My mother smiled. 'I told you they were good words.'
'But how did they get there?'
'I don't know. I think some good man must have carved them long, long ago, that the water we draw up out of the well might remind us of Christ's words, and that we might remember to try and help one another.'
And then she told me how all service done for our Master's sake—even the very smallest—should be remembered by Him, and should in no wise lose its reward.
I have forgotten the words she used, but I remember that I said, 'I should like to give some one a cup of water, mother.'
She was going back to the house, with the pitcher she had filled, but she stopped to put her hand upon my head, and answered—
'I hope you will often. Do not forget, Willie.'
I never did. That little talk, with its few and simple words, was to bring a great change over my life.
One day—it was a hot afternoon in harvest-time—I heard the bell that hung near the great gateway ring suddenly. A faint ring, as if the hand that pulled the bell was weak or afraid, but as I stood still for a minute, listening, it sounded again.
I ran to the door and opened it: a man dressed like a soldier in a faded red coat was half-sitting, half-lying on the ground leaning against the archway. Beside him, trying to support him, knelt a boy of about my own age, who looked up eagerly as I pulled open the gate.