"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 superstitions had been carefully educated. Therefore, when a more analytical 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 God?"
"Will you promise to read it if I will give you one?"
"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."