ght, and in the morning prayers,
and readin' from the Bible, which Uncle Lemuel carried on, grandpa
standin' back for him. And I came in for a lot of talk about bein' a
good boy and man and never touchin' liquor or tobacco, or dancin' or
goin' to bad theaters and such like. And Uncle Lemuel talked to me about
this treasure huntin', for he'd heard it somehow. And he said to me to
lay up treasure in heaven where moths don't come nor thieves; and he
said that riches was nothin' because they could be lost so easy; but if
a man improved his character and learnt things, he couldn't lose 'em,
and no one could take your knowledge away from you, and you couldn't
lose it. And onct, while he was talkin' this away, he was tryin' to
remember the place in the Bible where there was a text he wanted to say
to me, and he couldn't remember the place; and he asked grandpa where it
was and grandpa couldn't remember, for you see grandpa was pretty old.
Grandpa had been kind of dozin' while Uncle Lemuel was talkin' to me,
but he woke up when Uncle Lemuel asked him where that text was and when
grandpa couldn't remember, he says to Uncle Lemuel: "I can't remember
like I used to, Lemuel, and a lot of it has gone out of my mind, which I
remember when somebody says it to me, maybe, but except for that, it's
gone. And sometimes I don't know folks that I've known always, and I
forget my specs, and leave my bank book in the wrong place, and make
mistakes adding up figures; for you see, as the good book says, things
change with us, the grinders become fewer, we lose our teeth; those that
looks out of the window are darkened, and we have to get stronger specs;
and the truth is we become children again, and if we had to live our
life over from that point, we'd have to learn a lot of things over
again, if not everything." And Uncle Lemuel said it was true, and for
that reason it proved God's mercy and love to take people to 'im when
they got this a way and not let 'em go on forever stumbling about in
this sad world.

Well, so it would be after a few days that Uncle Lemuel and Aunt Melissa
would have to go; for they always had important things to do in teaching
religion; and Uncle Lemuel had to lecture, and this time they was goin'
as far east as Ohio. And after singin' "God be with us till we Meet
Again" and prayers and everybody cryin' but grandma, they got ready to
go. Grandpa come up with the carriage and the white horses and grandma
was in the kitch