The effect was electrical. In an instant the tired audience, the dull or dogged or angry debaters, woke to a new interest, a new spirit. No farmer so rough, no middle-man so keen, no legislator so apathetic, but felt the thrill. In a silence charged with deepest feeling all listened as to a prophetess, as, step by step, she unfolded the case of the infant as against farmers and dealers.
As Arthur Dehon Hill, counsel for the Pure Milk Association, led her from the room, he said, "Mrs. Howe, you have saved the day!"
This incident was still in her mind on her ninety-first birthday, a few days later.
"My parlors are full of beautiful flowers and other gifts, interpreted by notes expressive of much affection, and telegrams of the same sort. What dare I ask for more? Only that I may do something in the future to deserve all this love and gratitude. I have intended to deserve it all and more. Yet, when in thought I review my life, I feel the waste and loss of power thro' want of outlook. Like many another young person, I did not know what my really available gifts were. Perhaps the best was a feeling of what I may call 'the sense of the moment,' which led a French friend to say of me: 'Mme. Howe possède le mot à un dégré remarquable.' I was often praised for saying 'just the right word,' and I usually did this with a strong feeling that it ought to be said."
Early in June, just as she was preparing for the summer flitting, she had a bad fall, breaking a rib. This delayed the move for a week, no more, the bone knitting easily. She was soon happy among her green trees, her birds singing around her.
The memories of this last summer come flocking in, themselves like bright birds. She was so well, so joyous, giving her lilies with such full hands; it was a golden time.
As the body failed, the mind—or so it seemed to us—grew ever clearer, the veil that shrouds the spirit ever more transparent. She "saw things hidden."
One day a summer neighbor came, bringing her son, a handsome, athletic fellow, smartly dressed, a fine figure of gilded youth. She looked at him a good deal: presently she said suddenly,—
"You write poetry!"
The lad turned crimson: his mother looked dumfounded. It proved that he had lately written a prize poem, and that literature was the goal of his ambition. Another day she found a philosopher hidden in what seemed to the rest of the family merely "a callow boy in pretty white duck clothes." So she plucked out the heart of each man's mystery, but so tenderly that it was yielded gladly, young and old alike feeling themselves understood.