Part 41 (1/2)
”And I dropped my book, and sprung up, and stood trembling, and reached out my hands, and cried,-”'Mother! mother! where are you? Oh! how I have wanted you, mother!'
”And then that same voice said to my heart again,-
”'G.o.d will take care of the boy.'
”And as I stood there trembling, the room seemed full. You know how you would feel if your eyes were shut, and you were placed in a room full of people. You would know they were there-you would feel their presence, though you couldn't see them. You know what the Bible says,-'Seeing we are encompa.s.sed about by so great a cloud of witnesses.' That word just describes what I felt. There seemed to be all about me, a great cloud of people. And I put my arms out, and made a rush through them, as you would through a dense crowd, and said again,-
”'Mother! mother! where are you? Speak to me again.'
”And then, suddenly, there seemed to be a stir, a movement in the room, something I was conscious of with some finer, more vivid sense than hearing. It seemed to be a great crowd moving, receding. And farther off, but clear, these words came to me again, sweet and solemn,-
”'G.o.d will take care of the boy.'
”And then I seemed to be alone. And I went out into the hall; and uncle Josiah heard me, and he came out, and asked me what the matter was.
”And I told him 'I didn't know.' And my strength left me then; and he took me up in his arms, and brought me back into my room, and laid me on the lounge, and gave me some wine, and I couldn't help crying.”
”What for, dear?” says I.
”Because I wasn't good enough to see my mother. If I had only been good enough, I could have seen her. For she was here, aunt Samantha, right in this room.”
Her eyes wus so big and solemn and earnest, that I knew she meant what she said. But I soothed her down as well as I could, and I says,-
”Mebby you had dropped to sleep, Cicely: mebby you dremp it.”
”Yes,” says Josiah, who had come in, and heard my last words.
”Yes, Cicely, you dremp it.”
Wall, after a while Cicely stopped cryin', and dropped to sleep.
And now what I am goin' to tell you is the truth. You can believe it, or not, jest as you are a mind to; but it is the truth.
That night, at sundown, Thomas J. come in with a telegram for Cicely; and she says, without actin' a mite surprised,-
”Aunt Mary is dead.”
And sure enough, when she opened it, it was so. She died jest before the time Cicely come out into the hall. Josiah remembered plain. The clock had jest struck two as she opened the door.
Her aunt died at two.
This is the plain truth; and I will make oath to it, and so will Josiah. And whether Cicely dremp it, or whether she didn't; whether it wus jest a coincidin' coincidence, her havin' these feelin's at exactly the time her aunt died, or not,-I don't know any more than you do. I jest put down the facts, and you can draw your own inferences from 'em, and draw 'em jest as fur as you want to, and as many of 'em.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THOMAS JEFFERSON BRINGING CICELY'S TELEGRAM.]
But that night, way along in the night, as I lay awake a musin' on it, and a wonderin',-for I say plain that my specks hain't strong enough to see through the mysteries that wrap us round on every side,-I s'posed my companion wus asleep; but he spoke out sudden like, and decided, as if I had been a disputin' of him,-
”Yes, most probable she dremp it.”
”Wall,” says I, ”I hain't disputed you,”