"
"Of course," Ivory continued, "the people of the village all
think and speak of mother's illness as religious insanity, but to
me it seems nothing of the sort. I was only a child when father
first fell ill with Jacob Cochrane, but I was twelve when father
went away from home on his 'mission,' and if there was any one
suffering from delusions in our family it was he, not mother. She
had altogether given up going to the Cochrane meetings, and I
well remember the scene when my father told her of the revelation
he had received about going through the state and into New
Hampshire in order to convert others and extend the movement. She
had no sympathy with his self-imposed mission, you may be sure,
though now she goes back in her memory to the earlier days of her
married life, when she tried hard, poor soul, to tread the same
path that father was treading, so as to be by his side at every
turn of the road.
"I am sure" (here Ivory's tone was somewhat dry and satirical)
"that father's road had many turns, Waitstill! He was a
schoolmaster in Saco, you know, when I was born but he soon
turned from teaching to preaching, and here my mother followed
with entire sympathy, for she was intensely, devoutly religious.
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