“But right after Thanksgiving there came an awful snowstorm, and though I had a silk hood and a camlet cloak, I hadn’t no meal, nor hardly anything to eat or burn. Then Elder Almy and some of the brethren came over from the Quaker Hill farms, and brought me two cords of wood, and some bags of meal, and a quarter of beef, and a whole sage cheese, and some stout flannel, and Sister Almy, she put five pistareens in my hand, and gave me a braided husk mat and a quilted bed-coverlet, and they all talked to me about the Inner Light, and humility, and loving others better than self, and then they held a meeting in my kitchen as still as the wings of death; and when they were gone I hung up my camlet cloak in the cupboard for good and all, and resolved to love henceforth and forever just such poor creatures as myself, and to serve ’em as best I could; and I never felt so thankful in all my life. Deacon White here, he and the church all meant well, but, as Elder Almy says, ‘Always make presents that will do people good.’ Good presents, of course, make people feel better than poor ones,—but beautiful things may be serviceable, too. “This is a good world, Deacon, and I will always love you for the camlet cloak; but then, you know, Deacon, and you know, Elder, that—There, the horn is blowing for dinner, and I’ve husked this morning five baskets of corn.” “_Was_ it a miracle, Susan?” asked one of the huskers,—the girl with large eyes. “Well, some say it was, like Elder Holmes, and some, like Elder Almy, say it was only smoke; I can’t be sure. It seems to me like the battle of Sheriff Muir, that my old grandfather, who was a Scotchman, used to tell about: “‘Some say that they ran, Some say that we ran, And some say that nane ran At a’, man.’ “‘But of one thing I’m sure, A battle there was at Sheriff Muir, Which I saw, man, And we ran, and they ran, And they ran, and we ran, Awa’, man.’” Susan, like ordinary mortals, obeyed the lively dinner-horn, followed by the merry Rhode Islanders. The Miracle? It is a mystery still. Susan is dead, and the flat gray wall-stone that marked her grave is sinking, moss-covered, into the grass where the sparrows nest, among the many graves that lie on the sunset slope of Quaker Hill. [Illustration: FISHERIES BUILDING.] CHAPTER VIII. THE GRANDEST SCENE OF ALL. It was July 4th, 1893. The lake breezes in the early morning floated over the White City. Flags filled the air; eight hundred acres of flags? Yes, more: in fact, Chicago was a sky of flags; and so was the State of Illinois.