AN INCIDENT.
“Will you come with me, to-day, and visit some of my poor people?” said a Southern lady missionary to me, on my first visit to the sunny South.
Of course I would go. I was anxious to meet with my brethren and sisters whose skin color differed from my own. I longed for acquaintanceship with them, to see what they had received.
We soon reached a conglomeration of cabins that had a ridiculous resemblance to rooks’ nests. How does it come that sticks in old age look so much more disreputable than stones? These wooden cabins looked far worse than the stone hovels of Achil Island. These lately enfranchised people living here were all renters, and they paid the utmost possible rent for the poorest possible shelter.
The cabins were built in clusters of four, so that one corner of each rested against a clumsy chimney, built in the middle in such a manner that each cabin had a corner fire-place.
In one of these little tenements, in an old arm-chair, cushioned with shreds and patches, and set close into the chimney corner, sat a very old colored woman, with her shaking hands spread out to gather to her the warmth of the fire of fat lightwood splinters that blazed and crackled before her. The damp, chill wind whistled through every crevice and cranny of the rough, ill-matched boards of the door and the slight wall. The whole cabin was almost as airy as a corn crib. It was admirably built for ventilation, and was in the full enjoyment of it.
The old woman, popularly supposed to be over a hundred, looked around at us, her face one mesh of wrinkles, her wool as white as snow, but she was wonderfully bright and cheery. She was a great sufferer from asthma and rheumatism, could not lie down in bed at all, but was confined to her chair night and day. She was one of those of whom I had been told as having a near acquaintance with her Lord as with a personal friend.
“How are you to-day, Aunt July?” said my friend.
“Howdy’, howdy’? I’se well, an’ glad to see you, honey; bress de Lawd.”
“I’ve brought a friend with me to see you; a friend from over the sea.”
“Bress you, honey, I’se glad to see you, too. De good Lawd sends his chilluns to look me up. He does so, ’cause he don’t ever forget me.”
“The box has come, Aunt July, and I’m so sorry that there’s nothing in it at all that would fit you; nothing but children’s things.”
“Bress de good Lawd, it’s a-comin’; I feel it’s a-comin’, but it wasn’t to come in dat ar box, sure enuff, honey.”
“I did wish and pray for a warm woolen shawl to wrap around you at night when the fire goes down,” said the missionary lady, kindly. “You see,” turning to me, “the nights are quite cold this time of the year, and see how open the cabin is. If she could only lie down in bed and cover up warm, but she cannot, and she must suffer dreadfully when the fire goes out. I do wish so much that she had a shawl.”
“Well, honey, you is kind to ole Aunty, an’ I’se thankful; but we wasn’t ’greed ’bout dat ar’, honey. You ask de Lawd for a shawl, an’ I ask for sumpin’ warm, wid sleeves in it, so’s not to slip off in de night when I falls asleep an’ de fiah done gone out.”
“You see, I’se real glad when de sleep comes,” she said, looking at me; “I’se glad of de rest in sleep, but de fiah done go out. My son, he’s jest as good as he ken be to me, an’ he leaves heaps ob wood, but when I sleeps de fiah done go out. I ask de bressed Lawd to sen’ me sumpin’ with sleeves, so’s it would keep on when I’se sleepin’.”
Then I suddenly remembered a long wrap of Canadian factory material that had been with me in many a mountain ramble over the water. I had put it in my trunk without any very definite reason for doing so, against all the good natured ridicule showered upon me by friends. I had not used it, seemed to have no use for it, until this need flashed upon me. Before many minutes it was fished out of the bottom of my trunk, brought there and fitted on the aged sister. It was warm, it had sleeves, and when it was buttoned on, it reached to the ground.
“It’s just like my bressed Master, dat is,” said old Aunty, her sunken eyes shining with gladness. “I ask fer sumpin’ warm, with sleeves, an’ he sen’ me what cover me all over down to de feet. Bress de Lawd, it is allars above what we ask. Now you can see how He done care fer ole Aunty. It’s allers jest so, He cares.”
I looked at her, old and poor, asthmatic and rheumatic, helpless and dependent, and her thankfulness shamed me. In putting on the wrap, my friend pointed out the scars of ancient floggings ridged and furrowed in the dark skin. The ploughers had ploughed on her back, and made long their furrows. She was one of His. Was this in any way being in fellowship with His sufferings? She was old, very old, ten years past the allotted period of three score and ten, she believed, when the tramp of armies heralded freedom for her in the sunset and twilight of her life.
“I’se sitting in my cheer, such a cumf’able cheer, an’ my heart is singing all de time, because my bressed Lawd ’members me an’ loves me, an’ answers all my pra’rs.”
My heart did not sing all the time. I had questionings, and even murmurings. I looked around the cabin; there was no comfort or possibility of comfort to be seen. Abject, helpless poverty was the sum total of all her surroundings. She was dependent on what could be spared from the scant wages of her son, a Southern day laborer with a large young family. Living thus on the perilous edge of want, and her heart singing all the time with thankfulness! To think of it!
“What do you feel thankful for?” I asked. The words leapt out before I was aware.
“Thankful, chile! I’se thankful for all my marcies, for all de goodness from my bressed Master that come to me. I allers wanted to be free ’fore I died; now I’se free. Thank God an’ Massa Linkum, I’se free! My heart was sore for my chilluns, sole away from me befo’ the wa’, an my bressed Master find one for me, brung him here after the wa’; my oldest son, he is. I fin’ my two gals, or they fin’ me; they’se married down yer’, an’ they’se all good to me. It’s allers jest so since I got ’ligion. God has answer’ every pra’r, an’ best of all, He stays by me in the dark an’ in the light. Oh, honey, my heart does well to be thankful an’ keep singin’ all de time.”
The surroundings seemed to change, glorified by the secret of the Lord. My heart went out to this old negress with her scarred form, for was she not a dweller under the shadow of the Almighty? I thankfully acknowledged my relationship to her, for was she not a daughter of the King, and higher up than I?
MRS. A. M’DOUGALL.