"I have found a half-sovereign this morning, which came to me in some unknown way for some unknown purpose; and now I shall be glad to let you have it for your needs."
She thanked me, and told me that she would be grateful if I would hitch up their horse and drive over to Christchurch and purchase some bread and medicine. I did as she requested. I hitched up the horse and went immediately to Christchurch, a distance of three or four miles.
Arrived there I went to the baker's shop and asked for two shillings and sixpence worth of bread, giving the baker in payment my half-sovereign, or ten shilling piece. He gave me the proper change I am sure, because I watched it carefully. I placed this change of silver in the empty purse which I had in my hand, and then went to the chemist's shop. Here I purchased medicine to the amount of two shillings, and took that much money from the purse and paid the chemist.
Then I hastened back to Brother Walker's, and when I entered the house I gave the folks the bread and the medicine, and tossed the purse, containing as I supposed, five shillings and sixpence in change, to Sister Walker. She emptied the money into her lap, counted it, and then said:
"You did not pay for the bread and medicine which you got at Christchurch."
I replied that I had paid for them, certainly; because, being unknown to the baker and chemist, they would not have trusted me.
"But," she replied, "you have brought back ten shillings and four pence—which is more than you carried away with you."
I answered that I could not help that—I had certainly paid for the bread and the medicine and had received my exact change from the baker, who broke the money for me.
But whatever I might say, there was the money—four pence more than I had carried away, although I had spent four shillings and sixpence.
Some time afterward I was requested by Jeppe C. Jeppeson to go to Alfred Forest to perform for him and his family the ordinance of baptism. I was then at Prebbleton, and Alfred Forest was more than seventy miles away.