p. 9 | ROB AN' JAMIE by Priscilla Ann Baker

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 16, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 36.

ROB AN' JAMIE.

By Priscilla Ann Baker

“What makes Mr. Baker call me mother?” Why, didn't I ever tell you about Robert an' James, our little boys? I didn't? Well, then, I will.

Dear me, it hain't shorely—yes, I do reckon it must be thirty-five year this comin' summer sense little Rob wus born. Why, he'd a ben in the prime of life, with a fambly growin' up 'roun' him, like as not, if he'd a lived.

How time does fly, for shore! But I can see him yit, a chubby, brown-eyed, wrigglin' little chap. Let's see, I guess, yes, Jamie come when he was three, with his blue eyes an' golden hair, an' when they wus seven an' four, you never see no sweeter little lads, I know you never.

That's their pictur over the mantel, there, took from a ambrotype, but it ain't half as pretty as they wus. An', sir, they jist knowed a lot. Little Rob begun his books at four, an' I never knowed when he learned Jamie his letters; an' we got 'em nice little books about animals an' sich, and took a child's paper fur 'em to read Sabbaths, an' Baker got a Noah's ark, an' they could ask more questions about all them animals an' birds than any one grown pusson could answer, workin' at it stiddy.

They learnt to say their prayers at night, an' mornin's, an' some psalms an' proverbs, an' “the blesseds.” They wus alwus willin' to listen to us when we read, an' tried to explain to them about Jesus when he was here, how he talked to the people that followed him, an' made the sick folks all well, an' laid his kind hand on the little children's heads. An' when I tole 'em about the bad people nailing him to the cross, an' his bein' put in the tomb, the little fellers had got to love him so fur his kindness to everybody, an' all his blessed words, that they sobbed like they wus clean heart-broke.

I remember it wus one winter night I tole 'em the first time about his death, when they had on their little white gowns, Jamie on my lap an' Rob on the big rug I'd braided, right in front of the fireplace. Pore little chaps, they had tender hearts, never would kill a cricket even. Not but what they had some bad ways, now an' then, bein' stubborn or flyin' mad for a minute; but they wus right most of the time, an' alwus anxious to ask forgiveness when they see they wus wrong, which is more than you kin say of lots of Christians, an', really, more than I've alwus lived out myself, an' Baker, tho' we come lots higher to it than we used to.

They'd been asleep two or three hours, an' we'd set there, an' every little bit we'd hear a long sobbin' sigh from one or tuther of 'em, fur, do you know, somehow or nuther, I'd forgot to tell 'em that Christ had rose from the dead, thinkin' of course they knowed it.

Well, the next mornin' they were talkin' about it the first thing, an' I tole 'em how he rose again, an' all the disciples saw an' talked with him, now an' then, fur forty days, an' then how he took 'em out to the Mount of Olives, an', as he blessed 'em, rose right up into the sky among the clouds, and they didn't see him any more. O, but they wus excited when I said that, an' when I tole 'em about the angels tellin' the disciples he would come back again the same way as he went, they jumped up an' down, an' clapped their han's!

“Then he'll take all the people that's like him to live in the nice big houses,” said Rob, “an' Jamie an' me can play out on the gold streets, can't we?”

“An' down by the river, that we'll see clear through,” said Jamie.

They went on about their plays, but in an hour or so Rob says: “Mother, what'll we do about grandma when Jesus comes? She wanted to live with him, she said so, an' now she's dead, an' ole Mis Rogers, too, an' little Frank Thomas.” Then I tole him how when the Lord comes, the dead who have loved him will be made alive, an' Baker got down the Bible an' read about it to 'em from Thessalonians.

From that time on they wus as happy as birds, an' never got tired of talkin' about the beautiful city that is to come “down from God out of heaven.”

I mind, too, about Uncle Dan'l Phillips an' Jamie. Uncle Dan'l's a mighty good man, but when he wus a boy he lived 'roun' men that swore, an' he has too much dander to work with stock. You'd live in the house with him a year, maybe, and never hear it out of him, but then, afore you'd know it, some day the critters would git into a stampede, an' frolic around over fences an' through growin' crops, as they will onct in a while, an' all at onct he'd up an' swear at 'em like he had no sense. Well, one day, when we had the boys, Uncle Dan'l would have it that I should come over an' make 'em a visit, and Baker come after me in time to eat supper with 'em. We went, me an' the children, an' while me an' Aunt Annie was talkin' an' visitin' like a house afire, the little chaps went out to the barn along with him.

His roan heifer got herself shoved through the hedge some way, an' went fur the young cabbage like she'd been in a famine. She'd rip a hull one off at a bite, fur they wusn't overly big yit. Uncle Dan'l got after her, an' she'd take 'roun' that truck patch, an' shy every time she'd come nigh the gap, an' nab a cabbage every chance she'd git. It wus hot an' stillin' that day, an' finally Uncle Dan'l set down on a stump and swore. Of course that didn't do a mite toward drivin' the heifer out. Rob had gone into the medder after clover blossoms, but Jamie was there an' heerd what he said. We didn't know a breath of what wus transpirin' till we heerd him, too, an' then she ran out, an' helped git the animal back to pastur'.

Jamie had climbed up onto a fence, an' stood lookin' on; an' after he wus dead, Uncle Dan'l tole us what followed. He said Jamie's face wus still white, an' his eyes wide open, when he got the fence mended, so he took him down silent an' carried him back to the barn, where he set down in the big shaded doorway.

Pretty soon the little fellow turned his face up to his'n, an' says:—

“Uncle Dan'l?”

“Yes, Jamie boy.”

“O Uncle Dan'l, wusn't that you said to the cow, wusn't that sayin' God's name in vain? Wusn't it—wusn't it swearin'?”

An' when Uncle Dan'l said, “Yes, Jamie boy,” agin the little fellow caught him 'roun' the neck a sobbin'.

He held the little body clost, an' tried to quiet the chile, sayin', “Never mind, Jamie; never mind. Uncle orten to hev talked so afore you, an' ben so mad. But don't be scart, little one.”

“But you won't git to live in that new city

with Jesus an' God, an' O, O, he'll burn you up with the folks that steal an' lie an' kill somebody! O Uncle Dan'l, Uncle Dan'l!” An' he clung to his neck, an' sobbed agin. The old man cried, too, an' after a little, they two kneeled down, the man confessin' his sin, an' realizin' as he never had before that “the wages of sin is death,” the chile a helpin' him pray for forgiveness for Christ's sake. An' then the peace that only one who's answered ever knows came to both the sinner an' his little friend.

I'm so glad the boys had such a firm faith in God, fur it helped me when they wus gone. Yes, they both died together, an' it nearly took me an' Baker, too, but I kin talk about it now.

One mornin' that fall I wus busy ironin' an' bakin', and Baker went out to chop down some big poplars over along the branch, considerable this side the wood's pastur' spring. The little boys went with him. They both started off after him, an' first Rob an' then Jamie—my four-year-old baby—run back to kiss “mother” good-by. I can see 'em now, my two little sons, as they ran away after their father, playin' tag as they went, an' Rob turnin' back to say, “Yes, we'll be careful,” when I called fur 'em to be shore not to let the poplars fall on 'em.

I worked away busy till dinner time, singin' hymns, an' goin' to the door now an' agin to look at the woods all red an' yaller among the green an' brown. I wus happy, an' thought of my pleasant home, my dear little boys, what a clever man Baker wus, an' that we wus well an' prosperin' right along. I've wondered sense if I didn't feel a little proud of what we'd done an' had, when I see Jane Alton an' her man go by, who'd had a good start, an' are still pore, an', maybe, I didn't give God the glory for our prosperity.

I got a good dinner, fur everything wus plentiful that fall, an' I knowed they'd all be powerful hungry.

The boys hardly ever stayed outdoors half a day, but I didn't worry about their not comin', fur children alwus like to see trees fall, an' several times before noon I heerd 'em crashin' down. But come noon I see Baker comin' over the knoll with his ax over his shoulder an' no boys. I run out an' asked where they wus, an' he thought they'd come to me about ten o'clock, fur they'd started towards the house then.

Of course we both wus scared, an' run fur the branch, fur there had ben some heavy rains of late, an' it wus tolerable till an' here an' there had pretty deep holes. We kep' along it a quarter of a mile, an' there we found their tracks goin' along up to a high bank of gravel an' sand; an' as we come to that, Baker, who had outrun me, give a scream, an' when I looked, I saw part of the bank had caved in, an' Rob's hat lay on the grass to one side.

We wusn't long gettin' shovels, an' a neighbor passin' by come an' helped; but we wus too late, for the pore little lads—God help me!—wus choked an' smothered there together.

They had ben diggin' in the side of the bank, we s'posed, fur they each had sticks in their han's, an' the bank, on account of bein' washed by the freshets, wus ready to fall.

I can't tell no more about it, fur the year that come after seems like a nightmare to me, an' I guess my mind wus nearly gone, but that's why Baker always says “mother” so kind of gentle like, an' reads the fourteenth chapter of John so often, where the Saviour promises to come again an' receive us unto himself, that where he is, there we may be also; an' the one in Thessalonians that tells how he'll descend out of heaven with a shout, the voice of the archangel, an' the trump of God, his sleepin' dead be raised immortal, an' the righteous that are alive be changed to be like him.

When the sky is blue, an' the great, soft, white clouds move along so slow an' stately across the heavens, their edges all fringed with shinin' glory, I always think of how he'll come on a cloud, an' “all the holy angels with him.” What a glorious an' solemn sight that will be! An' it's fur all of us, fur “every eye shall see him.” You know how bright an' glorious the angel looked that rolled away the stone at the door of the tomb—his countenance like lightnin' an' his raiment white as snow, an' the keepers fell down like dead men.

It says in the Revelation to John that in heaven there's “ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands” of angels, an' when they “all” come, so bright an' beautiful along with Christ “in the glory of his kingdom,” “King of kings, an' Lord of lords,” most glorious of all the company, all float down the great wide sky, no wonder that the people who have been too wicked or proud or careless to love him an' do his commandments, will run to the mountains an' call to 'em an' the rocks to fall an' hide 'em from his face. O, how I wish they'd do their callin' now, fur he says “he that calleth on the name of the Lord shall be saved”! Then it'll be too late to become one of the people of God, who, both dead an' alive, will be made immortal, an' rise “to meet him in the air.”

I know our Rob and Jamie will be with 'em, an' if we're faithful that then they'll be give back to us, an' we all will be “ever with the Lord.” It is a blessed comfort, an' we both say with John, “Even so come, Lord Jesus.”

PRISCILLA ANN BAKER.