“Oh, I knowed. Ye couldn’t ’elp knowin’.”
“Did you hear His voice?”
“Ye didn’t ’ave to ’ear. It just went all over ye, like. I sits up in bed, and everything was dark and light at the same time, and something awful comfortin’ like sweepin’ through and through me. Ye couldn’t ’ardly say it was ’earin’ or seein’ or feelin’ or nothink. It was just understandin’, like—but you knowed it was there.”
“But you haven’t told me what He said.”
“That’s what I’m a-comin’ to. He says: ‘Lovey,’ says He, ‘you’ve put up a good fight, and now ye’re over the worst of it. But I’m with ye all the time,’ says He; ‘only I can’t give ye everythin’ to oncet. All ye can take is what ye’ve made yerself fit to receive,’ says He; ‘because there was a good many years in yer life when ye wasn’t fit to receive nothink. But just you wait, and you’ll see ’ow good I’ll be to you by degrees,’ says He. ‘You go on fightin’ in your way, just as that young fella, Slim, is fightin’ in his way, and I’ll do you both good, and bring you back to each other,’ says He. And, oh, sonny, He’s kep’ His word—all but right up till now, when you’ve been goin’ about that sad-like—and not wantin’ to be ’ome. And now this!”
“But that’s not God, Lovey; that’s me.”
“I don’t see much difference. The most ways I gets a’old o’ God, as you might say, is through the nice things people does for me—and the nice people theirselves—especially men—I don’t ’old with women—and more particular you, Slim—you that was more to me than my own children ever was—than my own life—yes, sonny, than my own life. I ain’t a-goin’ to live very long now—”
“What makes you think so?”
“I ’appen to know,” he replied, briefly. “There’s ways you can tell.”