She had the faith that Paul had when he gave utterance to these
incomparable words, and she saw through faith that her race should
“subdue kingdoms, work righteousness, stop the mouth of lions, out of
weakness be made strong.”
Her people needed her; she wuz in no hurry to lay down her life-work.
She wuz willin’ to stay in the vineyard and work as long as the Master
willed.
But she felt that when the starry nightfall come and the workers wuz
dismissed, the rest would be sweet. And oh! how wistfully she looked
forward to that land that lay beyend the New Republic, where she should
receive “her dead raised to life again.” When on the threshold of the
new life Victor would meet her and lead her forward to Him that wuz
slain. Where she would dwell with him forever in that continuin’ city
which by faith she saw while yet in the body.
[Illustration: VICTOR.]
CHAPTER XX.
THE relation on Maggie’s side is dead. Some said of heart failure,
others said of a broken heart caused by disappointed ambition.
Yes, somebody else got higher than he wuz, and he fit too hard. Goin’
round electioneerin’, makin’ speeches by night, travellin’ by day,
pullin’ wires here and pullin’ wires there, bamboozlin’ this man,
hirin’ that man, bribin’ the other man, and talkin’, talkin’, talkin’
to every one on ’em. Climbin’ hard every minute to get up the high
mount of his ambition, slippin’ back agin anon, or oftener, and mad and
bitter all the time to see his hated rival a gettin’ nearer the prize
than he wuz.
No wonder his heart failed. I should have thought it would.
So little Raymond Fairfax Coleman wuz left a orphan. And in his
father’s will, made jest after that visit to my son Thomas Jefferson,
he left directions that Raymond should live with his Cousin Maggie and
her husband till he wuz old enough to be sent to college, and Thomas J.
wuz to be his gardeen, with a big, handsome salary for takin’ care of
him.
There wuzn’t nuthin’ little and clost about the relation on Maggie’s
side, and as near as I could make out from what I hearn he kep’ his
promise to me. And I respected him for that and for some other things
about him. And we all loved little Raymond; and though he mourned his
Pa, that child had a happier home than he ever had, in my opinion.
And I believe he will grow up a good, noble man—mebby in answer to the
prayers of sweet Kate Fairfax, his pretty young mother.
She wuz a Christian, I have been told, in full communion with the
Episcopal Church. And though the ministers in that meetin’ house wear
longer clothes than ourn duz, and fur lighter colored ones, and though
they chant considerable and get up and down more’n I see any need of,
specially when I am stiff with rheumatiz, still I believe they are a
religious sect, and I respect ’em.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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