CHAPTER XV.
His Courage and Fortitude under Misfortune.-Economy.-Division of Labor.-How the Dutchman happened to Saw Wood and Work the Garden.-Meetings at Mexico, New Mexico, St. Joseph.-Fifty Dollars for one Convert, One Dollar a Head for the Remainder.-Meeting in Batavia, Ill.-In Chicago.
As soon after our sale as was possible, we moved into a small house, and gathered our little all about us and set ourselves to arrange for future work.
Bro. Graham would like to know how the Doctor felt when he saw himself homeless and houseless and penniless, yea, a thousand times worse than penniless. I will tell you. He was brave and grand in his ruin. Death had twice broken up his home, and he was satisfied so long as mother, wife and child were spared. His daily prayer was that life, health and strength should be given him until he had paid the uttermost farthing.
I tried to be brave, while my heart was nearly breaking over our failure. It was not the pecuniary loss so much as the disruption of our family ties, and the parting from our girls and teachers. We both knew full well that years of labor, toil and self-denial were before us, before the debt could be cancelled, for it would take the whole of the year's salary he was then receiving to pay the interest on the debt he still owed.
Retrenchment and economy were the watchwords for years. We had a good cow, from whose milk and butter
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I realized enough to buy our groceries. Our chickens furnished us meat and eggs. We had no servant. I cooked and milked. The Doctor cut the wood and worked the garden-and it was well done.
The long May days grew longer and warmer, and the sun sent out brighter beams to warm up earth and air. One Monday morning early, when I opened the back door and saw a man sawing wood in the yard, I walked out to interview him, and learn who had been so kind as to send him to help the Doctor out. I said, "Good morning, sir." He said, with a stolid look, "Nichts Verstehe." "Who sent you here?" I asked. "Nichts Verstehe." I tried again. "This is a pleasant day." "Nichts Verstehe." I walked into the house, no wiser than I went out.
When I called the Doctor to breakfast I related my adventure. He was amused, and seemed grateful that he was relieved from the now really onerous burden. At twelve o'clock the man ate his dinner, and took down the Doctor's hoe and walked into the garden. When he left it at six o'clock, not a weed was visible. Every Monday, for a month, our Dutchman was there with his axe and hoe. He would saw wood enough in half a day to last all the week. One day the Doctor went out to the country, to be gone a week. After the Monday's work was finished, Chris presented me an order from the Doctor to pay him seventy-five cents for his day's work. I found out who hired the man. When the Doctor returned, I said nothing to him of my discovery until he asked me if I had learned who employed the Dutchman. He said he felt it poor economy to work in the hot sun half a day, and suffer three or four with headache. I agreed with him, and so the matter was settled.
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The brethren and friends were very good to him after our loss, and made his salary up to $1,800 that year. We had the pleasure of having our daughter and my niece with us that summer, which added to our sum of happiness.
During August the Doctor held meetings in Mexico, with thirty-five additions, and New London, thirty additions. He became very tired of going away from home and leaving me, and after our daughter and niece returned to school, we broke up housekeeping, sold our possessions, and became religious tramps, only coming home to fill his appointments twice a month in Palmyra.
In September, 1858, he held a meeting in St. Joseph, then the home of Bros. Lard and Wyatt. Bro. Lard was from home, but Bro. Wyatt assisted the Doctor by prayers and his beautiful singing. Bro. Lard was not preaching for the church, and I think Bro. Wyatt was the regular pastor.
Two interesting incidents occurred during the meeting. After the Doctor had been preaching several days, a brother came to him and said, "Bro. H., if you will convert my son and get him into the church, I will give you fifty dollars." The Doctor replied, "I will do my best, without your fifty dollars. Tell me his difficulty; I may be able to overcome it." The father said, "He has no bad habits; only get him to listen to you, and he will be convinced." The young man came, heard, was pleased, and continued to come until, to his father's great delight, he confessed Christ and became obedient to the faith. When the meeting closed, the brother came to bid the Doctor good-bye, and handed him the fifty dollars. The Doctor demurred, but the brother
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insisted. " You have saved my boy and myself hundreds of dollars he might have spent in folly; and, besides, here is one dollar a head for every other one who joined." There were twenty-seven additions in all.
Our church was small, and in an out-of-the-way place. The Doctor held his meeting in the court-house. It was not very accessible, being on a high hill, but still the house was crowded all the time.
Among his hearers, towards the last of the meeting, was a refined, cultivated lady, and she was a Methodist. Nearly every time she came she got angry at something the Doctor would say. At length she could contain her self no longer, and came around to Cousin Robert Boyd's, where we were staying, to tell Dr. Hopson what she thought of him. He laughed at her, telling her that he was preaching for her benefit, and that he would baptize her before the meeting closed. She was furious, and when Cousin Kitty Boyd asked her if they should call for her to go to church that night, she very sharply told her no. After she had gone, Cousin Kitty said to the Doctor, "Cousin Winthrop, you have really offended Mrs. D., and I am sorry." ' Never mind, Cousin Kitty; I will baptize her yet." Cousin Kitty was incredulous.
We went to church, and were hardly seated when Mrs. D. walked in rather defiantly and took a back seat, as much as to say, "You will see I am not afraid of being caught." The Doctor preached on Acts ii. 38. When the invitation was extended, Mrs. D. came hurriedly forward and gave the Doctor her hand. She could not speak and could hardly stand. Several followed. The Doctor took their confessions and asked them when
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they wished to be baptized. Some said next morning before church, but Mrs. D. said she would defer it until her husband, who was absent, returned home, but she was the first one at the water next morning and requested to be immersed first. She said she could not wait another day to put on Christ.
We returned home from St. Joseph, and spent the most of October in Palmyra. The 23d he commenced a meeting in Batavia, Ill., closing it November 3d, with fifteen additions. This was the last visit he paid to my relatives until after the war. From there he went to Chicago and held a meeting for the Monroe Street Church. He had twenty additions. We were the guests of Mr. Henry Honore, who, with his faithful Christian wife and family, have always been our warm friends. Bertha and Ida Honore, now Mrs. Potter Palmer, and Mrs. Col. Fred. Grant, were then in short dresses, and bright, beautiful school girls, and I never can think of then in any other way.
From Chicago we went to Lexington, Ky., where he held a meeting in December. At that meeting there were twenty-four additions. He held a meeting in the country while there, also, and had fourteen confessions. He had a number of calls to hold meetings in the State, but his engagement was out for Cincinnati. He went to Cincinnati early in January and began the meeting in Walnut and Eighth streets church, which in many respects was the meeting of his life. The history of it will be found further on in this book, described by Bro. R. M. Bishop, in whose hospitable home we remained six weeks. What a host he was !
While in Kentucky he made arrangements to return in 1860 and preach for the Lexington church. His appointments were out for several months' labor in Missouri, and we returned, as soon as the Cincinnati meeting closed, to fulfill his engagements and prepare for removal to Kentucky.
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