Brave Men and Women: Their Struggles, Failures, And TriumphsFuller, Osgood E. (Osgood Eaton)
History
Brave Men and Women: Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs
Fuller, Osgood E. (Osgood Eaton)
Biography
Her house and heart
were both large, and as her residence was on the way to the Quaker
meeting-house in Newtown, it became a place of universal resort to
Friends from all parts of the country traveling that road, as well as an
asylum for benighted wanderers.
The Winter was drawing to a close, when, late one evening, the sound of
sleigh-bells was heard, and the crunching of snow beneath the hoofs of
horses as they passed into the barn-yard gate. The arrival of travelers
was too common an occurrence to excite or disturb the well-ordered
family.
Great logs were piled in the capacious chimney, and the flames blazed up
with a crackling warmth, when two strangers entered. In the younger
Elizabeth instantly recognized John Estaugh, whose preaching had so
deeply impressed her at eleven years of age. This was almost like a
glimpse of home--her dear old English home. She stepped forward with
more than usual cordiality, saying:
"Thou art welcome, Friend Estaugh, the more so for being entirely
unexpected."
"I am glad to see thee, Elizabeth," he replied, with a friendly shake of
the hand. "It was not until after I landed in America that I heard the
Lord had called thee here before me; but I remember thy father told me
how often thou hadst played the settler in the woods when thou wast
quite a little girl."
"I am but a child still," she replied, smiling.
"I trust thou art," he rejoined; "and as for these strong impressions in
childhood, I have heard of many cases where they seemed to be prophecies
sent of the Lord. When I saw thy father in London, I had even then an
indistinct idea that I might sometime be sent to America on a religious
visit."
"And, hast thou forgotten, friend John, the ear of Indian corn which my
father begged of thee for me? I can show it to thee now. Since then I
have seen this grain in perfect growth, and a goodly plant it is, I
assure thee. See," she continued, pointing to many bunches of ripe corn
which hung in their braided husks against the walls of the ample
kitchen, "all that, and more, came from a single ear no bigger than the
one thou didst give my father. May the seed sown by thy ministry be as
fruitful!"
"Amen," replied both the guests.
The next morning it was discovered that the snow had fallen during the
night in heavy drifts, and the roads were impassable. Elizabeth,
according to her usual custom, sent out men, oxen, and sledges to open
pathways for several poor families, and for households whose inmates
were visited by illness. In this duty John Estaugh and his friend joined
heartily, and none of the laborers worked harder than they. When he
returned, glowing from this exercise, she could not but observe that the
excellent youth had a goodly countenance. It was not physical beauty;
for of that he had but little. It was that cheerful, child-like,
out-beaming honesty of expression, which we not unfrequently see in
Germans, who, above all nations, look as if they carried a crystal heart
within their manly bosoms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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