God’s ways are always right,
And love is o’er them all,
Tho’ far above our sight.
FIVE weeks afterward, at the window of the south room in the mansion of the Sutherland plantation, in a deep easy-chair, propped up with pillows, sat or rather reclined, Tom Alson. His hands, grown slender and delicate by long illness, were resting upon an open letter which lay upon his knee, and his eyes were wandering out over the glorious country, with a little wistfulness in them that had of late been at home there.
The landscape upon which the sick eyes rested was truly a beautiful one. The rich lands of the plantation stretched out and away off to the banks of the Tennessee, the waters of which were hidden by the cliff-like shores. Beyond this the mountains rose, and the eye followed the bends of the river by their ever-changing curves. A few of the trees on these densely-wooded slopes were changing color, and the scarlet and yellow among so much green made each color more intense. The fields which lay nearer home were truly “white unto the harvest.” The cotton-buds had burst everywhere, and over the Southern hills the fresh breezes of September were blowing. The hands were busy in the fields, and Tom counted many dark forms among the white cotton, hard at work.
Somehow this first sight of the fields led Tom’s mind back to the letter he had received, telling of other fields, just as “white.” That, and the letter just received from home, had sent his thoughts out after his Sunday-school, of which he had not been able to hear for so many weeks. He hardly dared ask after its welfare even now. But he brought his eyes in from the window, and they rested upon Lillie, sitting in a low chair near him, busily employed in some little manufacture with cotton and needle. He watched the white fingers move to and fro in silence for a few minutes, and then he said,
“Miss Lillie, I have not been able to think of my Sunday-school in a very long time.”
“I have been waiting for you to speak of it all the afternoon,” said Lillie, rousing herself and stopping her work.
“Well?” said Tom, not daring yet to ask the question.
“Well,” echoed Lillie, “we consider ourselves something wonderful, I can tell you. We have met every Sunday in the cabin, and Jimmy Harrison—you know him—reads to us from one of the new books and the Bible. He says he cannot pray, so old Uncle Ben prays, and when it comes the time you used to speak to us, I tell them how you are, and what you have been talking about, and then we all try and remember what you have told us and to repeat verses. I did not know there were so many of the people learning to love Jesus, Tom. Then, one Sunday, father came down—it was that Sunday after you and he were talking so long in the morning—and he talked to the people a long time, and they were all so pleased.”