"Your loving mother,
ELIZABETH BRADY."
There was no date nor address to the letter, but an address had been
pencilled on the outside in her mother's cramped school-girl hand. It was
dim but still readable, "Mrs. Elizabeth Brady, 18---- Flora Street,
Philadelphia."
Elizabeth studied the last word, then drew out the envelope again, and
looked at that. Yes, the two names were the same. How wonderful! Perhaps
she would sometime, sometime, see him again, though of course he belonged
to the lady. But perhaps, if she went to school and learned very fast, she
might sometime meet him at church--he went to church, she was sure--and
then he might smile, and not be ashamed of his friend who had saved his
life. Saved his life! Nonsense! She had not done much. He would not feel
any such ridiculous indebtedness to her when he got back to home and
friends and safety. He had saved her much more than she had saved him.
She put the papers all back in safety, and after having prepared her few
belongings for taking up the journey, she knelt down. She would say the
prayer before she went on. It might be that would keep the terrible
pursuers away.
She said it once, and then with eyes still closed she waited a moment.
Might she say it for him, who was gone away from her? Perhaps it would
help him, and keep him from falling from that terrible machine he was
riding on. Hitherto in her mind prayers had been only for the dead, but
now they seemed also to belong to all who were in danger or trouble. She
said the prayer over once more, slowly, then paused a moment, and added:
"Our Father, hide him from trouble. Hide George Trescott Benedict. And
hide me, please, too."
Then she mounted her horse, and went on her way.
It was a long and weary way. It reached over mountains and through
valleys, across winding, turbulent streams and broad rivers that had few
bridges. The rivers twice led her further south than she meant to go, in
her ignorance. She had always felt that Philadelphia was straight ahead
east, as straight as one could go to the heart of the sun.
Night after night she lay down in strange homes, some poorer and more
forlorn than others; and day after day she took up her lonely travel
again.
Gradually, as the days lengthened, and mountains piled themselves behind
her, and rivers stretched like barriers between, she grew less and less to
dread her pursuers, and more and more to look forward to the future. It
seemed so long a way! Would it never end?
Once she asked a man whether he knew where Philadelphia was. She had been
travelling then for weeks, and thought she must be almost there. But he
said "Philadelphia? O, Philadelphia is in the East. That's a long way off.
I saw a man once who came from there."