“And some of them were disappointed, for when the service was over and we filed out, the Carsons first, past the flower-decked graves to the corner where Andy was buried, there was Andy’s grave adorned with only a plain little head stone. But grouped around it stood his family, and the way that family had improved in the three years since Andy’s death—well, as my mother said, that was a pretty fine monument for Andy, don’t you think so?
“And now don’t forget your ‘apple a day,’ and good night to everybody.”
MEMORY VERSES
Grandma had been reading aloud from Pink’s Sunday-school paper and when she finished she said:
“We didn’t have anything like this when I was a little girl. We didn’t even have any Sunday school. The nearest thing to Sunday school was when we recited our memory verses on meeting day. Every week we learned so many verses from the Bible, and on meeting day the preacher heard us recite them.
“I remember one year—it was Reverend Bard’s second year—that in order to get the children to take more interest in learning the verses, the preacher offered a Testament to the one who could say the most verses by a certain time. We were all eager to get the Testament, and we did study harder than usual.
“The contest was to take place on Sunday afternoon. There was to be preaching in the morning, dinner on the grounds, and in the afternoon a prayer meeting and the memory-verse contest. There would be a large crowd, and anyone who wanted to could try for the Testament. Even the smallest children would say what verses they knew.
“Charlie was always hunting for the shortest verses, and he hadn’t learned very many of any kind till toward the last. Then he learned five or six a day and carried a Bible around in his pocket wherever he went and studied every spare minute.
“I had been getting my verses regularly every week and I had a good memory. So I wasn’t much afraid of anyone beating me except Charlie or Annie Brierly or maybe Betty Bard, the preacher’s granddaughter. Betty knew a lot of verses, but at the last minute she was likely to get to thinking of something else and forget them.