Behold her as she is, one of God’s purest gifts! Her life is clean, wholesome and grand and of such a sweetness and beauty that mocks to scorn any imitation of the artist. For eight long years she has cared uncomplainingly for the aged, widowed mother as her almost sole benefactor of aid and cheer in the home. She has sacrificed, schemed, planned, worked, and struggled in a way that is worthy of our greatest financiers, diplomats, or statesmen. She has fought within her own heart far greater battles and carried away the victory to a more deserving reward than many a soldier on the battlefield. She has denied herself in order that she might give the fullest measure of devotion to a dear old mother who is slipping slowly, slowly to that great home of rest and comfort. God bless you, Sallie, in your old age, when the silver streaks no longer glisten in your hair and it is all turned to the whiteness and purity of snow; when your poor, tired aching limbs from their long years of toil no longer yield to quick response, when time chisels its deep furrows in your brow and your keen eye loses its lustre and grows dim. I hope God will reward you with the choicest gifts of his kingdom, and when the final summons is made and you stand in the open doorway of his love, bathed in the purity of the sparkling dew in the evening time of life, may the sweetness of your character come wafting gently in the fulness of its beauty and dwell amidst all that is holy, sweet and sacred. Dearest Sal, you’re growing old, But there never can be told, The great jewels you possess, In your life of righteousness. I would love you just the same, Had you reached the highest fame, For you have a heart so true, There would be no change in you. You have done all duties well, Better than my tongue can tell, I would love to ease your way, And turn your winters back to May. I have but one life to live, But for you I’d freely give, I’d go down that lonesome valley, If ’twould help you, dear old Sallie. SUNSHINE. In endeavoring to entertain you in this chapter I wish I might have the wit of a Nasby or come Nye the Mark; but not having the brilliant talents of either of these illustrious wits who cracked the ribs of so many people I hope you will bear with me patiently as I proceed to give to you some rays of sunshine I have been picking up for the last twenty years from all classes of people.