hearts
stirred to their depths. And then with prayers of thankfulness for our
deliverance, we went to sleep. And over on the little island, under the
shallow sands, the men who had fallen beside us lay with patient, folded
hands waiting beside the Arickaree waters till the last reveille shall
sound for them and they enter the kingdom of Eternal Peace.

CHAPTER XIX

A MAN'S BUSINESS

Mankind was my business; the common welfare was my business;
charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business;
the dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the
comprehensive ocean of my business.

--DICKENS.

Every little community has its customs peculiar to itself. With the
people of Springvale the general visiting-time was on Sunday between the
afternoon Sabbath-school and the evening service. The dishes that were
prepared on Saturday for the next day's supper excelled the warm Sunday
dinner.

We come to know the heart and soul of the folks that fill up a little
town, and when we get into the larger city we miss them oftener than we
have the courage to say. Unselfishness and integrity and stalwart
principles of right are not confined to the higher circles of society. A
man may be hungry for friends on the crest of his popularity; he may
long for the strong right hand of Christian fellowship in the centre of
a brotherhood of churchmen. Cam Gentry and his good wife are among those
whom in all my busy years of wide acquaintance with people of all ranks
I account as genuine stuff. They were only common clay, generous,
unselfish, clean of thought and act. Uneducated, with no high ideals,
they gauged their way by the golden rule, and made the most of their
time. A journey to Topeka was their "trip abroad"; beyond the
newspapers they read little except the Bible; and they built their faith
on the Presbyterian Church and the Republican party. But the cosy
lighted tavern on winter nights, and its clean, cool halls and
resting-places in the summer heat, are still a green spot in the memory
of many a traveller. Transients and regulars at the Cambridge House
delighted in this Sabbath evening spread.

"Land knows," Dollie Gentry used to declare, "if ever a body feels
lonesome it's on Sunday afternoon between Sunday-school and evenin'
service. Why, the blues can get you then, when they'd stan' no show ary
other day er hour in the week. An' it stan's to reason a man, er woman,
either, is