"How strong I was then," Ann said reflectively. "It seems a long time ago. Just now I am not so much of a pilgrim as when I herded home the cows. Pilgrims are on the way somewhere you know, and I'm not traveling much these days—just to my school and back and helping mother. Will you wait until next time you come? I'll be myself again by then."
"Look—the evenin' star is coming up," he said pointing. "Twilight and evenin' star and here we two sit together. Isn't it wonderful? The world is new to me, Ann. The same fields are here, the same woods, the same river flowin' between its wooded banks, the same sun, the same people, and yet all is changed—and all because of you. I hold that man to be most pitied of all men who does not know the meanin' of love. I used to wonder just what was meant by the words 'God is love' until I met you. Now I know that love is life. God is the life of the world. This is love and so with the end of June old things have passed away. All has become new. My cup runneth over."
"Do you know it, Abraham—the rest of it? Let us say it together. 'The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.' ... We will teach it to our children," said she.
"Our children," he repeated in a strangely changed, new voice. He arose, stepped down the stile and stood looking up at Ann. The pale light fell on her shining hair. Her face was radiant.
"Our children," he again said. "There is one way too sacred for man's understanding. It is the sacred way of woman's crowning glory—Motherhood. I have thought of it—of the mothers of men. The mother of Jesus, what a great mother, yet poor beyond compare. Her baby born in a stable. His life lived close to the hearts of the poor people, His own and His mother's kind. It may be true that the mother would not have been known to the world save through the Son. But without such a mother the world would not have heard of the Son.
"And I think of another mother whose kind face was lit with a holy light of love for her children. She, too, had a son. He was born in a hut. He learned to learn the sufferin' of his mother's kind—the poor. If God shall let him do some little part in makin' the world a better, happier place for the poor and helpless, his mother's name will not be forgotten, for whatever he may do he would not have done without that mother."
While speaking these words the homely man had turned majestic. His long, bent figure seemed in the twilight to rise to a tremendous height. "And in the days to come," he continued, "though I may never reach the shinin' goal of great achievement the son of Ann Rutledge will, for never yet has any man been blessed with such a mother as she will be."
Ann looked at him in wonderment. For the passing moment she seemed to be near a divinity.
"Abraham," she whispered, "you make me feel like taking off my shoes. This place seems holy and you are its prophet."
They walked slowly toward the house. The shades of night were falling. The far bells sounded at intervals. The evening star looked down on them.