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Memories of a Long Life                                            29

a dear, sweet girl ten years old was called.  I left the rest improving.

             I never made any change when the diphtheria was so bad in Chatham County some years ago.  A little girl about seven years old died in the neighborhood.  After she was buried I was sent for, so I went.  The oldest, a girl, died in the night.  It was next morning after daylight that her father left to go to Pittsboro to get material for her burial dress, and I made it.  One dear girl about eleven years old, lying on an old bed in the middle of the room, asked me to sit down so that she could lie down in my lap.  I did, and she told me that she wanted me to fix her for burial because it would not be long before she was going Home.  She was just as happy as she could be while speaking of going Home.  She told me that she wanted to go to the old spring to get a drink of water from the gourd there.  We went and I acted as if there was nothing the matter.  We came back and I sat down and she laid her head in my lap again.  In less than an hour she was a corpse.  Next a grown brother died.  Not a person came except a colored man who dressed his body, my sister and myself, and the man who made the coffin and put him in it.  It was a very sad time, but all that had been called Home had their lamps trimmed and the oil in theirs burning.  The only sad time was when one girl of seventeen years of age refused Christ.  Her cries were so sad.  She called for me so I went.  I knelt down beside her bed, pleaded with God to save her life as He did he fig tree; give her a change to reflect.  He did.  She got up for awhile, but I was called over to Moore County to teach a school.  In a few months I heard that she was dead.

             I will say a few words about fourteen years ago last October.  There was a new disease that a doctor said he could not define his first case, but while he was by the bed a little sister of his patient, with her little pet dog, opened the door to go in the room of the sick one.  The little dog ran in.  It was named Inzie, so the little girl said in flew Inzie.  The doctor said (so I heard), “That is what I will call this disease, ‘Influenza’.”

             Well, a letter came from Southern Pines from a nephew of mine to come on the next train because there were three down with influenza and they could get no one to come to nurse them.  I went.  I spent five weeks in Pittsboro.  On my way to the depot I met Dr. Farthing.  He asked me where I was going, so I told him.  He said, “I wish we had fifty men like you.  We need them right around here.”  I feel that I do want to do a little for my fellow beings in this world.  I have been in many states and many counties and visited some of the poor people.  If I could give a little help I did, but even when I couldn’t help them I could always speak a kind word and try to be cheerful.  I have visited