The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 13

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER. 13

from a rapidly moving tongue and sped from full
and rapidly moving lips.

Such was Eunice, the Eunice of early childhood,
and you may place her age anywhere between the
twin numbers seven and eleven. Such was the
Eunice of the log cabin that nestled in the thicket
of moss-draped pines half-way up the slope of a
rock-ribbed hill. Such was the Eunice who lay wide-
eyed and scared and stared into the pitch darkness
of the cabin when the pines sighed and soughed and
moaned and shook their mantles of long gray moss
in the face of the howling gale that tore through
their gnarled branches and, in wild anger, overthrew
some ancient member of these forest kings who
dared defy its strength. Such was the Eunice whose
breath came thick and fast when the ancient
monarch yielded to the strength of the raging gale
and surrendered with a mighty crash that shook the
worm-eaten timbers of the hut she knew and loved
as home. Such was the Eunice who cringed and
drew the covers tight over her head when a lone owl
hooted at midnight, or the old hound lifted up his
voice and bayed at a high-riding, full-faced moon.

’T'was early one October morning that there
came riding over the hills the metallic sound of
a bell. Eunice stopped and listened, her hands rest-
ing upon the half-tied knot in the rope which she
was in the act of fastening to a short stake driven
into the ground; for it was her duty to take the
cow out to graze each morning. Grandma Nancy,
for so Eunice called her grandmother, with whom
she had lived from infancy, stopped washing the
breakfast dishes and came to the door to listen,
bringing with her a half-dried dish and the drying-
cloth. Grandpa Dan, Eunice’s grandfather, stopped
his work of putting grease on the axle of his worn-
out wagon and listened, standing with the grease-
cup in one hand and a grease-covered paddle in the
other. “Nancy,” called Grandpa Dan, “who’s
dead ?”

“Lawsy me, I don’t know,” answered Grandma
Nancy, wiping her brow with the dish-cloth,
“T ain’t heard o’ nobody bein’ sick, has you?”

“Naw, I ain’t,” said Grandpa Dan, scratching
his head with the greasy paddle he held in his hand,
“Jessen hit’s ol’? Deacon Simms, an’ I hears he’s
been powerful sick fo’ the’ pas’ sev’r’l days.”

“Him sick, an’ you ain’t said nary word *bout
t? me, t’ say nothin’ *bout you not gwine t’ see im ?”
Grandma Nancy chided, nodding her head and tap-
ping the door sill with the half-dried dish she had
brought from the hot water of the dishpan.

“Law me, I cl’ar forgot hit, ol’ oman,” replied

Grandpa Dan, setting to work on the axle once
more, for he had long ago learned the futility of
trying to excuse his negligence to his rotund wife.
“T ePar? —

“Grandma Nancy, Grandpa Dan, who’s dead”?
shouted Eunice as she came bounding up the path.
“T hear th’ bell ringin’, an’ I knows somebody’s
boun’ t? be dead. Is you gonna take me, Grandpa
Dan, will I git t? ride in th’ new buggy b’fo’
Sunday?” the girl fairly bubbled as she danced
around an old stump.

“Dan,” said Grandma Nancy, with all the solem-
nity at her command, “you jes’ saddle ol’ Mag an’
ride out an’ find out who’s dead.”

“Grandma Nancy,” called Eunice as she ran

Dr. H. Nau,
President of Immanuel College, Greensboro, N.C.

towards the cabin, “can I wear my new shoes ¢’
th’ buryin’ an’ my white ribbon on my hair?”

“@? “long, chile,” Grandma Nancy replied, turn-
ing to her unfinished task of drying the breakfast
dishes. ‘“G’ *long, an’ see how many eggs you kin
fin’; for my baccy is *most out, an’ I wants you
? run down t’ th’ sto’ for some.”

An hour later Grandpa Dan returned, bearing
a strange message. The ringing bell had not an-
nounced a death, but the opening of a new school
by a new denomination with a strange-sounding and
unpronounceable name. “An’, ol’ ’oman, jes’
think,” Grandpa Dan cried as he knocked the ashes
from his clay pipe, “they runs their school seven
months an’ don’t cha’ge you but a dollar! Did you
evr hear tell o’ sich doin’s?”

“Dan, is you done gone plumb crazy in th’
head?” Grandma Nancy questioned as she blew the