"No one can help me--not even G.o.d!"

"Say what you were going to," urged Carolina.

"Well, the child is bewitched. Every time there is a thunder-storm, or if I am even left alone with the baby, like to-day, when I let Aunt Tempy have her afternoon--there she is now!"

With a shriek of terror she pointed to the window, and Carolina looked just in time to see a dark face disappear from view. She ran to the door, but nothing could be seen. Not a sound could be heard.

"It is the voodoo!" whispered Flower. "That face always comes. Once I saw it in the room, bending over the cradle when the baby was asleep.

But I never can catch her. Aunt Tempy has seen her, so has Winfield.

She has cast an evil spirit over my baby."

"Her face looked kind--it even looked worried," thought Carolina to herself, but she said nothing to Flower. She only sat rocking the sleeping baby, wiping the tears which rolled down her cheeks at the sight of the mother's anguish.

"Flower," she said, suddenly, "did you ever see Gladys Yancey before Miss Sue took her North?"

"Heaps of times."

"Did you ever hear how she was cured?"

"Why, Moultrie told Winfield that it was a new kind of religion that did it, and Winfield just hollered and laughed."

"Well, if I could prove to you that your baby could be made to see, would you holler and laugh?"

"I reckon I wouldn't. I'd kiss your feet."

"The only trouble," murmured Carolina, half to herself, "is that you are a Roman Catholic. We do not like to interfere with them."

"I am not a Roman Catholic," said Flower. "The lady who brought me up, and whom I was taught to believe was my aunt, was a Catholic, but I never was baptized. I believe Father Hennessey knows who I am, and that, if he would, he could clear up the mystery of my birth and give me back my happiness. But he never will until I join his church. He told me so."

"Is he an old man?" asked Carolina.

"Oh, a very old man. He must be over eighty,"

A slight pause ensued. Then Carolina said: "Would you like to hear of this new religion?"

"If it will give my baby eyes, Cousin Carolina, how can you even stop to ask?"

"Oh, my dear, it is only because we are taught to go cautiously,--to be sure our help is wanted before we offer."

"Well, offer it to me. I want your help with all my soul!"

She rose from her corner and came and sat at Carolina's feet. Something of Carolina's sincerity, which always appealed to people, moved her to believe that Carolina could help her. Flower's mind, too, though it may sound like an anomaly, had been trained by her aunt's Catholicism to believe in signs and wonders, and her superst.i.tions had been carefully educated. Therefore, when a more a.n.a.lytical mind might have hesitated to believe that material help for a supposed hopeless affliction could come from religion, instead of from a knife or a drug, which even the most skeptical may see and handle and thus believe, Flower, by her very childishness, held up a receptive mind for the planting of the seed of an immortal truth.

The gravity of the situation caused Carolina a moment's wrestle with error. The burning eyes of the young mother fastened on Carolina's face with such agonizing belief,--the feeble flutterings of the sleeping baby in her arms terrified her for a brief second. Then she lifted her heart to the boundless source of supply for every human need, and in a moment she felt quieted and could begin.

"Flower," she said, "do you believe in G.o.d?"

"Of course I do."

"Did you ever read your Bible?"

"No."

"Have you one?"

"No."

"Will you promise to read it if I will give you one?"

"I will do whatever you want me to."

Carolina hesitated a moment.

"Will your husband object to your trying Christian Science with the baby?"

"I don't know--yes, I suppose he will. What shall we do?"

"What will he want to do when he first learns that the baby is blind?"

"I reckon he'll want to have Doctor Dodge see him."

"There is no objection to that. Then what will he do?"

"There isn't anything we can do just now, Cousin Carol. We have had a dreadful time even to live since we were married. And look what a shanty we live in! Not fit for a negro. And Winfield a La Grange! Of course, if the crops are better next year we might be able to take him away to consult some big doctor, but this winter we can't do anything at all."

"I don't know what to do," said Carolina. "You ought to get your husband's consent first."

"Well, what do you want me to do? Does your treatment commence right away?"

"It is already begun."

"Why, how? You haven't done anything that I could see. Do you pray?"

"Not to any virgin or saint, Flower."

"No, I know that Protestants pray to G.o.d. Is that what you want me to do?"

"I want you first to have a talk with Winfield and Moultrie--"

"Moultrie will help me!" interrupted Flower. "I'll ask him to talk to Winfield."

"Well, do that. Then if he says you may try it, I want you not to tell another soul, especially don't let Aunt Tempy or any of the negroes know a word about it. I want you to get up about twelve o'clock every night and light your candle, and put it where it shines directly in the baby's eyes. It can't hurt him. Then read the whole of the New Testament,--just as much every night as you can for one hour, believing that everything which was true of Jesus and His disciples then, can be and is true of His disciples on earth to-day, and that, if any one of us could ever be as pure and holy as He was, that we could do the one thing which is denied us yet,--that is, raise the dead! Will you?"

"Indeed, I will."

"Then every night I will treat your baby's eyes by mind-healing, which I will explain to you a little later. In the meantime, you watch very closely to see the first indication which Arthur's eyes give of the light's making him stir, for that will show that his darkness is lifting and that he is beginning to see."

Flower raised herself up and clung to Carolina's knees and buried her face in her dress, weeping bitterly.