to come to him
while he did not choose to have them come. It would not be fair, indeed,
he thought it would be mean.

That evening, when we were saying the shorter catechism, the question,
"What are the decrees of God?" came to me, and after repeating the
answer, I asked father to explain it--not that I needed any explanation,
but that William might be enlightened; for I was anxious about his soul,
on account of his skepticism. Enlightened he could not be, and even to
father expressed his doubts and disapprobation. We renewed the
discussion when alone, and during all his life I labored with him; but
soon found the common refuge of orthodox minds, in feeling that those
especially loved by them will be made exceptions in the general
distribution of wrath due to unbelief.

One day I went with him to hunt the cow. We came to a wood just north of
the village, where the wind roared and shook the trees so that I was
quite awe-stricken; but he held my hand and assured me there was no
danger, until he suddenly drew me back, exclaiming:

"Oh see!" as a great tree came crashing down across the path before us,
and so near that it must have fallen on us if he had not seen it and
stepped back. Even then he refused to go home without the cow, and
taking up a daddy-long-legs, he inquired of it where she was, and
started in the direction indicated, when we were arrested by the voice
of Big Jane, who had come to search for us.

On reaching home, we found a new baby-sister, Elizabeth. Soon after her
birth, in April, 1821, father moved back to Pittsburg, and lived on
Sixth street, opposite Trinity Church, on property belonging to my
maternal grandfather. There was no church there at that time, but a
thickly peopled graveyard, which adjoined that of the First Presbyterian
Church, on the corner of Sixth and Wood. These were above the level of
the street, and were protected by a worm-fence that ran along the top of
a green bank on which we played and gathered flowers.

Grandmother took me sometimes to walk in these graveyards at night, and
there talked to me about God and heaven and the angels. I was
sufficiently interested in these, but especially longed to see the
ghosts, and often went to look for them. We had a bachelor uncle who
delighted in telling us tales of the supernatural, and he peopled these
graveyards with ghosts, in which I believed as implicitly as in the
Revelations made to John on the Isle of Patmos, which were my favor