"I can. I do! I have faith in my Father's plan to lead me through 'deep
waters' into 'pleasant pastures,'" she answered me, as her eyes looked
past me out at Paradise Ridge beyond the chapel.
"Then give it to me," I demanded.
"I can't. You must seek it yourself, and when you get it you will be
able to pour it out into the hearts of others as living water. I serve
by using my two talents of mercy and love, but God will some day give
you ten and you will have to return an hundred fold. He has given the
ten to Gregory Goodloe, and now is the night of his despair, but his
morning will dawn. You can't dance down and drink down and gamble down
and lust down a man like that. He can bide his time until his sheep come
to the fold to be fed and warmed in his bosom."
"What practical thing can I do to make you believe that I do not mean to
pull down any structure that another human is building up with the hope
it is for the good of the whole, Mother Spurlock?" I demanded of her,
goaded to the last point of endurance.
"The dedication services of the chapel will be next Sunday. Come, bring
Nickols and your father, and let the Town and Settlement see your
respect for Mr. Goodloe and for his church," she demanded, as she rose
to go, with patient defeat but a lingering hope in her voice and manner.
"Endorse something that means nothing to me?" I asked with pained
patience. "You say the people follow me; shall I lead them to drink from
a spring that I consider dry, that is dry and has no water for my
thirst? No, Mother Spurlock, if the people among whom I have been born
trust me I will only lead them by going into paths I know and in which I
walk for my own good or pleasure."
"To the Last Chance?"
"At least they get joy there that makes toil easier or offsets the
grind," I answered her.
"Is that your final--" she was asking me with her deep, wise old eyes
searching me, when she was interrupted by the banging open of my door
and the inburst of young Charlotte, young James as ever at her heels,
with Sue clinging to his hand. To-day, however, Charlotte had added one
to her cohorts, for she led by the hand a very dirty specimen of the
masculine gender, somewhat larger than herself and with a flaming red
head.
"This is Mikey Burns, Aunt Charlotte, and he's a nice little boy that's
dirty and hungry because his mother has got seven like him. Won't you
wash him and feed him so we can play with him? The preacher cleaned up
four for us to play with yesterday and they are still clean enough. If
you clean Mikey I can have a baseball nine, with Sue to get the balls
that we don't hit. She gets balls nicely and Mikey throws lots
straighter than I can. Jimmy can hit 'em, too, with a wide stick."