, and
then dropped his head on her lap and wept in a still way. And the
sweet-eyed, weary Moravian mother laid her two hands upon his head and
prayed. And Wilhelmina knelt instinctively by the side of her brother.

[Illustration: THE MOTHER'S BLESSING.]

Perhaps there is no God. Or perhaps He is so great that our praying has
no effect. Perhaps this strong crying of our hearts to Him in our
extremity is no witness of his readiness to hear. Let him live in doubt
who can. Let me believe that the tender mother-heart and the loving
sister-heart in that little cabin _did_ reach up to the great Heart that
is over us all in Fatherly love, did find a real comfort for themselves,
and did bring a strength-giving and sanctifying something upon the head
of the young man, who straightway rose up refreshed, and departed out
into the night, leaving behind him mother and sister straining their
eyes after him in the blackness, and carrying with him thoughts and
memories, and--who shall doubt?--a genuine heavenly inspiration that
saved him in the trials in which we shall next meet him.

At two o'clock that night August Wehle stood upon the shore of the Ohio
in company with Andrew Anderson, the Backwoods Philosopher. Andrew waved
a fire-brand at the steamboat "Isaac Shelby," which was coming round the
bend. And the captain tapped his bell three times and stopped his
engines. Then the yawl took the two men aboard, and two days afterward
Andrew came back alone.

CHAPTER XX.

THE STEAM-DOCTOR.

To return to the house of Samuel Anderson.

Scarcely had August passed out the door when Mrs. Anderson fell into a
fit of hysterics, and declared that she was dying of heart-disease. Her
time had come at last! She was murdered! Murdered by her own daughter's
ingratitude and disobedience! Struck down in her own house! And what
grieved her most was that she should never live to see the end of
the world!

And indeed she seemed to be dying. Nothing is more frightful than a good
solid fit of hysterics. Cynthy Ann, inwardly condemning herself as she
always did, lifted the convulsed patient, who seemed to be anywhere in
her last ten breaths, and carried her, with Mr. Anderson's aid, down to
her room, and while Jonas saddled the horse, Mr. Anderson put on his hat
and prepared to go for the doctor.

"Samuel! O Sam-u-el! Oh-h-h-h-h!" cried Mrs. Anderson, with rising and
falling inflections that even patient Dr. Rush could never have
analyzed, lau