and don't forgit, please, please, please, dear Lord, to make me good, and don't let me forgit it, and don't let me forgit I want to be good when I git to playin' with Jack and he plagues me, and bless Jack, amen."
And I took her in my arms and put her to bed after I had held her down to kiss her Grandpa, bless her sweet face! I laid her in her little crib and kissed her more'n a dozen times, and she me; and when I went back into the settin' room I sez to Josiah, "If there wuz ever a deep religious prayer, that wuz."
"Yes," sez he; "it wuz a prayer any minister might be proud on."
"To think," sez I, "of her bein' so conscientious, so 'fraid of lyin' to the Lord; and think of all the long, long vows we have heard to meetin' with no idee they would be kep' and wuzn't kep'."
"Yes," sez he, "it wuz a powerful effort. I never see the beat on't, and I've been deacon goin' on twenty years."
"And then," sez I, "to think of her honesty and the depth of the idee of wantin' Him to help her not to forgit that she wanted to be good when she got to playin' with Jack and he plagued her. She felt how different it wuz to want to be good in the quiet and rest of prayer time to what it wuz when took up with the cares of the day and the happiness and selfishness of playin' with Jack. She wuz afraid, that little creeter wuz, that she would forgit that she wanted to be good when took up with her playthings or when he wuz plaguin' her, jest as we be time and agin, Josiah Allen, when we git so burdened with the cares of this world or took up with its playthings that we most forgit that we want to be good."
