is
whitish eyes about, but nothing was there for him to see, for during
many years he had groped about in darkness. Once the property and
playmate of a favored child, he had been taught to read, and as the
years passed on, stubborn learning yielded to him, and along the
hill-sides he walked with the old prophets, with their poetic words
burning in his mind.

"Friends, close to me but somewhere off in the darkness," he said, "we
have come here to put this poor old piece of human clay in the cradle
that won't be rocked until the last day. In the years gone by, many a
time have we seen her, at the break of day, coming home from a bedside
where she had watched and nursed all night. When our spirits were low
for want of hope, she has sung us back into faith. When our blood leaped
to throw aside lowly ways and take up with the ways of sin, she told us
that she was going home to tell the Lord. No letter in the great Book
fastened itself on her poor mind, but in her soul the spirit of that
Book always had a home. My friends, here was a poor old creature who
never in all her long life had anything to hope for except a word of
gratitude for a kindness done. Many a time I read the Bible to her, and
though I made it the study of my long life, yet from what might seem the
darkness of her mind, there would sometimes flash a new light and fall
with bright explanation upon its pages." The old negro halted to wipe
his brow and Jim whispered to Jasper: "Is that learning or ignorance
inspired? I never heard many white men talk that way."

"I don't know what it is," Jasper replied. "But that old man, I have
hearn tell, went through a great school along with his young marster."

"It should not be in sorrow that we place her here," the preacher
continued. "With the simple minded and therefore the virtuous, she
accepted the gospel as a reality and not as a theory, and a gleaner in
the harvest field of promise, she takes to the Master her old hands full
of the wheat of faith, and her soul will enter upon its glorious reward.
Let us pray."

As they were returning from the grave a negro came up to Jasper and
said that he wished for a moment to speak to him. "Doan you reccernize
me?" he inquired, and Starbuck replied that he did not.

"W'y, sah, I's de generman whut de white man had tied ter de tree."

"Oh, yes, and also the gentleman that fell in love with my old rooster."

"Yas, sah, de se'f same."

"And now what can I do for you--put