Every night Jim would come around with the question, "Danny, any word from up State yet?" "Not yet, Jim: have a little patience, she will write soon." We finally got the longed-for letter, but it wasn't favorable. Among other things she said she took no stock in her husband, and that she knew he was the same old good-for-nothing, etc. It was hard lines for poor Jim, who was reading that letter over my shoulder. I looked at him. I could see some of the old Devil come into his eyes. The wife little knew what an escape Jim had then and there. I cheered him up and we got on our knees and prayed good and hard, and God heard the prayer and Jim was sailing straight once more and trusting Jesus.
A thought flashed through my mind, and I said, "Jim, have you any money?" "Yes," he said, "I have over sixty dollars." He gave me the money and we went to the postoffice and I took out a money-order to Mrs. Jim, Syracuse, N. Y., for sixty dollars and sent it on signed by Jim and took the receipt and put it in my pocket.
Five days after I was sitting at my desk in the Mission. A knock came to the door. I said, "Come in," and a woman with two little girls entered. I placed a chair and waited. She said, "You are Mr. Ranney. I recognize you from your picture." She was Jim's wife, as she told me. Then she began about her troubles with her husband: he was a good man, but he would drink. She said, "I begin to think that Jim has religion, for if he hadn't something near it, he would never have sent me the money. Do you think he is all right, Mr. Ranney?" To which I answered that I really believed he was, and that he would be a good husband and father. I asked her if she was a Christian, and she said, "Yes, I go to church and do the best I can." I told her going to church was a good thing, but to have Jesus in your heart and home is a better one.
She wanted to see Jim, so we went round to where he was working. There he was up four stories laying front brick. I watched him, so did his wife. Finally I put my hands like a trumpet and called, "Hello, Jim!" Jim looked down, seeing me, and then looking at the woman and children a moment he dropped everything, and to watch that man come down that ladder was a sight. He rushed over, threw his arms around his wife, then took the little girls in his arm, and what joy there was! There was no more work that day.
Jim showed her the saloons he used to get drunk in, and he did not forget to show the place where he was converted, and on that very spot we all had a nice little prayer-meeting, and as a finale, Mrs. Jim took Jesus, saying, "If He did all that for Jim, I want Him too."
They are back in Syracuse, living happily. Jim has a class of boys in the Sunday-school and is a deacon in the church. I had the pleasure of eating dinner in their home. I often get a letter from Jim, telling of God's goodness. He says he will never forget the fight he made for the pants or his friend Danny Ranney.
ONE OF MR. RANNEY'S OPEN-AIR MEETINGS.