mes, who was now living in St.
Johnsbury, Vermont, invited my sister Mary and me to spend the summer
with him, and Mary and I finally dug a grave for our little hatchet and
went East together with something of our old-time joy in each other's
society. We reached St. Johnsbury one Saturday, and within an hour of
our arrival learned that my brother had arranged for me to preach in a
local church the following day. That threatened to spoil the visit for
Mary and even to disinter the hatchet! At first she positively refused
to go to hear me, but after a few hours of reflection she announced
gloomily that if she did not go I would not have my hair arranged
properly or get my hat on straight. Moved by this conviction, she joined
the family parade to the church, and later, in the sacristy, she pulled
me about and pinned me up to her heart's content. Then, reluctantly, she
went into the church and heard me preach. She offered no tributes after
our return to the house, but her protests ceased from that time, and we
gave each other the love and understanding which had marked our girlhood
days. The change made me very happy; for Mary was the salt of the earth,
and next only to my longing for my mother, I had longed for her in the
years of our estrangement.

Every Sunday that summer I preached in or near St. Johnsbury, and toward
autumn we had a big meeting which the ministers of all the surrounding
churches attended. I was asked to preach the sermon--a high
compliment--and I chose that important day to make a mistake in quoting
a passage from Scripture. I asked, "Can the Ethiopian change his spots
or the leopard his skin?" I realized at once that I had transposed the
words, and no doubt a look of horror dawned in my eyes; but I went on
without correcting myself and without the slightest pause. Later, one of
the ministers congratulated me on this presence of mind.

"If you had corrected yourself," he said, "all the young people would
have been giggling yet over the spotted nigger. Keep to your rule of
going right ahead!"

At the end of the summer the various churches in which I had preached
gave me a beautiful gold watch and one hundred dollars in money, and
with an exceedingly light heart I went back to college to begin my
second year of work.

From that time life was less complex. I had enough temperance-work and
preaching in the country school-houses and churches to pay my college
expenses, and, now that my financial anxieti