Josphine Dodge Daskam

“ She never took her aching eyes for one second from the wonderful white thing. She scorned to watch the ground. With a magnificent faith she walked, her head lifted, her heart too full to know if she stumbled. In the clear places, always where there were no branches, the white guide flew and Harriet walked after with her staff. ”

“ Sheldon groaned and cried all night, and kept Sarah Waters awake. And when Sarah stays awake all night, there's no living with her—none!"
Mr. Freeland looked frankly puzzled. He was not a particularly able man, and very far from originality of any sort. His doctrinal position, though always considered very solid, was somewhat stereotyped, and he had never happened to run against this peculiar form of apostasy. But he was a kindly man, and very honestly convinced of the responsibility of his position; moreover, he remembered Harriet pleasantly; he had thought her a very nice old lady. ”

“ He looked at her for a moment, and as she bent her tired old head over her arm and sobbed the dry, creaking sob of the ageing spirit that looks forward to no long and gayer future, he felt that the time was short and kindness not too lenient for the sinner. ”

“ I'm scairt, an' I'm weak, an' I'm too old to die in the woods! Jus' send me home. Lord; show me where the house is!"
The great sun suddenly sent a long, bright ray down across the open space, and as she looked at it, silver dove. With wings outspread, motionless, too bright to look at with steady eyes, it hovered there. It never fluttered its wings; it made no sound; in a ray from heaven it held its quiet position serenely and glistened from every tiniest feather.
The old woman's knees tottered beneath her. She held with both hands to the gnarled staff, and shuddered as she gazed. ”

“ O Lord, if you are sendin' this storm to punish me, I can't help it. I've believed in you all my life, and I'm sixty-two and I'm going to die in a thunder-storm. If it'll save me to believe in the Holy Ghost, then I'll have to be damned eternally as the Widder Sheldon says you'll do, for I can't, I can't, I can't! I' been a believer all my life, and I' only been this way two weeks, and if that counts against all the rest, I'll just haf to go to hell, that's all. Feelin' as I do, you can't expect me to change for a thunder-storm, Lord, scairt as I be. ”

“ Mr. Freeland shook his head gravely. "Dear, dear, dear!" he said.
"And then I got Dr. Henshawe from St. Mary's, in the city, you know, who's out here this summer, to come in. He's a very fine man, and very interesting. He stayed a while with Harriet, and told her not to mind, but to go on, and pray, and do the best she could, and she couldn't be blamed. He told me afterwards that he was far from considering her religious condition a safe one, but that she would soon be ill, and was growing morbid, and he tried to soothe her. ”

“ She was a Baptist, of the variety sometimes known as hard-shelled, and made nothing of interrupting the discourse of any representative of a denomination unpleasing to her.
"Backslid?" repeated the reverend guest, dropping his napkin.
"She don't believe in——"
"Harriet," interrupted the matron, somewhat crossly, and with an unconcealed frown for the Widow Sheldon, "Harriet is taking her dinner alone. She—she is not quite well, I think. I will speak to you about her later," she added as the pastor's eyes grew round at her. The widow Sheldon sniffed loudly. ”

“ What's the sense of a bird, anyhow? An' I worked over it, and I worried over it, an' I got to talkin' with Mis' Sheldon about it while we was workin' together, and she just made me hate it more. She said I'd go to hell—me, a believer for sixty-two years! An' I've cried till I can't cry any more, an' I've prayed till I'm tired of prayin', and nothin' happens to me exceptin' I hate it more. An' if they send me back to Sarah's I'll die, that's the truth. ”

“ Mary is in the hall-room, and talks in her sleep so that nobody can rest very well. It doesn't disturb Harriet at all, she's such a sound sleeper, and I wish she could go back! You don't know how this disturbs us! Remember that we have prayer-meeting at half-past four," and she left him alone before the door.
Mr. Freeland knocked loudly and entered. Before him in the clean, bare room, with its rag-carpets, mats, and pine furnishings, sat a little old woman, her hands folded in her lap, her head erect, her eyes fixed uncompromisingly on the door. ”

“ Harriet had stiffened again and got herself in hand. "I don't want that any one should put 'emselves out for me," she said dryly. "I guess I'll get along. I'd just as lief see Mis' Freeland if it ain't any trouble to any one. But I don't know as anybody c'n do anything. I ain't very pleasant comp'ny. ”