"How do you know," I asked.
"Because I prayed to God" said he, "and he told me she would."
"How did he tell you?"
The little fellow looked at me for an instant, and reverently placing his hand on the region of his heart, said:
"He told me in my heart."
Going to the room where my patient was lying, I found no change whatever, but in spite of my own convictions there had sprung up a hope within me. The medical gentleman with whom I was in consultation came to the room, and as he did, a thought of a very simple remedy I had seen used by an old negro woman, in a very dissimilar case, occurred to my mind. It became so persistently present that I mentioned it to my brother practitioner. He looked surprised, but merely remarked. "It can do no harm." I applied it. In two hours we both felt the case was out of danger.
The second day after that, as we rode from the house, my friend asked me how I came to think, of so simple a remedy.
"I think it was that boy's prayer," I replied.
"Why, Doctor! you are not so superstitious as to connect that boy's prayers with his sister's recovery," said he.
"Yes, I do," I replied; "for the life of me I cannot help thinking his prayers were more powerful than our remedies."