“I don’t know what’s ’come o’ mother,” she said, after one of the silences. “But Bess ’n’ me’ll tell the Lord Jesus ’bout her, ’n’ mebbe he can do somethin’ that’ll keep her ’way from Mrs. MacBride’s, ’cause she wasn’t so bad before she took to goin’ there. I’ve been so feared of her all the time, but I don’t feel feared no more. Bess said we shouldn’t when you came back, and wisht your name had been Mr. Greatheart. We liked him so. But they’ve all gone wrong in Barker’s Court. Oh, can’t some one set thim right an’ straight, an’ bring thim outen the trouble an’ drinkin’ an’ beatin’, an’ show thim the way? It’s jes’ like thim folks leavin’ the City of Destruction. An’ oh, we’ve all come out of it, Owny an’ little Dan. Maybe mother’ll find the way.”
“We’ll find her and try to show her,” said John Travis, with a voice full of emotion.
“Oh, will you?” There was a satisfying delight in her tone. “An’ the boys? If some one’d look after thim, I think I’d like to go to Bess. Do you b’l’eve the Lord Jesus would come an’ take me if I ast him? Seems so long since I had Bess.”
“I think he will,” Travis said, in a tone he tried to keep steady.
“I ain’t pritty, like Bess, an’ I can’t sing.”
“But you will sing there. And you will love the Saviour. That is all he asks.”
“I can’t seem to understand how he could be so good to poor folks. An’ I don’t see why they ain’t all jes’ wild to love Him. Tell me some more ’bout his comin’ down from heaven to help thim.”
With the little hand in his, he told the wider, greater story of the Saviour’s love,—how he had come to redeem, to sanctify all future suffering in his own, to give himself a ransom. And even now Travis’s mind reverted to the hours of discussion with his cousin. Ah, how could he have brought bread to that famishing soul, that had fed so long on the husks of the world’s wisdom, but for the afternoon with the children, the meeting with the Lord Jesus in the way.
The moon came up and flooded the room with softened splendor, the summer night was fragrant with exquisite odors. Almost it seemed as if the very heavens were opened. The wide eyes were full of wordless rapture, and a great content shone in the ethereal face.
Then Dilsey moved about restlessly.