"Then, friends, my cup were running over; and as we journeyed up
creeks and down mountains nigh these three days, we was the
nunitedest and joyfullest family that ever follered a trail; and all
the way I laid my plans for to set the farm on its feet ag'in, and
clear new ground, and maul rails for the fence, and rive boards for
the roof, and quairy out rock for a new chimbly, and bring up the
yield of corn, and weed out the eatingest of the cattle, and git my
loom sot up and running so 's to have a-plenty of kivers and linsey
for sale come cold weather; and we all rejoiced amazing, knowing
prosperity wa' n't no further from us than yan side the mountain.
"And now, fellow-sisters, you see before you a ree-surrected woman.
I hain't only got the sight of my eyes; I got mind-sight,
heart-sight, soul-sight. I hain't only got these fine store-teeth
and a tamed and biddable stummick; but the innard power to chaw and
digest speritual truth. I hain't only wearing these gayly, boughten
clothes, I 'm a-fla'nting the robes of joy and the gyarments of
praise. I know the Lord don't hate me and never did; I know I am
free, restored, and saved; I know my Redeemer liveth, and has fotch
me up out of the blackness of darkness on to the top-most peaks of
joy and peace and thanksgiving.
"And don't think, women,--don't never, never think I hain't aiming
to let my light shine! I aim to use my faculty not for worldly
betterment alone, but to turn it loose likewise in the line of
religion and preachifying. Yes, every night this enduring winter
will see me a-s'arching the Scriptur'; and what I can't read I can
ricollect; and come August, when the craps is laid by and the
funeral occasions sets in, I will be ready for 'em. There won't be
one in twenty mile' that won't see me a-coming, and a-taking my
stand by the grave-houses in these reesurrection gyarments, for to
norate the wonders of my experience, and to shame and confound and
drownd out Uncle Joshuay and t'other blind leaders of the blind
whatever they dare raise their gray heads and hoary lies, and
gin'rally to publish abroad, world-without-eend, the ons'archable
riches and glory and power of the love of God."
Afterword
In the heart of the Kentucky mountains, that romantic and
little-known region popularly regarded as the "home of feuds and
moonshine," a rural social settlement, the first in the world, was
begun fifteen years ago under the auspices of the State Federation
of Women's Clubs of Kentucky.
Half a dozen young women from the prosperous Blue-Grass section,
headed by Miss Katherine Pettit and Miss May Stone, went up into the
mountains, several days' journey from a railroad, and, pitching
their tents, spent three successive summers holding singing, sewing,
cooking and kindergarten classes, giving entertainments, visiting
homes, and generally establishing friendly relations with the men,
women, and children of three counties.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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