Wall, in the mornin’ Cousin John Richard wuz weak as a cat. All tired out. He couldn’t hardly get round. And I made him lay down on the lounge in the settin’ room, and I give him spignut syrup once a hour most all day, and kep’ him warm, and lumps of maple sugar for his cough. And by night he seemed like a new man—that spignut syrup is wonderful; few people know the properties of it. Wall, Josiah and I both took such a likin’ to that good onselfish eloquent creeter that we prevailed on him to stay a week with us right along. And we took him to see the children, and Josiah took him up to Uncle Thomas’es, and Cousin Sophronia’s on his own side, and we done well by him. And I fixed up his clothes with Philury’s help—they wuz good ones, but they needed a woman. But we mended ’em and rubbed ’em up with ammonia where it wuz needed, and they wuz in good condition when he went back to his work. Good land! wild oxen, nor camels, nor nuthin’ couldn’t have kep’ him from that “field” of hisen. But when it come the mornin’ for him to leave, he hated to go—hated to like a dog. And we hated to have him go, we liked him the best that ever wuz. And we tried to make him promise to come to see us agin. But he seemed to feel dubersome about it; he said he would have to go where his work called him. His bizness now up North wuz to see about some money that had been subscribed for a freedmen’s school and meetin’ house. But he promised to write to us now and then, and he spoke with deep feelin’ about the “sweet rest he had had there,” and how he never should forget it; he talked real eloquent about it, and flowery, but he meant every word, we could see he did. It happened curius about the chapter Josiah read that mornin’—he most always reads the first one he opens to. And it wuz the one where Paul tells about his hard work and trials, and how the Lord had brought him out of ’em all. How he wuz beaten with rods, and stuned, and wuz in perils of waters, and perils by his own countrymen, and perils by the heathen, and in the wilderness, and amongst false brethren, in weariness, and painfulness, and hunger and thirst, and cold and nakedness. And how he gloried in his weakness and infirmities, if so God’s strength should be made perfect and His will be accomplished. I declare for it, I couldn’t help thinkin’ of Cousin John Richard, though mebby it hain’t right to compare one of our relations to Paul, and then agin I didn’t spoze Paul would care. I knew they both on ’em wuz good, faithful, earnest creeters anyway. Then Cousin John Richard prayed a prayer that almost caught us up to the gates of Paradise, it wuz so full of heavenly love, and tenderness, and affection for us, and devotion to his work, and everything good, and half saintly. And then most imegiatly he went away on the mornin’ stage. And at the very last, when most every other man would be a thinkin’ of umberells or shawl straps, he took our hands in hisen and sez: