Neither does John forget the absent ones, but in the garden, in the
barn, in the fields, and the woodshed chamber, he prays in his
mongrel dialect that He who holds the wind in the hollow of His hand
will give to the treacherous deep charge concerning the precious
freight it bears. He does not say it in those words, but his
untutored language, coming from a pure heart, is heard by the Most
High.
And so the breeze blows gently o'er the bark thus followed by
black John's prayers--the skies look brightly down upon it--the blue
waves ripple at its side, until at last it sails into its destined
port; and when the apple-blossoms are dropping from the trees, and
old Hannah lays upon the grass to bleach the fanciful white bed-
spread which her own hands have knit for Maude, there comes a letter
to the lonely household, telling them that the feet of those they
love have reached the shores of the Old World.