everybody a'most
somewhere, and nobody to hum! It ain't much like the cake Silvy made last
week--she's crazier than ever--'Where's the raisins, Silvy?' says I--I
always make it chock full of 'em, and there wasn't one,--'Oh,' says
Silvy, 'I mixed 'em up so thorough you can't a hardly find 'em.' 'I guess
that's jest about the way the Lord put the idees into your head, Silvy,'
says I. 'Bless the Lord!' says that poor fool, as slow and solemn as a
minister."

"We've been a singing" interposed Grandma Keeler in a voice that
contrasted with Emily's, like the flow of a great calm river with the
impatient fall of a cataract. "It seems a' most as though I'd been in
Heaven. They was jest a singin'--'The Light of the World is Jesus,' I
shall never forgit, when I was down to camp-meetin' to Marthy's Vin'yard
a good while ago--there was a little blind boy stood up on a bench and
sung it all alone; and it made me cry to see him standin' there with his
poor little white face, and eyes that couldn't see a' one of all the
faces lookin' up to him, a singin' that out as bold and free, and he did
pronounce the words so beautiful so as everybody could hear--I can hear
him a singin' of it out, now--'The Light of the World is Jesus.' And I
suppose we git to thinkin' that the light's in our eyes, maybe, or the
light's in the sun, or the light's in the lamp, maybe. But you might put
out my eyes,"--said Grandma Keeler, closing her eyes as she spoke, and
looking very peaceful and happy--"and you might put out the sun, and you
might put out the lamp, and say--'Thar', Almiry's all in the dark room,
she can't see nothin' now'--but the Light of the World 'ud be thar jest
the same, you couldn't put out the light--'The Light of the World is
Jesus.'"

"Oh, I didn't know ye was havin' a meetin'," said Emily Gaskell,
mockingly.

"No more we ain't, Emily," said Grandma Keeler. "We was jest cheerin'
ourselves up a little, singin' about home. Come you, now, and sing with
us":

"We're goin' home,
No more to roam."

With eyes still closed, with head thrown back, and a heavenly serene
expression on her face, Grandma began the refrain, while Madeline struck
the chords on the melodeon, and the singers took up the words with a
hearty cheer:--

"We're goin' home,
No more to roam,
No more to sin and sorrow;
No more to wear
The brow of care,
We're goin' home to-morrow."

Then the chorus, "We're going home,