He was always like that. Once, a good while after, in one of his campaigns, he called me on the telephone one evening just at dinner time, and said:
“I want you to go to Ironville and speak to-night.”
I was tired, and, as I dislike to confess, somewhat reluctant,—I had always to battle so for a little time to write,—so that I hesitated, asked questions, told him, as usual, that I had no speech prepared.
“But you know it is written,” he said, “that ‘in that hour it shall be given you what ye shall say.’”
I could assure him that the prophecy had somewhat failed in my case, and that what was given me to say was not always worth listening to when it was said; and then I inquired:
“What kind of crowd will be there?”
“Oh, a good crowd!” he said.
“But what kind of people?”
“What kind of people?” he asked in a tone of great and genuine surprise. “What kind of people? Why, there’s only one kind of people—just people, just folks.”
I went of course, and I went as well to Golden Rule Park and to Golden Rule Hall, and there was never such a school for public speaking as that crowded park afforded, with street cars grinding and scraping by one side of it and children laughing at their play on the swings and poles which Jones had put there for them; or else standing below the speaker and looking curiously up into his face, and filling him with the fear of treading any moment on their little fingers which, as they clung to the edge, made a border all along the front of the platform. And for a year or so after his death I spoke there every Sunday: we were trying so hard to keep his great work alive.