I said to myself, "I'm goin' anyhow." I got down on my
knees,' says she, 'and asked the Lord to show me a way, and I felt
sure he would. As soon as Jacob had eat his breakfast and gone out on
the farm, I dressed myself, and as I opened the top bureau drawer to
get out my best collar, I saw the missionary money. It come right
into my head,' says she, 'that maybe this was the answer to my prayer;
maybe I could borrow this money, and pay it back some way or other
before it was called for. I tried to put it out o' my head, but the
thought kept comin' back; and when I went down into the sittin'-room
to get Jacob's cyarpetbag to carry a few things in, I happened to look
up at the mantelpiece and saw the brass candlesticks with prisms all
'round 'em that used to belong to my mother; and all at once I seemed
to see jest what the Lord intended for me to do.
"'You know,' she says, 'I had a boarder summer before last--that lady
from Louisville--and she wanted them candlesticks the worst kind, and
offered me fifteen dollars for 'em. I wouldn't part with 'em then, but
she said if ever I wanted to sell 'em, to let her know, and she left
her name and address on a cyard. I went to the big Bible and got out
the cyard, and I packed the candlesticks in the cyarpetbag, and put on
my bonnet. When I opened the door I looked up the road, and the first
thing I saw was Dave Crawford comin' along in his new buggy. I went
out to the gate, and he drew up and asked me if I was goin' to town,
and said he'd take me. It looked like the Lord was leadin' me all the
time,' says she, 'but the way things turned out it must 'a' been
Satan. I got to Mary just two hours before she died, and she looked up
in my face and says, "Mother, I knew God wouldn't let me die till I'd
seen you once more."'"
Here Aunt Jane took off her glasses and wiped her eyes.
"I can't tell this without cryin' to save my life," said she; "but
'Lizabeth never shed a tear. She looked like she'd got past cryin',
and she talked straight on as if she'd made up her mind to say jest so
much, and she'd die if she didn't git to say it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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