I looked into his frank blue eyes and asked: “Tell me once more, truthfully, are you innocent?” And he answered: “Before God I swear that the story I told you is true!”
I plead guilty to helping a prisoner escape, and I feel no pangs of regret. Fifteen years between black walls is a long, long time, and the boy had a mother.
RELIGION OF HUMANITY
Near my home lived a poor, hard-working, but improvident man. He had a wife and seven children. The oldest was thirteen, and the baby but ten months old. They were poor. The husband and father was working only half time. There is a cause for the dull times, but the man did not know what it was. Those who do know are afraid to tell, for fear it may injure their business. “Great is Diana!”
One month ago the wife and mother was taken suddenly ill, and died in less than twenty-four hours. Everybody was shocked. It seemed so cruel and hard of Providence to remove that poor woman at a time when she was needed most. Many would have blamed Providence of cruelty, but they are afraid to do so.
No one knew the reason why this death was ordered. Some thought it was even a sin to make a study of the case, “lest they offend Providence.”
I was made to feel very sad when I heard of the sudden bereavement. Little eyes of helpless children looked out of the night shadows and made my sleep a nightmare. I looked down a long dark vista leading out into future years, and I saw barefooted and ragged children plodding hopelessly along, bearing burdens that should be carried by full grown men and women. I saw cruel winter lurking only a few weeks off, generating chill blasts of wind to pinch little brown legs and chapped hands, and I wondered what the people would do about it.
While I was wondering what was to be done, my wife and her near neighbor were already solving the problem. Old chests and boxes were ransacked for cast-off clothing—for clothes the children had outgrown, but which were almost as good as new. Neighbors were set to work ransacking chests and boxes and bureau drawers, and many little dresses and pantaloons that brought back tender memories were dug up and cast into the common fund of collected goods.
To this collection was added a few dollars’ worth of new goods, and thread, and the work of reconstruction began. The work was done in my home, while I worked in an adjoining room, and I never heard a more cheerful and happy set of women. Their hearts, their charity, their mother love were all in the work, and these are the tender forces that give inspiration to men and women who believe in the religion of humanity.