CHURCH OF SEA AND LAND

I was married young, and she was only a girl, and though she loved me
she could not forget the misery and hardships she went through. I never
hit her in my life, but I wouldn't support her: I'd rather support the
rumseller and his family, all for that cursed drink. And I didn't blame
her for being afraid to chance it again. "A burnt child dreads the
fire." I had made her life very hard, and she was afraid. She was glad
to know that I had given up drink, but doubted my remaining sober.
Finally she agreed to live with me again if I remained sober for three
years. I was put on probation--the Methodist way. Now I had been on the
level for fifteen months, and I had twenty-one months more to go. She
was strong-minded and would stick to her word, so I did not see how I
could take the job as sexton.

I told Mr. Irvine that was the way things stood and for him to get
some one else. He said, "Pretty slim chances, but we will pray about
it." He and I went up to Sixty-seventh Street, where Mrs. Ranney was
working as laundress, and after a little talk we came to the point. I
was a go-ahead man, and tried every way to get her to promise to come
down, but she wouldn't say yes. I'll never forget that night in the
laundry if I live a hundred years; she took no stock in me at all. I was
giving it up as a bad job; she wouldn't come, and that settled it. We
got up to go when Mr. Irvine asked if she would object to a word of
prayer. She said, "No," and we had a little prayer-meeting right there.
We bade Mrs. Ranney good-night and left.

The next night she came down and we showed her all over the church. The
sexton who had been living there hadn't kept the living apartments
clean, and she did not like them very much, but when she went away she
said, "If I only could be sure you would keep sober I would go with
you, but I can't depend on you. Fifteen months isn't long enough; you
will have to go three years. I don't think I'll come." I said, "That
settles it! But listen: whether you come or not, I am not going back to
the old life." The next day I received a telegram from Mary saying,

"COME UP FOR MY THINGS."

I jumped on a single truck, drove up to Sixty-seventh Street, and got
all my wife's things, trunks, band-boxes and everything, and it did not
take me long to get down to the church. Mary was already there, and I
took charge of the Church of the Sea and Land at Market and Henry
Streets, where I rem