And all the while Emmy Lou had thought the digit on the slate in its day was the thing, and later the copybook, and only yesterday, the conjugation of the verb. Whereas Sarah now had shown her what nor home, nor school, nor Sunday school, nor confirmation class had made her see, that the faithfulness with which the digit is put on the slate, the script in the copybook, and the conjugation of the verb on the tablets of the mind, is the education and the thing!
This, then, is the gate? This the way that leads thither? The sweet and common road along which the children of the Heavenly King are journeying? Faithful little Sister from the alley of so long ago, gentle and loving Izzy of that same far-gone day, Hattie helping a schoolmate comrade over the hard places? This is the road whereon those older, laden souls are stealing? The road, if once gained by the pilgrim, whether he be Episcopalian, Bohemian, Presbyterian, or Afro-American, on which he will go straight onward. The path where, like bells at evening pealing, the voice of Jesus sounds o'er land and sea.
Sea? Prayers of the church were asked that Sarah be preserved from the perils of land and water! And Sarah was lost!
Lost? Was Sarah lost?
"We'll miss your voice, so sweet and strong and true, in the hymns," Aunt Cordelia had told Sarah.
Would her voice be missed? Her voice singing to the children to the end? It came with a flash of sudden comprehension to Emmy Lou, lying there in Aunt Cordelia's big bed waiting for her return, that Sarah's voice would not be missed but heard forever, singing hymns to the end to those little children of the King.
"What does she want me to do now I'm in?" asked Albert Eddie. Sarah had answered him. Make himself ready for whatsoever part should be his.
"The child, the poor, poor child, alone on that great ship without kith or kin!" Aunt Cordelia had said, weeping.
Was she thus alone? "When you get to wit's end you will always find God lives there," her grandmother had told her when she was a wee 'un. Had not Sarah given proof that when she got to wit's end God did live there?
Emmy Lou was weeping no longer. She lay still. A wonder and an awe suffused her. To the far horizon the landscape of life was irradiated. She was tranquil. The Silence had spoken at last.