290 I GO A-FISHING. 



them do live very near to heaven. As I thought this the 

 hymn was ended and a momentary silence ensued, and 

 then an old man with snowy hair rose feebly and spoke 

 in a broken voice. He said only this : That he had made 

 up his mind to live more and more with his eye fixed on 

 the glory to come. For, said he, " I am old and child- 

 less ; I have lived eighty-five, and going on to eighty-six 

 years. I am a great deal alone in the fields at my work, 

 and I think all the time of the glorious home which I 

 know I shall go to. Oh that home ! My old wife said to 

 me when she went away last year, ' It is a glorious home 

 we will have together there, and you will soon come to 

 me, and we shall be together forever !' " And the old 

 man's voice broke down entirely when he came to speak 

 of this his great loss, but even as his voice faltered I could 

 see a light in his old eye that told me he saw, right 

 through the window of the little church, over the lofty 

 summit of Lafayette, in the blue distance of that sky, the 

 glory of which he had spoken, and the home in which she 

 had promised to wait for him. Thank God they will be 

 young again together there, and neither the simple imag- 

 ination of the Franconia farmer nor the dweller all his life 

 in palaces can begin to picture the peace which will there 

 be after the storm of this life. And then, when the old 

 man ceased to speak and there was silence for a moment 

 in the little assembly, suddenly and very sweetly a wom- 

 an's voice, clear and pure and strong, floated over our 

 heads as she sang the refrain, " When I've been there ten 

 thousand years." I looked up and saw her face — that of 

 a Franconia girl, or young wife — clear-cut features, fair 

 complexion, with a speaking eye now fixed in an upward 

 look as she sang. She would be astonished doubtless if 

 she knew the fancy that possessed me at that moment, 



