"Bless de Lord, I'm pretty well, and granny's no wuss." I heard the
voice below my window just as the dawn of a bright summer day was
coloring the eastern horizon. Then another question was asked by the
cook below, as she threw open the shutters, but I could only hear old
Susan's reply: "No, I can't come in; I'm up so airly to look for wood
to bile the kittle. Granny'll be a-wantin' breakfast."
Soon after I saw the poor old woman bent almost double with the weight
of fagots on her back, and her check apron filled with chips and
corn-cobs from the wood-yard. I raised the sash, and called her:
"Aunt Susan, do come in! Flora will get your breakfast, and you can
take some home with you for granny," said I.
She lowered the bundle of fagots from her shoulders, and pushed back
the long gingham sun-bonnet, as she looked up at my window.
"Bless yer heart, chile, but I couldn't--wouldn't!" She shook her head
very decidedly, and adjusted the red bandana turban which had been
crushed down by the sun-bonnet. "Ye see, me and granny ain't had fambly
prayers yit this morning. That's it; obliged to yer jes' the same."
I suggested that our Heavenly Father would not reject prayers that
were offered after breakfast. She looked up at me as I leaned from the
window to catch the glory of the sunrise, and said, with rather a touch
of sadness in her tone:
"No, chile, yer hadn't oughter think so. De Lord fust, an' everything
else afterwards. Ef ye eat, or ef ye drink, do it all to de glory of
God; but it tain't ter His glory ef yer please yerself fust. I'll be
round biemby; then we 'splain the matter together." And reloading her
tired shoulders, she tottered off under her burden.
This poor colored woman, bent down by her seventy years of sickness,
and poverty, and hard work, and constant care, had a conscience so
tender that nothing could have induced her to partake of the proffered
meal before she had offered up her morning prayer, lest the act might
seem like want of reverence and respect.
This was not an occasional spasmodic outburst of piety; she seemed
always anxious to talk about God, and, as she could not read herself,
to hear others read about Him. I never knew one who seemed to be in
such constant and close communion with God. In my visits among the
poor, I remember calling at her door one day, and being obliged to wait
some time after knocking, although I heard her voice within. I was
surprised that she should keep me waiting, for she had such a delicate
sense of the duties of hospitality that she was particularly careful
never to oblige a visitor to remain standing at her door. I soon
discovered that she was engaged in prayer; one greater than any earthly
guest was with her; it almost seemed as if she pleaded before one who
was visibly present. She waited and wept, she urged, entreated, and
earnestly pleaded; then gradually her tone changed, and her voice rose
in prayer and loud hallelujahs, and then she was silent. I knocked once
more, and hastily now she threw open the door; the traces of tears were
still on her cheeks, and in her poor, dim eyes.
"Welcome, welcome!" she exclaimed: "come in. De Lord's bin wid me dis
day. Praise and bless His holy name. I'se had sich a blessed time."
Then she dusted the only spare seat her poor room afforded, and placed
it so that as she seated herself upon her bed she should face me.
"Oh, chile!" she exclaimed; "de prayers dat's gone up from dis poor
shanty for you and de Sunday-school! Dey's gone right up from dis poor,
low, mean place, right up through dis old roof, straight up to de great
white throne!" And she clasped her hands and looked up as if she saw
the vision beyond. "God's holy angels has heard 'em, Jesus's listened
to 'em, and God's treasured 'em up, and dey'll come down in blessin's
when old Susan's dead and gone. When I gits rid of dis mis'able, sickly
body, and rises up to where my prayer's gone before me, oh, how I'll
sing wid de holy angels, praise de Lord, praise de Lord!"
She used to go off in these rhapsodies frequently; she had dull prosaic
neighbors, who never got excited over praise or anything else, and
they used to say that old Susan was crazy when she prayed. In alluding
to this she once told me, smiling, that she was going to ask the Lord
to make them crazy in prayer. She thought a little more earnestness
on the subject would be an improvement. Her faith was so strong that
it seemed to have an element of sublimity in it; it was grand! The
extreme poverty in which she lived, and her reliance upon others for
every comfort in life, made her realize her dependence upon our Father
in heaven more strongly than those who live in ease and luxury. She
has often said to me, "I am poor and sick, broken down with hard work,
crooked and bent with rheumatism, my wrists are so weak, and my
fingers so stiff, that I can hardly pick up chips; boys often laugh
at me in the street, because when I bend down I cannot always get up
again; sometimes my fire goes out, and I have nothing to eat until the
Lord sends some kind friend with food. But bless the Lord I am going
home. The Lord is my Father, and in my Father's house there is plenty;
more than enough. Oh, when I get home! Dear Lord, dear Lord! When I
shall reach my home, I shall forget all the troubles I have had in this
poor shanty." Looking at her in her poor room, I have often thought
that if possible, heaven would seem more glorious to her, coming out
of distress and misery, sickness and want, darkness and cold, into the
full blaze of heavenly light.
She was very grateful to those who paid her rent. Of one lady in
particular, she often spoke to me with great affection. She said to me
once, naming this lady: "She is to be paid back every cent." It was
spoken with so much earnestness that I involuntarily looked around
as if I expected to see some one standing there with the money. She
smiled, and told me she had been reminding God of His promise to pay
her debts.
I once called on passing, to leave some dinner for her, she met me at
the door, and insisted on my coming in. "I know'd you was a comin',"
she said, "for I had nothin' t'eat, and I prayed de Lord ter send me
somethin'."
"Well," I replied, "He has heard your prayer, and has sent this to you."
She placed the dish on her stove to keep warm, and then she began to
talk of prayer. "I does pray fur you," she said, "and fur Mr. and Mrs.
L., and Miss C. I prays fur all de world, but the Lord lets us choose
out those who's good to us, and pray fur them most of all. Mr. L. has
been so good, so good to me, never gettin' tired of being good to me,
oh, I do pray fur him!" She paused, and sat thinking a moment, and then
added: "When Aunt Susan stops a prayin', she'll be cold and dead."
"Aunt Susan" was by no means a gloomy Christian, she had a sense of
humor, and was often very quick-witted in reply.
During those terrible riots in New York, in which so many of her race
fell victims to the mob, she fled to her white friends for protection.
Some time after this, when she was speaking of her faith and her trust
in the Lord, an Irish Roman Catholic taunted her with having failed
to trust in the Lord at that time. Her reply was very characteristic.
"Did you ever read in the Old Testament of a man named Lot?" she asked.
"Well, Lot showed his faith by running away, and so did Aunt Susan!" In
relating to me this story, she laughed very heartily, and concluded by
saying: "Yer see as I understan's it, Lot showed his faith by leavin'
his home and flyin' accordin' to the command of der Lord, and Aunt
Susan did jes de same, fur I showed my faith by usin' de means de Lord
hed appinted, and not temptin' de Lord by stayin' behind. Jes so."
Old Susan's "family" consisted of her aged mother, at that time in her
hundred and first year, her dog Prince, her cat Tom, her hen Toby; a
more aged and decrepit family were surely never before gathered under
one roof. If I had been told that old Dinah's age was a hundred and
twenty, from appearances I should have been inclined to believe it.
Smoking was the sole recreation which years had left her. Susan would
fill her pipe at intervals during the day, and after using it, Dinah
would sit gazing vacantly around her until it was refilled and placed
in her hand. The dog, proportionately to canine years, had reached an
equally advanced age with his mistress, and his scabby back gave him
the appearance of having been eaten by moth. The cat and the hen had
reached a greater age than the time usually allotted to their species;
each would sit for hours perfectly motionless on the door-step, as if
musing on the singing and exhorting they were constantly hearing within
the house from their old mistress. Susan was very fond of animals, and
seemed to have a curious power in taming and controlling them. I once
told her, that had she lived earlier, she might have been taken up for
a witch, with Tom and Toby as her familiar spirits.
Old Susan's faith led her to believe that she could see the hand of God
in even the most trifling events of life, and that, as He was leading
her, and teaching her through these means, she should be ever on the
watch, so as not to lose the lessons His providence set in her way.
She came to me one day with the utmost gravity, to tell me of a lesson
in resignation. This pet dog, through some inadvertence, had eaten a
portion prepared for rats; her tender heart was much troubled by the
suffering so carelessly inflicted. Just before extinguishing her light
at night, she turned to Dinah and--to let her tell her own story, as
she told it to me: "Sez I, granny, look yer last on poor Prince, fur
you'll never see him alive no more. Then it kinder struck me that I
wasn't resigned, so I kneels down, and sez I, 'O dear Lord, he's bin
a faithful dog to me. He's watched over my things many a day when I
was out a beggin' for daily bread; he's bin very faithful, but I gin
him up to de Lord. If de Lord says his time's out, I gin him up. I's
resigned.' Next mornin' I opens de winders, an' behold, dere's Prince,
jis as well as ever! Sez I, granny, de Lord has gin him back to me. He
was jis a tryin' my faith! His will is the best fur us all, ye mus larn
dat, granny, dat's the lesson from dis providence."
Old Susan still lives, but her faculties seem gradually failing, while
life yet retains hold in her weak frame. She is helpless, poor, and
old. While earthly matters seem fading out of her memory, her thoughts
still cling to things above. In my last tract-distributing visit to her
room, I found her holding an open Testament, with the leaf folded down
at the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel. She cannot read, but
she sat pathetically looking at the text. As I entered, she exclaimed:
"Oh, read it, read it, for me!" It seemed as if her faith, so sorely
tried by her long waiting, and her earthly sufferings, was for a moment
wavering. As I slowly and distinctly read the words, "In my Father's
house are many mansions," etc., the glimmering rays rekindled, her
faith re-asserted itself. "Yes, yes!" she exclaimed, "I knew it was so,
I knew it was written somewhere there; now I remember it. I'll yet have
a home in my Father's house." As I looked at the poor, worn-out frame;
the weak, helpless hands; the wrinkled face, and the dim eyes, my faith
could see through these the glorious spirit that should one day arise
and take its upward flight towards the heavenly mansions.