During those years of special hardships, my mother had the companionship and aid of a younger sister, a bright, red-headed girl, as fleet of foot as the mountain gazelle, with a voice, at least to me, as sweet as the melody of angels. Through the misty past of more than sixty years, there comes the memory of several incidents illustrative of both her moral and physical heroism. On one occasion, not unlike that just referred to, she was called to set aside her spinning-wheel just when the weaver was clamoring for the yarn which was to go into the beautiful home-made flannel, from which her new Sunday dress was to be made, and which she had promised to furnish that day. More than an hour of precious time had been consumed when she resumed her spinning, striking up in her inimitable treble:
"And let this feeble body fail."
Young as I was, I had sympathized with her in her loss of time, feeling that at least on that occasion it was an imposition that entire strangers should call at that unreasonable hour for a dinner, because they could get it free, but her heart seemed to be in the song, and as she whirled the wheel still more vigorously, and stepped mere rapidly, as if to make up lost time, she came to
"In hope of that immortal crown,
I now the Cross sustain:
And gladly wander up and down,
And smile at toil and pain."
It seemed to my childish imagination that she was triumphing over her difficulties and defying toil and pain, with words specially adapted to her "up and down," the to and fro movement in spinning. It was an exhibition of moral heroism, not often surpassed by martyr or confessor. But she was a physical hero as well. I saw her tested once at a camp-meeting, when she was about twenty years of age. My father had invited a number of young men, who were standing around, to eat dinner at his table on Sunday. Already more than fifty had eaten. When these young men were seated her eye caught one, to whom she walked without consulting any person, and laying her hand upon his shoulder, she said in a distinct voice: "Sir, you can not eat dinner at this table. You were with that crowd of rowdies last night that held a mock sacrament with whisky, and if you do not leave in a second, I'll help you leave." One glance at her eye was sufficient, and he left at once. The deed was the more heroic because the unfortunate youth belonged to a family that was much respected. The great fighting preacher, Havens, never displayed more heroism in any of his encounters with the roughs of that period. That heroic girl became a mother afterwards, and she communicated to her children the same high purpose of life. She, though a widow, gave her eldest son to her country, and his blood was the very first to fatten the soil of West Virginia in the late war, and her second son, under difficulties and discouragements that would have appalled any one but a hero, was wisely trained in head and heart, and she gave him to De Pauw University in the person of your gifted and honored red-headed Vice-President. Others may sing the man, but give me the loftier theme, the heroic women of early Indiana Methodism.