William Elsey Connelley, historian and antiquarian, was born near Paintsville, Kentucky, March 15, 1855, the son of a soldier. At the age of seventeen he became a teacher in his native county of Johnson; and for the following ten years he continued in that work. John C. C. Mayo, the mountain millionaire, was one of his pupils. In April, 1881, Mr. Connelley went to Kansas; and two years later he was elected clerk of Wyandotte county, of which Kansas City, Kansas, is the county-seat. In 1888 he engaged in the lumber business in Missouri; and four years thereafter he surrendered that business in order to devote himself to his banking interests, which have hitherto required a considerable portion of his time. In 1905 Mr. Connelley wrote the call for the first meeting of the oil men of Kansas, which resulted in the organization of an association that began a crusade upon the Standard Oil Company, and which subsequently resulted in the dissolution of that corporation by the Supreme Court of the United States. This is set down here because Mr. Connelley is, perhaps, prouder of it than of of any other thing he has done. He is well-known by students of Western history, but, of course, his fame as a writer has not reached the general reader. He is a member of many historical societies and associations, including the American, Nebraska, Missouri, Ohio, and Kansas, of which he was president in 1912. Mr. Connelley has made extensive investigations into the language and history of several of the Indian tribes of Kansas, his vocabulary of the Wyandot tongue being the first one ever written. He has many original documents pertaining to the history of eastern Kentucky; and the future historian of that section of the state cannot proceed far without consulting his collection. The novelist of the mountains, John Fox, Jr., has sat at the feet of the historian and learned of his people. Mr. Connelley lives at Topeka, Kansas. A complete list of his works is: The Provisional Government of Nebraska Territory (Topeka, 1899); James Henry Lane, the Grim Chieftain of Kansas (Topeka, 1899); Wyandot Folk-Lore (Topeka, 1899); Kansas Territorial Governors (Topeka, 1900); John Brown—the Story of the Last of the Puritans (Topeka, 1900); The Life of John J. Ingalls (Kansas City, Missouri, 1903); Fifty Years in Kansas (Topeka, 1907); The Heckewelder Narrative (Cleveland, Ohio, 1907), being the narrative of John G. E. Heckewelder (1743-1823), concerning the mission of the United Brethren among the Delaware and Mohegan Indians from 1740 to the close of 1808, and the finest book ever issued by a Western publisher, originally selling for twenty dollars a copy, but now out of print and very scarce; Doniphan's Expedition (Topeka, 1907); The Ingalls of Kansas: a Character Study (Topeka, 1909); Quantrill and the Border Wars (Cedar Rapids, 1910), one of his best books; and Eastern Kentucky Papers (Cedar Rapids, 1910), "the founding of Harman's Station, with an account of the Indian Captivity of Mrs. Jennie Wiley." In 1911 Baker University conferred the honorary degree of A. M. upon him. For the last three years Mr. Connelley has been preparing a biography of Preston B. Plumb, United States Senator from Kansas for a generation, which will be published in 1913.
Bibliography. Who's Who in America (1912-1913); letters from Mr. Connelley to the writer.
KANSAS HISTORY
[From History as an Asset of the State (Topeka, Kansas, 1912)]
Kansas history is like that of no other State. The difference is fundamental—not a dissimilarity in historical annals. This fact has been long recognized. A quarter of a century ago Ware wrote that—
The south line of Kansas is the modified line between free soil and slave territory as those divisions existed down to the abolition of slavery. For almost half a century it was the policy of the Government to send here the remnants of the Indian tribes pushed west by our occupation of their country. The purpose in this was to make the Western prairies the Indian country of America and thus prevent its settlement until the slave-power was ready to utilize it for its peculiar institution. Many things occurred which had not been counted on, and the country was forced open before the South was ready to undertake its settlement. While the crisis was premature, the slave-power entered upon the contest with confidence. It had never lost a battle in its conflict with the free-soil portion of the Union, and it expected to win in Kansas. The struggle was between the two antagonistic predominant ideas developed in our westward expansion, and ended in a war which involved the entire nation and threatened the existence of the Union. Politically, Kansas was the rock about which the troubled waters surged for ten years. The Republican party grew largely out of the conditions and influence of Kansas. When hostilities began the Kansans enlisted in the armies of the Union in greater proportion to total population than did the people of any other State. Here the war was extremely bitter, and in some instances it became an effort for extermination. Kansas towns were sacked, and non-combatants were ruthlessly butchered. The border embraced at that time all the settled portion of the State, and it would be difficult indeed to make the people of this day comprehend what occurred here. Kansas was founded in and by a bloody struggle, which, within her bounds, continued for ten years. No other State ever fought so well. Kansas was for freedom. She won, and the glory of it is that the victory gave liberty to America. That is why we maintain that Kansas history stands alone in interest and importance in American annals.
The history of a State is a faithful account of the events of its formation and development. If the account is set out in sufficient detail there will be preserved the fine delineations of the emotions which moved the people. These emotions arise out of the experiences of the people. And the pioneers fix the lines of their experiences. They lay the pattern and mark out the way the State is to go, and this way can never be altered, and can, moreover, be but slightly modified for all time. These emotions produce ideals which become universal and the common aim of the State, and they wield a wonderful influence on its progress, growth, and achievement. A people devoid of ideals can scarcely be found, but ideals differ just as the experiences which produced the emotions from which they result differed. If there be no particular principle to be striven for in the founding of a State, then no ideals will appear, and such as exist among the people will be found to have come over the lines from other and older States. Or, if by chance any be developed they will be commonplace and ordinary, and will leave the people in lethargy and purposeless so far as the originality of the thought of the State is concerned. The ideals developed by a fierce struggle for great principles are lofty, sublime in their conception and intent. The higher the ideals, the greater the progress; the more eminent the achievement, the more marked the individuality, the stronger the characteristics of the people.
Charles Turner Dazey, author of In Old Kentucky, was born at Lima, Illinois, August 13, 1855, the son and grandson of Kentuckians. When a lad the future dramatist was brought to Kentucky for a visit at the home of his grandparents in Bourbon county, whom he was to visit again before returning to Kentucky, in 1872, to enter the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky University, where he studied for a year. In the fall of 1873 young Dazey matriculated in the Arts College of the University. Ill-health caused him to miss the following year, but he returned in 1875 and remained a student in the University until the summer of 1877. He was a member of the old Periclean Society, the society of James Lane Allen and John Fox, Jr., while at the University. When he left Lexington he lacked two years of graduation. Mr. Dazey later went to Harvard University, where he was one of the editors of the Harvard Advocate, and the poet of his class of 1881. While a Senior at Cambridge he had begun dramatic composition, and after leaving the University he became a full-fledged playwright. His plays include: An American King; That Girl from Texas—first called A Little Maverick—with Maggie Mitchell in the title-role; The War of Wealth; The Suburban; Home Folks; The Stranger, in which Wilton Lackaye played for two seasons; The Old Flute-Player; and Love Finds a Way. In collaboration with Oscar Weil Mr. Dazey wrote In Mexico, a comic opera, produced by The Bostonians; and with George Broadhurst he wrote two plays: An American Lord, with William H. Crane as the star; and The Captain, played by N. C. Goodwin.
The play by Mr. Dazey in which we are especially interested here, is, of course, In Old Kentucky, a drama in four acts, first written to order for Katie Putnam, a soubrette star, who was very popular a quarter of a century ago. She, however, did not consider the play suited to her, and it was then offered to several managers without success, until it was finally accepted by Jacob Litt. When first produced by Mr. Litt at St. Paul on August 4, 1892, it had a most distinguished cast: Julia Arthur, the beautiful, appeared as Barbara Holton; Louis James as Col. Doolittle; Frank Losee as Joe Lorey; and Marion Elmore made a most alluring Madge Brierly. This was only a trial production, and the play went into the store-house for a year, when, in August, 1893, it began its first annual tour at the Bijou Theatre (now the Lyceum), at Pittsburgh. In that first regular company Bettina Gerard played Madge; Burt Clark, Col. Doolittle; George Deyo, Joe Lorey; William McVey, Horace Holton; Harrison J. Wolfe, Frank Layson; Charles K. French, Uncle Neb; Edith Athelston, Barbara; and Lottie Winnett was Aunt Alathea. Mr. Litt and his associate, A. W. Dingwall, have always mounted In Old Kentucky handsomely, and this has been an important element in its great success. For twenty years this drama of the bluegrass and the mountains has held the boards, more than seven million people have seen it, and even to-day it is being produced almost daily with no signs of loss in popular interest. It is the only play Mr. Dazey has written with a Kentucky background, and it would be "a hazard of new fortunes" for him to attempt to do so; he could hardly improve upon his masterpiece. In 1897 Mr. Litt had a small edition of In Old Kentucky privately printed from the prompt-books; and in 1910 Mr. Dazey collaborated with Edward Marshall in a novelization of the play, which was published as an attractive romance by the G. W. Dillingham Company, of New York. With Mr. Marshall he also novelized The Old Flute-Player (New York, 1910). Mr. Dazey has recently dramatized Fran, John Breckinridge Ellis's popular novel; and at the present time he is engaged upon a new play, which he thinks, promises better than anything he has so far written. Mr. Dazey was in Kentucky several times between 1877 and 1898, the date of his most recent visit, at which time he found John Fox, Jr., giving one of his inevitable readings in Lexington, and James Lane Allen looking for the last time, mayhap, upon the scenes of his books. He spent several weeks with friends and relatives near Paris; and, like all good Kentuckians, he "hopes to revisit the dear old state in the near future." Mr. Dazey has an attractive home at Quincy, Illinois.
Bibliography. Who's Who in the Theatre, by John Porter (Boston, 1912); letters from Mr. Dazey to the writer.
THE FAMOUS KNOT-HOLE[12]
[From In Old Kentucky (1897)]
Act III, Scene IV. The exterior of the race-track. Fence, tree, etc.
Colonel. (Enter L.) I didn't go in. I kept my word, though it nearly finished me. (Shouts heard.) They're bringing out the horses. (Looks through knot-hole.) I can't see worth a cent. It's not hole enough for me. To Hades with dignity! I'll inspect that tree. (Goes to tree; puts arm around it.)
[Enter Alathea, R.]
Alathea. (Pauses, R. C.) Everyone's at the races. I'm perfectly safe. There is that blessed knot-hole. (Goes to hole; looks through.)
Col. (Comes from behind tree; sees Alathea.) A woman, by all that's wonderful—a woman at my knot-hole. (Approaches.) Madam! (Lays hand on her shoulder.)
Alathea. (Indignantly.) Sir! (Turns.) Col. Sundusky Doolittle!
Col. Miss Alathea Layson! (Bus. bows.)
Alathea. Colonel, what are you all doing here?
Col. Madam, what are you all doing here?
Alathea. Colonel, I couldn't wait to hear the result.
Col. No more could I.
Alathea. But I didn't enter the race-track.
Col. I was equally firm.
Alathea. Neb. told me of the knot-hole.
Col. The rascal, he told me, too!
Alathea. Colonel, we must forgive each other. If you really must look, there is the knot-hole.
Col. No, Miss Lethe, I resign the knot-hole to you. I shall climb the tree.
Alathea. (As Colonel climbs tree.) Be careful, Colonel, don't break your neck, but get where you can see.
Col. (Up tree.) Ah, what a gallant sight! There's Catalpa, Evangeline—and there's Queen Bess! (Shouts heard.)
Alathea. What's that? (To tree.)
Col. A false start. They'll make it this time. (Shouts heard.) They're off—off! Oh, what a splendid start!
Alathea. Who's ahead? Who's ahead? (To tree.)
Col. Catalpa sets the pace, the others lying well back.
Alathea. Why doesn't Queen Bess come to the front? Oh, if I were only on that mare. (Back to fence.)
Col. At the half, Evangeline takes the lead—Catalpa next—the rest bunched. Oh, great heavens!—(Lethe to tree.)—there's a foul—a jam—and Queen Bess is left behind ten lengths! She hasn't the ghost of a show! Look! (Lethe back to tree.) She's at it again. But she can't make it up. It's beyond anything mortal. And yet she's gaining—gaining!
Alathea. (Bus.) Keep it up—keep it up!
Col. At the three quarters; she's only five lengths behind the leader, and gaining still!
Alathea. (Bus.) Oh, push!—push!—I can't stand it! I've got to see! (Climbs tree.)
Col. Coming up, Miss Lethe! All right, don't break your neck, but get where you can see. In the stretch. Her head's at Catalpa's crupper—now her saddle-bow, but she can't gain another inch! But look—look! she lifts her—and, Great Scott! she wins!
(As he speaks, flats forming fence are drawn. Horses dash past, Queen Bess in the lead. Drop at back shows grand stand, with fence in front of same. Spectators back of fence. Neb. and Frank. Band playing "Dixie." Holton standing near, chagrined. Col. waves hat and Alathea handkerchief, in tree. Spectators shout.)
(For second curtain, Madge returns on Queen Bess. Col. and Alathea down from tree and passing near. Other horses enter as curtain falls.)
[Curtain]
John Phelps Fruit, the distinguished Poe scholar, was born at Pembroke, Kentucky, November 22, 1855. He was graduated from Bethel College, Russellville, Kentucky, in 1878, after which he became a teacher. For two years Professor Fruit was president of Liberty College, Glasgow, Kentucky; and from 1883 to 1897 he was professor of English in his alma mater, Bethel College. In 1895 the University of Leipzig granted him the Ph. D. degree; and three years later he was elected to the chair of English in William Jewell College, Liberty, Missouri, which he still occupies. Dr. Fruit's first work was an edition of Milton's Lycidas (Boston, 1894), and this was followed by his edition of Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner (Boston, 1899). Both of these little volumes have been used in many schools and colleges. Dr. Fruit devoted many years to the study of Edgar Allan Poe and his works, and his researches he brought together in The Mind and Art of Poe's Poetry (New York, 1899). This book gave Dr. Fruit a foremost place among the Poe scholars of his time. His work was officially recognized by the University of Virginia, the poet's college, and it has been widely and cordially reviewed. At the present time Dr. Fruit is engaged in a comprehensive study of Nathaniel Hawthorne, his pamphlet, entitled Hawthorne's Immitigable (Louisville, Kentucky, n. d.), having attracted a deal of attention.
Bibliography. Who's Who in America (1912-1913); letters from Prof. Fruit to the writer.
THE CLIMAX OF POE'S POETRY[13]
[From The Mind and Art of Poe's Poetry (New York, 1899)]
Accustomed as we are, from infancy up, to so much "rhyme without reason," in our nursery jingles and melodies, we associate some of Poe's poetry, remotely, at first blush, with the negroes singing "in the cotton and the corn." So much sound makes us suspicious of the sense, but a little closer ear appreciates delicate and telling onomatopoetic effects. Liquids and vowels join hands in sweetest fellowship to unite "the hidden soul of harmony."
As if, at last, to give the world assurance that he had been trifling with rhythm and rhyme, he wrote The Bells.
The secret of the charm resides in the humanizing of the tones of the bells. It is not personification, but the speaking in person to our souls. To appreciate this more full, observe how Ruskin humanizes the sky for us. "Sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, sometimes awful, never the same for two moments together; almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its tenderness, almost divine in its infinity, its appeal to what is immortal in us, is as distinct, as its ministry of chastisement or of blessing to what is mortal is essential."
Poe made so much of music in his doctrine of poetry, yet he never humanized the notes of a musical instrument....
He took the common bells,—the more praise for his artistic judgment,—and rang them through all the diapason of human sentiment.
If we have imagined a closer correspondence between expression and conception, in the previously considered poems, than really exists, there can be no doubt on that point, even to the mind of the wayfaring man, in reading The Bells.
If it be thought that the poet could harp on only one theme, let the variety of topic in The Bells protest.
Again, Poe's doctrine of "rhythm and rhyme" finds its amplest verification in The Bells. Reason and not "ecstatic intuition," led him to conclude that English versification is exceedingly simple; that "one-tenth of it, possibly, may be called ethereal; nine-tenths, however, appertain to the mathematics; and the whole is included within the limits of the commonest common-sense."
It must be believed that Poe appropriated, with the finest artistic discernment, the vitalizing power of rhythm and rhyme, and nowhere with more skill than in The Bells. It is the climax of his art on its technical side.
Read the poem and think back over the course of the development of poet's art-instincts.
Thomas Harrison Robertson, erstwhile poet and novelist, and now a well-known journalist, was born at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, January 16, 1856. He was educated at the University of Virginia, after which he settled at Louisville, Kentucky, as a newspaper man, verse-maker, and fictionist. Mr. Robertson has held almost every position on The Courier-Journal, being managing editor at the present time. He won his first fame with a Kentucky racing story, the best one ever written, entitled How the Derby Was Won, which was originally published in Scribner's Magazine for August, 1889. Ten years later his first long novel, If I Were a Man (New York, 1899), "the story of a New-Southerner," appeared, and it was followed by Red Blood and Blue (New York, 1900); The Inlander (New York, 1901); The Opponents (New York, 1902); and his most recent novel, The Pink Typhoon (New York, 1906), an automobile love story of slight merit. In the early eighties "T. H. Robertson" wrote some of the very cleverest verse, so-called society verse for the most part, that has ever been done by a Kentucky hand; but he soon abandoned "Thomas" and the Muse. The writer has always held that our literature lost a charming poet to win a feeble fictionist when Harrison Robertson changed literary steads, although his How the Derby Was Won must not be forgotten. Now, however, he has given up the literary life for the daily grind of a great newspaper; and he may never publish another poem or novel. More's the pity!
Bibliography. The Book Buyer (April, 1900; April, 1901); Scribner's Magazine (October, 1907); The Bookman (December, 1910).
TWO TRIOLETS[14]
[From A Vers de Socíeté Anthology, by Caroline Wells (New York, 1907)]
STORY OF THE GATE
[From the same]
Ingram Crockett, whom a group of critics have hailed as one of the most exquisite poets of Nature yet born in Kentucky, first saw the light at Henderson, Kentucky, February 10, 1856. His father, John W. Crockett, was a noted public speaker in his day and generation, and a member of the Confederate Congress from Kentucky. Ingram Crockett was educated in the schools of his native town, but he never went to college. For many years past Mr. Crockett has been cashier of the Planters State Bank, Henderson, but the jingle of the golden coins has not seared the spirit of song within his soul. In 1888 he began his literary career by editing, with the late Charles J. O'Malley, the Kentucky poet and critic, Ye Wassail Bowle, a pamphlet anthology of Kentucky poems and prose pieces. A small collection of Mr. Crockett's poems, entitled The Port of Pleasant Dreams (Henderson, 1892), was followed by a long poem, Rhoda, an Easter Idyl. The first large collection of his lyrics was Beneath Blue Skies and Gray (New York, 1898). This volume won the poet friends in all parts of the country, and proclaimed him a true interpreter of many-mooded Nature. A Year Book of Kentucky Woods and Fields (Buffalo, New York, 1901), a prose-poem, contains some excellent writing. A story of the Christiandelphians of western Kentucky, A Brother of Christ (New York, 1905), is Mr. Crockett's only novel, and it was not overly successful. The Magic of the Woods and Other Poems (Chicago, 1908), is his most recent volume of verse. "It contains poems as big as the world," one enthusiastic critic exclaimed, but it has not brought the author the larger recognition that he so richly deserves. This work surely contains Mr. Crockett's best work so far. One does not have to travel far in any direction in Kentucky in order to find many persons declaring that Ingram Crockett is the finest poet living in the state to-day. His latest book, The Greeting and Goodbye of the Birds (New York, 1912), is a small volume of prose-pastels, somewhat after the manner of his Year Book. It again reveals the author's close companionship with Nature, and his exquisite expression of what it all means to him.
Bibliography. Blades o' Blue Grass, by Fannie P. Dickey (Louisville, 1892); The Courier-Journal (August 3, 1912).
AUDUBON[15]
[From Beneath Blue Skies and Gray (New York, 1898)]
THE LONGING[16]
[From The Magic of the Woods and Other Poems (Chicago, 1908)]
DEAREST
[From the same]
Mrs. Eliza Calvert Obenchain, ("Eliza Calvert Hall"), creator of Aunt Jane of Kentucky, was born at Bowling Green, Kentucky, February 11, 1856; and she has lived in that little city all her life. Miss Calvert was educated in the private schools of her town, and then spent a year at "The Western," a woman's college near Cincinnati, Ohio. Her first poems appeared in the old Scribner's, when John G. Holland was the editor; and her first prose papers were published in Kate Field's Washington. She was married to Professor William A. Obenchain, of Ogden College, Bowling Green, on July 8, 1885, and four children have been born to them. Aunt Jane of Kentucky (Boston, 1907), the memories of an old lady done into short stories, opens with one of the best tales ever written by an American woman, entitled Sally Ann's Experience. This charming prose idyl first appeared in the Cosmopolitan Magazine, for July, 1898, since which time it has been cordially commended by former President Roosevelt, has been reprinted in Cosmopolitan, The Ladies' Home Journal, and many other magazines, read by many public speakers, and finally issued as a single book in an illustrated edition de luxe (Boston, 1910). Many of the other stories in Aunt Jane of Kentucky are very fine, but Sally Ann is far and away superior to any of them. Mrs. Obenchain's The Land of Long Ago (Boston, 1909), was another collection of Aunt Jane stories. To Love and to Cherish (Boston, 1911), is the author's first and latest novel. Upon these four volumes Mrs. Obenchain's fame rests secure, but Sally Ann's Experience will be read and enjoyed when her other books have been forgotten. She struck a universal truth in this little tale, and the world will not willingly let it die. Her most recent work is a A Book of Hand-Woven Coverlets (Boston, 1912), a large and delightful volume on coverlet collecting and the study of coverlet making.
Bibliography. Cosmopolitan Magazine (July, 1908); The Bookman (October, 1910).
"SWEET DAY OF REST"[17]
[From Aunt Jane of Kentucky (Boston, 1907)]
"I ricollect some fifty-odd years ago the town folks got to keepin' Sunday mighty strict. They hadn't had a preacher for a long time, and the church'd been takin' things easy, and finally they got a new preacher from down in Tennessee, and the first thing he did was to draw lines around 'em close and tight about keepin' Sunday. Some o' the members had been in the habit o' havin' their wood chopped on Sunday. Well, as soon as the new preacher come, he said that Sunday wood-choppin' had to cease amongst his church-members or he'd have 'em up before the session. I ricollect old Judge Morgan swore he'd have his wood chopped any day that suited him. And he had a load o' wood carried down cellar, and the nigger man chopped all day long in the cellar, and nobody ever would 'a' found it out, but pretty soon they got up a big revival that lasted three months and spread 'way out into the country, and bless your life, old Judge Morgan was one o' the first to be converted; and when he give in his experience, he told about the wood-choppin', and how he hoped to be forgiven for breakin' the Sabbath day.
"Well, of course us people out in the country wouldn't be outdone by the town folks, so Parson Page got up and preached on the Fourth Commandment and all about that pore man that was stoned to death for pickin' up a few sticks on the seventh day. And Sam Amos, he says after meetin' broke, says he, 'It's my opinion that that man was a industrious, enterprisin' feller that was probably pickin' up kindlin'-wood to make his wife a fire, and,' says he, 'if they wanted to stone anybody to death they better 'a' picked out some lazy, triflin' feller that didn't have energy enough to work Sunday or any other day.' Sam always would have his say, and nothin' pleased him better'n to talk back to the preachers and git the better of 'em in a argument. I ricollect us women talked that sermon over at the Mite Society, and Maria Petty says: 'I don't know but what it's a wrong thing to say, but it looks to me like that Commandment wasn't intended for anybody but them Israelites. It was mighty easy for them to keep the Sabbath day holy, but,' says she, 'the Lord don't rain down manna in my yard. And,' says she, 'men can stop plowin' and plantin' on Sunday, but they don't stop eatin', and as long as men have to eat on Sunday, women'll have to work.'
"And Sally Ann, she spoke up, and says she, 'That's so; and these very preachers that talk so much about keepin' the Sabbath day holy, they'll walk down out of their pulpits and set down at some woman's table and eat fried chicken and hot biscuits and corn bread and five or six kinds o' vegetables, and never think about the work it took to git the dinner, to say nothin' o' the dish-washin' to come after.'
"There's one thing, child, that I never told to anybody but Abram; I reckon it was wicked, and I ought to be ashamed to own it, but"—here her voice fell to a confessional key—"I never did like Sunday till I begun to git old. And the way Sunday used to be kept, it looks to me like anybody could 'a' been expected to like it but old folks and lazy folks. You see, I never was one o' these folks that's born tired. I loved to work. I never had need of any more rest than I got every night when I slept, and I woke up every mornin' ready for the day's work. I hear folks prayin' for rest and wishing' for rest, but, honey, all my prayer was, 'Lord, give me work, and strength enough to do it.' And when a person looks at all the things there is to be done in this world, they won't feel like restin' when they ain't tired.
"Abram used to say he believed I tried to make work for myself Sunday and every other day; and I ricollect I used to be right glad when any o' the neighbors'd git sick on Sunday and send for me to help nurse 'em. Nursing the sick was a work o' necessity, and mercy, too. And then, child, the Lord don't ever rest. The Bible says He rested on the seventh day when He got through makin' the world, and I reckon that was rest enough for Him. For, jest look; everything goes on Sundays jest the same as week-days. The grass grows, and the sun shines, and the wind blows and He does it all."