"What! have you been thinking of these things too, Miss Selwyn?"
"Yes. For a good while I have been struggling with a burden of sin that sometimes nearly crushed me; but it is gone now. Last night the joy of pardon came just like a flash of light into my heart."
"Thank the Lord for that. There's been some praying very earnest for you. They'll be glad their prayers are answered."
"I can never repay what some of you people out here have done for me."
"Well, dear, you've done for us. The minister said, 'under God we were indebted to Mr. Bowen for this revival, and there's already nigh unto fifty converted.' He couldn't have come to the meetings if you hadn't clothed him; and now, you've done still more, and got him his eyesight, he's twice as useful. 'Twould have done you good to see him in meeting the first Sunday after he come back. He'd look up at the pulpit, and then he'd look at the people; and it seemed as if he could hardly sense where he was—he was that glad and happy. The preacher said, in the evening, we'd have a praise meeting after the sermon; and sure enough we had; for when Mr. Bowen got talking about what the Lord had done for him, and what he had been to him in sorrow and blindness, before I knew it, I was crying like a baby—me that had my eyesight, and health—and never thanked the Lord for them. When I got my eyes wiped I took a look around, and there sot Dan'el a blowing his nose, and mopping his face, as if it was a sweltering day in August; and then when I looked further, there was nothing much to be seen but pocket-handkerchiefs. That was the beginning of the revival; and if you hadn't got Mr. Bowen out to meeting, there mightn't have been any. So, after the Lord, I lay it all to you."
"No, Mrs. Blake. I was scarcely equal in this matter to those poor souls who helped Noah build the Ark and were drowning for want of its shelter. They labored harder than I; for what I gave was more from impulse, and it was a pleasure."
"I guess God don't make mistakes paying folks for what they do, and maybe it's jest as well not to have a great consait of yourself; but you're the first one I've heard comparing themselves to Noah's Ark builders."
I turned the conversation somewhat abruptly.
"What is Mr. Bowen doing now?"
"He's taken on in Belcher's Mill, working at the books."