“We took a roundabout way, but had not gone far, when we heard a patterin’ of feet on the other side of the wall. “‘Hark, it’s the catamount!’ Peter cried. “‘I’ll cling to you forever,’ said I. ‘We will die true. If he devours you, he shall devour me.’ “We hurried on, trembling in every limb. The patter of the feet continued on the other side of the wall. “‘Let go my arm,’ he said, ‘and I’ll see what it is.’ “I released his arm, when, could you believe it? he ran off, sayin’,—‘I’ll get a gun,’ and he flew over the hill. I never saw him again for a year. I stood dumb in the road. In my indignation all fear left me. A moment later I heard a sheep ‘ba-a’ on the other side of the wall. “Nobody can tell what a heavy heart I carried home that night. All respect for the man I thought I loved was gone. I cried myself to sleep. For months I suffered more than I can ever tell, but I never told the story while Peter lived. I forgave him when death touched him. We are all poor and weak. We must be merciful in our thoughts. “Well, Father was stricken with the palsy, and Mother, she began to lose her mind, and thought she had committed the unpardonable sin, or that she should do some violence to herself, and she wanted to be watched all the time. She didn’t sleep much for years, and, amid all these troubles, my only sister died. I tried to take care of them all. I did my best. How I used to work in those days! There were weeks at a time when I could not take off my dress at night. “Well, the old folks died; then my poor sister passed away: so life goes. One goes, then more, and the number grows. I have no blood kin now. The lot in the graveyard is full, but sometimes they visit me in spirit. It makes me happy to think that I did all I could for them, when they were living. I know where they are; they know where I am. There is no real partin’ among hearts that are true to each other. “I had one great comfort in all my hard lot. It was music. I did love to sing. My voice made me a little vain at first, but I meant to use it only for good, and never for myself. I came to hold it as a trust. I could see how it helped and comforted others, and that made me happy. I used to sing, ‘Peace, troubled soul,’ at funerals, and, ‘Come, ye disconsolate,’ and, ‘Come unto me when shadows darkly gather.’ I had no father, mother, sister, brother, husband, or child; but I was happy in the choir. That fellowship was everything to me. “Then came the great church quarrel. How can such things be! A part of the members became Six-Principle Baptists, and a part Christian Baptists, and each claimed the church. Neither party would yield. So the old church was closed. The doors were nailed up, and the rope taken off the bell.