"
I had been brought up to believe that a woman should not speak in meeting,
but I found myself talking, and I tried to tell the simple story of the
cross. After a while he said:--
"Boys, you don't half believe it, or you'd cry; you couldn't help it. Raise
me up. I'd like to tell it once."
So they raised him up, and, between his short breathing and coughing, he
told the story. He had to use the language he knew.
"Boys," he said, "you know how the water runs down the sluice-boxes and
carries off the dirt and leaves the gold behind. Well, the blood of that
Man she tells about went right over me just like that. It carried off about
everything; but it left enough for me to see Mamie, and to see the Man that
died for me. O boys, can't you love him?"
Some days after, there came a look into his face which told that the end
had come. I had to leave him, and I said, "What shall I say tonight, Jack?"
"Just good night," he said.
"What will you say to me when we meet again?"
"I'll say, 'Good morning,' over there."
The next morning the door was closed, and I found two men sitting silently
by a board stretched across two stools.
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