The Lord miraculously sent a good sister to our home from Washington. She arrived the morning I was leaving for Texas. When she discovered the circumstances, and that wife was sick, she said, "Now I know why the Lord sent me here, and I'm here to stay until Sister Susag is well."
So I went to San Antonio. This was in the year 1902. At one place where I had to change trains on the way, I took my grip and walked out on the platform toward the train I was to take. There I stood and did not get on the train, and the train pulled out without me. I walked back to the depot, and the agent asked me whether I had intended to take that train and why I did not get on it. I simply told him I didn't know why. "Well," he said, "you fool, you will now have to wait four hours and take a slow train." (I understood a little later why I was held back from boarding that train. Only forty-five miles out it became derailed and some forty passengers were seriously injured and, if my memory is correct, some were killed.)
When the tent meeting was over at San Antonio, Bro. Nelson left with me and we were expecting to stop over in Hamilton and Kingston, Mo. to hold some services. As we came closer to the first place Bro. Nelson said, "Here the saints are well-to-do people." So, I thought, if they are well-to-do we will not need to spend our time asking God for our car fare, for they well know that preachers need car fare. The congregation rented a room for us about a couple of blocks from the depot and we ate our meals in the different homes.
After the meeting had closed and we had gone to our room at eleven p. m., Brother Nelson asked me whether I had received money for our car fare. I told him I had not; that I thought he had received it all, since he had been there before. But he hadn't received any. We then decided we had better see whether we had enough money to take us to the next place. Brother Nelson had enough for his fare and eight cents over; I was lacking two dollars. We were to leave on the four-thirty train in the morning, and now we had to pray the Lord to get us the two dollars!
As for me, I was not acquainted in the city and did not know where to go to raise a penny. We prayed until two o'clock, then I said to Brother Nelson, "We do not need to pray any longer; the Lord says He will attend to it." We went to bed for about an hour and a half. We went to the depot and Brother Nelson bought his ticket, then I ordered mine and put what money I had in the window of the ticket office. While the agent was counting the money, a man came running very fast into the waiting room and stuck his left hand right in front of my nose through the ticket window and left two dollars there, then turned and went out so fast that I had no chance to thank him. Brother Nelson looked at the man, and then asked me whether I knew him, but I had never seen him before, nor had Brother Nelson. The lesson I learned from this incident was that it is better to depend upon the Lord than on well-to-do saints.
* * * * *
On arriving home I told wife of the incident. She at once asked me whether I was sure it was a man who brought the two dollars. I said, "To me he looked like an angel, and he would have looked so to you if you had been in a like fix."
* * * * *
ANSWERS TO PRAYER
Once, when home for two or three days I was suffering pain in the region of my heart. At every beat it would seem to say, "Kelly, Kelly, Kelly." (Kelly was a place in North Dakota, about 260 miles from home. There were a few saints in the community who might be needing help). I was very sick and I told my wife how badly I was feeling. She said, "Perhaps the Lord wants you to go to Kelly." The next day the pain was still bothering me, so I sat down and wrote to O. O. Holman and said, "I am sick; if the pain in my heart does not soon stop I will be at your station Sunday at ten o'clock." This was in the month of August, the busy season for farmers. The pain did not stop, so I started out. When I had gone about one hundred miles from home the pain left me.