But still in these last hours I kep’ thinkin’ of Edwardses’ Ma, who was rainin’ here durin’ my last visit. I wuz kep’ from visitin’ her at that time by P. Martyn Smythe and onfortunate domestic circumstances.
And I have always worried for fear she hearn I wuz in London that time and never went nigh her; she not knowin’ what hendered me.
I writ her a letter to make her mind easy, but must know she never got it, for she never writ a word in reply. I posted the letter I spoke on with my own hands. I directed it
Widder Albert,
London, England.
It runs as follers:
“Dear and revered Queen and Widder:
“I tried my best to git to see you whilst in London, but Josiah’s clothes wuzn’t fit; he had frayed ’em out on a tower, 445 and his shirts wuz yeller as saffern, half washed by underlins. I wouldn’t demean him in your sight by bringin’ him with me and he wuz worrisome and I couldn’t leave him. You’ve been married and you know how it is.
“So I have to return home sad-hearted without settin’ my eyes on the face of a woman I honor and set store by, a good wife, a good mother, a good ruler. The world hangs your example up and is workin’ up to the pattern and will in future generations. No doubt there is a few stitches that might be sot evener in the sampler, but the hull thing is a honor to our humanity and the world at large. I bow to your memory as I would to you in deep honor and esteem. And if we do not meet here below may we meet in them heavenly fields you and your Albert, Josiah and I, young and happy, all earthly distinctions washed off in the swellin’s of Jordan.
“And so God bless you clear down to the river banks whose waves are a swashin’ up so clost to our feet, and adoo.