"Notely!" called Uncle Benny, very sweetly and tremulously from the
bed. "Where is he? I led him to school."
Vesty had gone to the door, and leaned her head there, as if to press
back the unbearable anguish and pathos sweeping over her like a flood.
"Notely! Little Note! He was the handsomest of them all, but
sometimes he ran away. Notely! Little Note! come home with Uncle
Benny now; come home!"
"He will come," I said, going to him: "he will come home."
"Vesty! Where is she? I led her to school."
She tottered toward him and pressed her warm hands upon his, cold.
"And you," he said, trying to turn to me, lovingly, faintly, "you are
one of them. I will bring you home. Sing, Vesty; sing 'Sail away----'"
"'As Christ went down the Lonesome Road'"
Vesty's voice broke.
"Sing, little one," said Uncle Benny, covering his glad secrets again
with a sort of heavenly duplicity; "it 's all right--sing."
"'He left the crown and He took the cross--
Sail away to Galilee!
He left the crown and He took the cross--
Sail away to Galilee,
Sail away to Galilee!
* * * *
"'There 's a tree I see in Paradise----'"
"Sing, Vesty!"
"It 's the beautiful waiting Tree of Life--
Sail away to Galilee!
It 's the beautiful----'"
Uncle Benny hushed her with an awed motion of the hand, and a look
upward of unspeakable recognition--he, without doubt, seeing now,
beyond us blind.