But money trials are not the hardest, and somehow or other, they are always overcome. I have been constantly amazed in reading my diary for this year, to see how wonderfully, and 256 from what strange and unlooked-for sources our purse was kept adequate to our wants. It was my intention to burn this diary as soon as I had taken from its pages the story it has so many years preserved, but after reading the record of these sad weeks, I can never do it. As long as I live, it shall be a witness between God and myself that in every trial and in every sorrow He was sufficient. The stones of Bethel were not more sacred, than this little book wet with my tears, and holding my prayers. For over and over it acknowledges, “Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not!” (Lamentations, 3:57.)
Robert had just made up his mind to go to San Antonio to see what business opportunities were there, when Archie was taken sick. He was only a child of ten months old, but he had crept close into all our hearts. I sent for Dr. Bacon, and his attitude from the first was one of anxiety. The next day he told Robert he had better not leave home. “The child is very sick,” he said, “and his illness has taken a turn that is nearly always fatal.”
Three nights after this advice, Robert lay down to sleep and rest a little, for he had been holding the child all day. It was then near midnight, and Archie appeared to be sleeping. I sat down beside his cot, and was knitting a stocking, and watching his every movement. Suddenly a large picture of Lake Windermere, heavily framed, which was hanging over the chimney piece crashed to the floor. No one moved, no one heard the crash, and I went and looked at the picture. Nothing about it was in any way injured. Then I bowed my head, and clasped my hands. There was One present, and I saluted him. The words I expected came.
From that hour Archie grew steadily worse and when Dr. Bacon called the following afternoon, I said,
“He is very ill, Doctor?”
“Very.”
“Dying?”
“Yes. Look at his small hands. See how firmly he has clasped his four fingers over his thumbs. That is a very sure sign of death. Why do they do it? Who can tell?”
Soon after midnight Archie died. It was a glorious night, and after I had washed and dressed the dear child for his grave, I went out and cut handfuls of white altheas, and strewed them over the little form. All that day he lay thus, and his brothers and sisters came and kissed him, and he was yet one of the household. The next morning the little coffin was ready, I laid him in it, and then Robert gathered the children and read the burial service over it. Colonel Morris had loaned us the officer’s carryall, and there was plenty of room in it, not only for the whole family, but also for the little coffin. It was in this way, we went to the graveyard, and laid him beside his sister Ethel.