But Brother Sutton, his face beaming with tenderness, had come swiftly down the aisle and was bending over Granny.
“Sister,” he said, taking her little wrinkled hands in his, “believe me, God forgave you this before you asked it; and as for us, look about you, and what do you see in the faces of your friends? Come one and all and give her your tenderest greetings.”
Kneeling by the bed that night in her little white gown and cap, as she pressed her face in the pillow where John’s head had rested for so many years, Granny poured out a humble and a contrite heart. “An’, Lord,” she added, “please tell John an’ the children that I give every one of them things to Mis’ Cottie, an’ I’m startin’ out again with falterin’ steps toward the heavenly home.”
FOOTNOTES:
[14] By permission of the author and the “Outlook.”
THE DAY OF DAYS[15]
Elsie Singmaster
Upon three hundred and sixty-five days in the year Miss Mary Britton gave; upon one day Miss Mary received. That day was the day before Christmas.
Miss Mary did not receive, however, from the same persons to whom she gave. Miss Mary gave to all the village, a lift here in sickness, a little present of money there in case of need. To Sally Young went a new bonnet, to old Carrie Burrage a warm shawl, to the preacher and his large family unnumbered articles. Miss Mary took old Carrie Burrage, tiresome, ungrateful, self-centered, into her house for a month; she took the Arundel baby for three.
None of these persons remembered Miss Mary at Christmas. The village was poor; it considered Miss Mary rich; it expected her to be generous. Miss Mary’s present came from far away New York; it was the most treasured gift received in the state of Ohio. Years ago, when the Britton fortune was large, when kinsfolk were numerous, when the broad doors of this Britton house stood open to relatives removed to the fourth degree, a young cousin had spent a happy summer under its roof. He had been ill; here, in the country, ministered to with unfailing kindness, he had fully recovered.