she says: 'Why, he
behaved so nice, he made me feel right ashamed o' myself for actin' so
mean. He jest reached over and helped himself to everything he could
reach, and says he, "This dinner may not suit you, Brother Amos, but
it's plenty good for me, and jest the kind I'm used to at home." Says
he, "I'd rather eat a cold dinner any time than have a woman toilin'
over a hot stove for me."' And when he said that, Milly up and told
him why it was she didn't feel like gittin' a hot dinner, and why she
didn't sing in the voluntary; and when she'd got through, he says,
'Well, Sister Amos, if I'd been through all you have this mornin' and
then had to git up and give out such a hymn as "Welcome, sweet day o'
rest," I believe I'd be mad enough to pitch the hymn-book and the
Bible at the deacons and the elders.' And then he turns around to Sam,
and says he, 'Did you ever think, Brother Amos, that there ain't a
pleasure men enjoy that women don't have to suffer for it?' And Milly
said that made her feel meaner'n ever; and when supper-time come, she
lit the fire and got the best hot supper she could--fried chicken and
waffles and hot soda-biscuits and coffee and goodness knows what else.
Now wasn't that jest like a woman, to give in after she'd had her own
way for a while and could 'a' kept on havin' it? Abram used to say
that women and runaway horses was jest alike; the best way to manage
'em both was to give 'em the rein and let 'em go till they got tired,
and they'll always stop before they do any mischief. Milly said that
supper tickled Sam pretty near to death. Sam was always mighty proud
o' Milly's cookin'.
"So that's how we come to call that hymn Milly Amos' hymn, and as long
as Milly lived folks'd look at her and laugh whenever the preacher
give out 'Welcome, sweet day o' rest.'"
The story was over. Aunt Jane folded her hands, and we both
surrendered ourselves to happy silence. All the faint, sweet sounds
that break the stillness of a Sunday in the country came to our ears
in gentle symphony,--the lisp of the leaves, the chirp of young
chickens lost in the mazes of billowy grass, and the rustle of the
silver poplar that turned into a mass of molten silver whenever the
breeze touched it.
"When you've lived as long as I have, child," said Aunt Jane
presently, "you'll feel that you've lived in two worlds. A short life
don't see many changes, but in eighty years you can see old things
passin' away and new ones comin' o
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