Cousin Maude

Neither does John forget the absent ones, but in the garden, in the

barn, in the fields, and the woodshed chamber, he prays in his

mongrel dialect that He who holds the wind in the hollow of His hand

will give to the treacherous deep charge concerning the precious

freight it bears. He does not say it in those words, but his

untutored language, coming from a pure heart, is heard by the Most

High.

And so the breeze blows gently o'er the bark thus followed by

black John's prayers--the skies look brightly down upon it--the blue

waves ripple at its side, until at last it sails into its destined

port; and when the apple-blossoms are dropping from the trees, and

old Hannah lays upon the grass to bleach the fanciful white bed-

spread which her own hands have knit for Maude, there comes a letter

to the lonely household, telling them that the feet of those they

love have reached the shores of the Old World.