old me all
about the man that painted 'The Angelus,' how poor he was, and how
folks laughed at his pictures, and wouldn't buy 'em because he painted
things jest as they was, plain and natural. She said her picture was a
copy of the one he painted, and when she saw how much I liked it, she
says, 'Grandma, I'm goin' to get you a copy of "The Angelus,"' and I
says, 'No, child, I ain't one o' the kind that has to have a picture
o' the folks and the things they love. I've got that picture right in
my old brain, and all I have to do to see it is jest to shut my eyes
and it'll come--the sunset and the field and the two people prayin'
and the bell,--I'll hear that, too, ringin' jest like the old bell
that used to ring in Goshen church.' Every day I'd go into the parlor
at Henrietta's about the time the sun'd be goin' down, and I'd look
first at the sunset in the sky and then at the sunset in the picture,
and I couldn't tell which was the prettiest.

"Uncle Jim Matthews used to say that every church bell said, 'Get up,
get up, and go to church!' And in them days people minded the church
bell. But nowadays it looks like the only bells folks pays any
attention to is the breakfast-bell and the dinner-bell and the
supper-bell. And I've been thinkin', honey, what a blessed thing it
would be, if, all over the world, folks could hear a bell ringin' at
sundown and callin' on everybody to stop their work or their pleasure
and fold their hands for a minute and pray. Why, the prayers would go
up to heaven like the birds flyin' home to their nests, and jest think
how many wrong things would be stopped. If a murderer was liftin' his
hand, that bell would be like a voice from the sky, sayin', 'Thou
shalt not kill.' If a husband and wife was quarrelin', and they heard
the Angelus, and stopped to pray, why, maybe, after they'd prayed
they'd kiss and make up. Yes, child, the Angelus would do a heap o'
good. But if anybody's once looked at the picture, they won't need the
bell. I know I'll never see the sun settin' behind them knobs over
yonder that I won't think o' that picture, and whatever I'm doin' I'll
have to stop and fold my hands and bow my head, the same as I used to
do when Parson Page'd stand up in the old Goshen church and say, 'Let
us pray.'

"Here's a picture o' Henrietta's house, child. I knew I couldn't tell
folks about it so's they'd have any idea o' what it was, so I brought
this picture." And she handed me a photograph of one