"I'm most afraid, my dea' friends an' brethren, I oughtn't to try to speak to this crowd. I'm a man of words and not of deeds, an' yet I'm 'fraid I shan't evm say the right thing. I belong to the past. I've been thinkin' of the past every minute I've been a-sitt'n' here. Yo' faces ah all turned to the future an' ah lighted"—he lifted his arm and waggled his hand—"by the beams of a risin' sun reflected from the structu'es o' yo' golden dreams. As I look back down the long an' shining stair-steps o' the years I count seventy-two of 'em in the clear sight o' memory's eye besides fo' or five that lie shrouded in the silve'y mist of earliest childhood." The pastor, ceased and his hearers were very still.
"I don't tell my age to brag of it, but if I remind you-all that I've baptized mo' Suez babies than there are now Suez men an' women alive, an' have seen jest about eve'y cawnehstone laid in this town that's ever been laid, I needn't say my heart's in yo' fawtunes whether faw this world aw the next.
"An' I don't doubt you goin' to be prospe'd. What I'm bound to tell you I've my private fears of, an' yet what I'm hopin' an' trustin' and prayin' the Lord will deliveh you fum—evm as a cawp'ate company—is the debasin' sin o' money greed. Gentlemen, an' dea' friends an' breth'en, may Gawd save you fum that as he saved the two Ezra Jaspehs, the foundeh o' Suez an' his cousin, the grantee of Widewood, fum the folly o' Ian' greed. For I tell you they may not 'a' managed either tract as well as some otheh men think they might 'a' done it, but they were saved the folly whereof I speak. They's been some talk an' laugh here this mawnin' about John March a-partin' with so much o' his lan'. Well, if that makes him a fool, he's a fool by my advice! Faw when he come to me with his plans all in the bud, so to speak, I said to him there an' then, an' he'll remembeh: Johnnie, s'I, I've set on the knees of both Ezra Jaspehs, an' I'm tellin' you what I know of the one that was yo' fatheh's grand-fatheh, as you say you know it of yo' own sainted fatheh: that if the time had eveh come in his life when paht'n' with Widewood tract would of seemed any ways likely to turn it into sco'es an' hund'eds o' p'osp'ous an' pious homes he would 'a' givm ninety-nine hund'edths away faw nothin' rather than not see that change; yes, an' had mo' joy oveh the one-hund'edth left to him than oveh the ninety an' nine to 'a' kep' 'em as the lan's of on'y one owneh an' one home.
"Gentlemen, I'm free to allow, as I heah the explanations o' all the gue-ards an' counteh-gue-ards o' this beautiful scheme—schools faw the well-to-do an' the ill-to-do, imperatively provided as fast as toil is provided faw the toiler and investments faw the investor—I have cause to rejoice an' be glad. An' yet! It oughtn't to seem strange to you-all if an' ole man, a man o' the quiet ole ploughin' an' plantin', fodder-pullin', song-singin', cotton-pickin', Christmas-keepin' days, the days o' wide room an' easy goin', should feel right smaht o' solicitude an' tripidation when he sees the red an' threatenin' dawn of anotheh time, a time o' mines an' mills an' fact'ries an' swarmin' artisans' an' operatives an' all the concomitants o' crowded an' complicated conditions, an' that he should fall to prayin' aloud in the very highways an' hotels, like some po' benighted believer in printed prayehs an' litanies, the petition: Fum all Ole Worl' sins an' New Worl' fanaticisms, fum all new-comers, whetheh immigrants aw capitalists, with delete'ious politics at va'iance fum ow own, which, heavm knows, ah delete'ious enough, an' most of all fum the greed o' money, good Lawd deliv' us!
"An' I have faith that he will. Uphel' by that faith, I've taken fifteen shares myself. But O, if faith could right here an' now be changed into sight, then would this day be as golden in my hopes faw Suez an' her three counties as it already is faw my private self in memory o' past joys."
The speaker was sinking into his chair when Garnet asked with a smile that everyone but the pastor understood, "Why, how's that Brother Tombs; is this day something more than usual to you?"
"Brother Garnet, if I've hinted that it is, it's mo' than I started out to do, but I'm tempted, seein' so many friends in one bunch so, to jest ask yo'-all's congratulations on"—the eyes glistened with moisture—"the golden anniversary o' my weddin' day."
The walls rang with applause, men crowded laughingly around the Parson to shake his hand, and in ten minutes the room was silent and the company gone, "every man to his tent," as the happy Parson said, each one as ready for his noontide meal as it was for him.