Well, there wuz a stir in the crowd. The Elder had come down and wuz shakin’ hands right and left with them that crowded up to him. The little woman pressed towards him and I wuz drawed along in her wake by the crowd, some as a stately ship is swep’ on by a small tug and the flowin’ waves. And anon, after shakin’ hands with her, he took my hand in hisen. A emotion swep’ through me, a sort of electric current that connects New Jerusalem to Jonesville and Zoar. He bent his full sweet penetratin’ look onto me, it seemed to go through my head clear to my back comb, and he sez,
“Have I met you before?”
“Yes,” sez I, “in sperit, we have met, I want to thank you for the words you have said this day. It seems to me I shall be good for some time, it seems that I must after hearin’ your discourse, and I want to thank you for it, thank you earnest and sincere.”
He smiled sort o’ sad and yet riz up, and sez, “We are all wayfarers here on a hard journey, and if I can help anyone along the way, it is I who should be thankful, and,” sez he, “may God bless you, sister!” 181
And he passed on.
But he seemed to leave a wake of glory behind him as he went, some like the glow on the water when the sun walks over it, a warmin’ life givin’ influence that comes from a big soul filled with light and goodness. I seemed to be riz up above the earth all the way back to the hotel, though in body I wuz walkin’ afoot by the side of my pardner. He too wuz enthused by the sermon—I had reconized his little treble voice shoutin’ out “Amen!” and he said now that it wuz grand, powerful!
“Yes,” sez I, “and good and holy and tender!”
“Yes indeed!” sez he. And he added, “Speakin’ of tenderness, I do hope the beef will be tenderer than it wuz yesterday. I don’t believe they have such beef to Coney Island.”