Page:Honore Willsie--Judith of the godless valley.djvu/57

 swept the little assemblage; then Grandma, indignation still in her kind old voice, spoke once more.

"Can't any of you men that knew Oscar all his life say something comforting before you close his grave?" she urged. "Then I'll try to do it. I was brought up religious, myself." She lifted her serene old face to the evening sky. "O God, this man wandered far from You like all the rest of us here. But an old woman like me believes You're there and that you know Oscar hadn't a really bad hair in his head. Take his soul, Lord, and be as good to him as You can. I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord. He that believeth in me, even though he die, yet shall he have Eternal Life."

The tears were running down many cheeks when the old lady finished. Foolish old Johnny laughed, then he began to sing a hymn in which several of the women joined.

And so the earthly career of Oscar Jefferson ended.