"The old man said he could 'a' stood it if there'd been any knobs or hills or big trees. But he said that prairie land nearly run him crazy, especially in the evenin'. He said he'd watch the sun goin' down like a ball o' fire away off across that level prairie, and he'd think about how the sunset looked in Kentucky, with old Pilot Knob and Prewitt's Knob loomin' up on the horizon, and he'd drop his head in his hands and cry like a baby.
"And talkin' about sunsets, child, reminds me of a picture in Henrietta's parlor. There never was anything like the inside o' Henrietta's home. Her and Archibald went all over Europe when they was first married, and everywhere they went they gethered up pictures and marble images and such things, and whichever way you'd turn there was somethin' to look at that you never'd seen before. And when you've been livin' all your life in a house like this old farmhouse o' mine, it gives you a curious sort o' feelin' to be set down all at once in a place like Henrietta's. Why, for two or three days I hardly knew the name of anything I was eatin' or drinkin' or lookin' at or walkin' on or settin' on, and when I try to ricollect the different rooms, I git 'em all mixed up. But there's one thing that's jest as clear as day in my mind, and that is the picture I'm tellin' you about. The name of it was 'The Angelus.' Now ain't that a pretty name?—'The Angelus.' Why, it sounds jest like music. The minute I come across it, I stopped still in front of it and looked and looked and looked. And says I, 'Child, this picture makes me feel like sayin' my prayers.' And Henrietta laughed, and says she, 'Grandma, that's jest what the people in the picture are doin'.' And she said that over yonder in France, in some o' the places out in the country, places pretty much like our Goshen neighborhood, I reckon, they was in the habit o' ringin' the church bells at sundown, and when people heard the bells, they'd stop whatever they was doin' and say their prayers. And she told me all about the man that painted 'The Angelus,' how poor he was, and how folks laughed at his pictures, and wouldn't buy 'em because he painted things jest as they was, plain and natural. She said her picture was a copy of the one he painted, and when she saw how much I liked it, she says, 'Grandma, I'm goin' to get you a copy of "The Angelus,"' and I says, 'No, child, I ain't one o' the kind that has to have a picture o' the folks and the things they love. I've got that picture right in my old brain, and all I have to do to see it is jest to shut my eyes and it'll come—the sunset and the field and the two people prayin' and the bell,—I'll hear that, too, ringin' jest like the old bell that used to ring in Goshen church.' Every day I'd go into the parlor at Henrietta's about the time the sun'd be goin' down, and I'd look first at the sunset in the sky and then at the sunset in the picture, and I couldn't tell which was the prettiest.
"Uncle Jim Matthews used to say that every church bell said, 'Get up, get up, and go to church!' And in them days people minded the church bell. But nowadays it looks like the only bells folks pays any attention to is the breakfast-bell and the dinner-bell and the supper-bell. And I've been thinkin', honey, what a blessed thing it would be, if, all over the world, folks could hear a bell ringin' at sundown and callin' on everybody to stop their work or their pleasure and fold their hands for a minute and pray. Why, the prayers would go up to heaven like the birds flyin' home to their nests, and jest think how many wrong things would be stopped. If a murderer was liftin' his hand, that bell would be like a voice from the sky, sayin', 'Thou shalt not kill.' If a husband and wife was quarrelin', and they heard the Angelus, and stopped to pray, why, maybe, after they'd prayed they'd kiss and make up. Yes, child, the Angelus would do a heap o' good. But if anybody's once looked at the picture, they won't need the bell. I know I'll never see the sun settin' behind them knobs over yonder that I won't think o' that picture, and whatever I'm doin' I'll have to stop and fold my hands and bow my head, the same as I used to do when Parson Page'd stand up in the old Goshen church and say, 'Let us pray.'
"Here's a picture o' Henrietta's house, child. I knew I couldn't tell folks about it so's they'd have any idea o' what it was, so I brought this picture." And she handed me a photograph of one of those modern palaces which, under the spells of the two master magicians, Art and Wealth, are springing up on the soil of the New South to replace the worn-out mansions of ante-bellum days.
"When I looked at Henrietta's house," continued Aunt Jane, "I thought o' what Uncle Billy Bascom used to say. Uncle Billy's the kind that can't enjoy this world for thinkin' about the next one. He's spent his life preparin' for death, and it looks like it hurts him to see anybody gittin' any pleasure out o' the things o' this world. Every time any o' the Goshen folks'd put up a house that was a little bit better than what Uncle Billy'd been used to, he'd shake his head and say, 'Yes, Lord; folks can make theirselves so comfortable here on this earth that they won't have a thought about gittin' a clear title to a mansion in the skies.'
"And that house o' Henrietta's was enough to make anybody forget about their mansion in the skies. Henrietta's havin' her heaven now, and she'll have it hereafter, and Archibald, too. For the 'cares o' the world and the deceitfulness o' riches' hasn't choked any o' the good seed that's been sown in their hearts. How many young folks do you reckon would think o' comin' down here and takin' a old woman like me home with 'em, and treatin' her like a queen, and showin' her all the sights in a place like Lexin'ton?
"Archibald named 'em all over to me, and Henrietta says, 'Now where do you want to go first, grandma?' And I says: 'I want to see Henry Clay's house. Take me there first, and I don't care whether I see any o' the rest o' the sights or not.' So the next day Henrietta took me to Ashland, the place where Henry Clay had lived, and I saw the bed he slept in and the table he wrote on and the inkstand and the pen he used. And I says to myself, 'I'm in Henry Clay's home. Henry Clay!—the man I used to hear my father talk about when I was a young gyirl—the man that'd rather be in the right than to be President.' And I ricollected the time Henry Clay spoke in town and father went to hear him, and when he got back home, mother asked him what kind of a man Henry Clay was. And father says, says he, 'Henry Clay ain't a man'; and mother laughed (she was used to father's way o' talkin'), and says she, 'Well, if he ain't a man, what is he?' And father studied a minute, and then he says, 'Do you ricollect the tongues o' fire that descended on the apostles on the day of Pentecost?' Says he, 'If one o' them tongues o' fire was put in the body of a man, that'd be Henry Clay.' Says he, 'He stands up and runs his eye over the crowd, and from that minute he's got every man there right in the holler of his hand, and he does jest what he pleases with 'em; and if he looks any particular man in the face, that man'll feel like he's in the presence of his Maker.'
"Father never got over Clay not bein' President; and whenever anybody'd talk about it, he'd shake his head and say, 'There's somethin' wrong with the times when a man like Henry Clay can't git the Presidency.'
"Now, here I am, child, 'way back in Henry Clay's time, when I set out to tell you about my visit to Henrietta's. That wanderin' o' the mind is a pretty good sign of old age, I reckon, but I 'most always manage to ricollect where I started from and where I'm goin' to.
"Well, as soon as I got to feelin' at home Henrietta says, 'Now, grandma, I'm goin' to give you a reception and introduce you to my friends.' And I says: 'Honey, you'd better not do that. You know I'm jest a old-fashioned woman, and maybe I wouldn't know how to behave at a reception.' And Henrietta laughed, and says she, 'All in the world you have to do, grandma, is to shake hands with the people and be glad to see 'em.'