Trial and Triumph | Page 8

people went down to the mourner's bench and prayed
and then they would get up and shout and say they had religion, and
that was all she knew about it."
"You went to the wrong one when you went to your aunt 'Liza. And
what did you do after she told you?"
"Why, I went down in the garden and prayed and I got up and shouted,
but I didn't get any religion. I guess I didn't try right."
"I guess you didn't if I judge by your actions. When you get older you
will know more about it."
"But, grandma, Aunt 'Liza is older than I am, why don't she know?"
"Because she don't try; she's got her head too full of dress and dancing
and nonsense."
Grandmother Harcourt did not have very much faith in what she called
children's religion, and here was a human soul crying out in the
darkness; but she did not understand the cry, nor look for the
"perfecting of praise out of the mouths of babes and sucklings," not
discerning the emotions of that young spirit, she let the opportunity slip
for rightly impressing that young soul. She depended too much on the
church and too little on the training of the home. For while the church
can teach and the school instruct, the home is the place to train innocent
and impressible childhood for useful citizenship on earth and a hope of
holy companionship in heaven; and every Christian should strive to
have "her one of the provinces of God's kingdom," where she can plant
her strongest batteries against the ramparts of folly, sin and vice.
"Who else is coming, grandma?"

"Why, of course I must invite Mrs. Larkins; it would never do to leave
her out."
Annette shrugged her shoulders, a scowl came over her face and she
said:
"I hope she won't come."
"I expect she will and when she comes I want you to behave yourself
and don't roll up your eyes at her and giggle at her and make ugly
speeches. She told me that you made mouths at her yesterday, and that
when Mr. Ross was whipping his horse you said you knew some one
whom you wished was getting that beating, and she said that she just
believed you meant her. How was that, Annette? If I were like you I
would be all the time keeping this neighborhood in hot water."
Annette looked rather crestfallen and said, "I did make mouths at her
house as I came by, but I didn't know that she saw me."
"Yes she did, and you had better mind how you cut your cards with
her."
Annette finding the conversation was taking a rather disagreeable turn
suddenly remembered that she had something to do in the yard and
ceased to prolong the dialogue. If the truth must be confessed, Annette
was not a very earnest candidate for saintship, and annoying her next
door neighbor was one of her favorite amusements.
Grandma Harcourt lived in a secluded court, which was shut in on
every side but one from the main streets, and her environments were
not of the most pleasant and congenial kind. The neighbors, generally
speaking, belonged to neither the best nor worst class of colored people.
The court was too fully enclosed to be a thoroughfare of travel, but it
was a place in which women could sit at their doors and talk to one
another from each side of the court. Women who had no scruples about
drinking as much beer, and sometimes stronger drinks, as they could
absorb, and some of the men said that the women drank more than men,
and under the besotting influence of beer and even stronger drinks, a

fearful amount of gossiping, news-carrying and tattling went on, which
often resulted in quarrels and contentions, which, while it never
resulted in blood, sadly lowered the tone of social life. It was the arena
of wordy strife in which angry tongues were the only weapons of
warfare, and poor little Annette was fast learning their modes of battle.
But there was one thing against which grandmother Harcourt set her
face like flint, and that was sending children to saloons for beer, and
once she flamed out with righteous indignation when one of her
neighbors, in her absence, sent Annette to a saloon to buy her some
beer. She told her in emphatic terms she must never do so again, that
she wanted her girl to grow up a respectable woman, and that she ought
to be ashamed of herself, not only to be guzzling beer like a toper, but
to send anybody's child to a saloon to come in contact with the kind of
men who frequented such places, and that any women who sent their