wanted to hear something that really
happened, and not a made up story." This seemed to be an appeal to their
dignity, and they eyed her reflectively.

"How do you know it happened?" ventured the younger one.

Flossy gave a rapid and animated answer.

"There are about a hundred reasons why I know it; it would take me all
day to tell you half of them. But one is, that I read it in a book which
good men who know a great deal, and who have been studying all their
lives to find out about it, say they know is true; and I believe what
they tell me about Washington and Lincoln and other men whom I never
saw, so I ought to believe them when they tell me about this man."

"But there's _one_ thing you don't know. You don't know that he can cure
folks now, and he don't do it." This was spoken with a quiet
positiveness, and with the air that said, "_That_ can't be disputed, and
you know it can't."

Flossy hesitated just a moment; the glow on her face deepened and
spread. Then she answered in much the same tone that the boy had used:

"I know he _can_, and I have good reason for knowing. I'll tell you a
secret; you are the very first persons I have told about it, but he has
cured me. I have been sick all my life, when I came here to Chautauqua I
was sick. I could not do anything that I was made to do, and I kept
doing things all the time that were not meant for me to do, but he has
cured me."

The boys looked at her in absolute incredulous wonder.

"Was you sick in bed when you came?" ventured one of them at last.

"No; it is not that kind of sickness that I mean. That is when the body
is sick, the body that when the soul goes away looks like nothing but
marble, can not move, nor feel, nor speak; that isn't of much
consequence, you know, because we are sure that the soul will go away
from it after awhile. It is this soul of mine that is going to live
forever that was cured."

"How do you know it was?" came again from these wondering boys. Flossy
smiled a rare, bright smile that charmed them.

"If _yours_ had been cured you would not ask me that question," she
said; "you would _know_ how I know it. But I can't tell you how it is
don't you know there are some things that you are sure of that you can't
explain? You are sure you can think, aren't you? but how would you set
to work to explain to me that you are sure? The only way that you can
know how is by going to this doctor and getting cured; then you will
understand."