Kentucky -- Fiction; Older women -- Fiction; Widows -- Fiction
"Uncle Jim Matthews used to say that every church bell said, 'Get up,
get up, and go to church!' And in them days people minded the church
bell. But nowadays it looks like the only bells folks pays any
attention to is the breakfast-bell and the dinner-bell and the
supper-bell. And I've been thinkin', honey, what a blessed thing it
would be, if, all over the world, folks could hear a bell ringin' at
sundown and callin' on everybody to stop their work or their pleasure
and fold their hands for a minute and pray. Why, the prayers would go
up to heaven like the birds flyin' home to their nests, and jest think
how many wrong things would be stopped. If a murderer was liftin' his
hand, that bell would be like a voice from the sky, sayin', 'Thou
shalt not kill.' If a husband and wife was quarrelin', and they heard
the Angelus, and stopped to pray, why, maybe, after they'd prayed
they'd kiss and make up. Yes, child, the Angelus would do a heap o'
good. But if anybody's once looked at the picture, they won't need the
bell. I know I'll never see the sun settin' behind them knobs over
yonder that I won't think o' that picture, and whatever I'm doin' I'll
have to stop and fold my hands and bow my head, the same as I used to
do when Parson Page'd stand up in the old Goshen church and say, 'Let
us pray.'
"Here's a picture o' Henrietta's house, child. I knew I couldn't tell
folks about it so's they'd have any idea o' what it was, so I brought
this picture." And she handed me a photograph of one of those modern
palaces which, under the spells of the two master magicians, Art and
Wealth, are springing up on the soil of the New South to replace the
worn-out mansions of ante-bellum days.
"When I looked at Henrietta's house," continued Aunt Jane, "I thought
o' what Uncle Billy Bascom used to say. Uncle Billy's the kind that
can't enjoy this world for thinkin' about the next one. He's spent
his life preparin' for death, and it looks like it hurts him to see
anybody gittin' any pleasure out o' the things o' this world. Every
time any o' the Goshen folks'd put up a house that was a little bit
better than what Uncle Billy'd been used to, he'd shake his head and
say, 'Yes, Lord; folks can make theirselves so comfortable here on
this earth that they won't have a thought about gittin' a clear title
to a mansion in the skies.'
"And that house o' Henrietta's was enough to make anybody forget about
their mansion in the skies. Henrietta's havin' her heaven now, and
she'll have it hereafter, and Archibald, too. For the 'cares o' the
world and the deceitfulness o' riches' hasn't choked any o' the good
seed that's been sown in their hearts. How many young folks do you
reckon would think o' comin' down here and takin' a old woman like me
home with 'em, and treatin' her like a queen, and showin' her all the
sights in a place like Lexin'ton?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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