Wall, Cicely didn't think it wus right. Curius she should think so, some folks thought, but she did.
But all this that wore on her wus as nothin' to what she felt about the boy,—her fears for his future. “What could she do—what could she do for the boy, to make it safer for him in the future?”
And I had jest this one answer, that I'd say over and over agin to her,—
“Cicely, you can pray! That is all that wimmen can do. And try to influence him right now. God can take care of the boy.”
“But I can't keep him with me always; and other influences will come, and beat mine down. And I have prayed, but God don't hear my prayer.”
And I'd say, calm and soothin', “How do you know, Cicely?”
And she says, “Why, how I prayed for help when my poor Paul went down to ruin, through the open door of a grog-shop! If the women of the land had it in their power to do what their hearts dictate,—what the poorest, lowest man has the right to do,—every saloon, every low grog-shop, would be closed.”
She said this to Josiah the mornin' after the lecture I speak of. He sot there, seemin'ly perusin' the almanac; but he spoke up then, and says,—
“You can't shet up human nater, Cicely: that will jump out any way. As the poet says, 'Nater will caper.'”
But Cicely went right on, with her eyes a shinin', and a red spot in her white cheeks that I didn't like to see.