The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1893-10-25
bless our mothers hearts us fellows
is always Willie to them.

is always Willie to them.
IT went to bed at 9 o'clock that
night-went to bed in the same room
that was mine when | was little kid.
The pictures on the wall came back to
me. Little Samuel, Uncle William
Fosdicl;, that [ was named after, the
first Sunday School card I got and
Flora Temple and George N. Patchen
in their great trot. q got that one
myself). The bed was high and
feathery, and the comfortable smelt
good and old-fashioned. It made me
Sleepy an dreamy-like just to be there.
Hadn't more than got into bed before
in come mother, carryin' candle.
willie, says she, maybe you'll laugh
at me, but IN gettin' old an childish
like, may be, and now that, you've
come back to me want to take up
with you just where I left off when
you-when you-went away at your
country's call" You see she put it
my running away-she put it ten
derly to me. 'Willie,' says she, I
want to tuck you up in bed, just as l
used to do. Used to worry when you
first went away, because I was afraid
you'd catch cold nights-you always
was such hand at kicking off the
clothes in your sleep. why, moth
er, says I don't need tuckin' up.
T. m as snug and as warm as ameadow-
mouse under haystack.' Butmother
wouldn't take no for an answer she
Just pattered around that bed an kept
tuckin' in the clothes, tellin' me all'
the time what comfort it had always
been to her and father (before he
died,) to feel that I had been good
boy and said my prayers apd lived by
their teachin' and never, done dis.
honest thing, or learned to lie an
swear an gamble an race horses as
other boys of the neighbors' had:
Yes, mother said all this, and there [
lay like great big baby an let her
believe it and her hands sorter fingered
around me an seemed to careas the
very blankets that covered me.
"When she went to go out she
stopped sudden like and turned as if
she he'd just thought Of somethin'.
Willie says she, have you said your
prayers 2
"'You waited till you got into bed,
says mother; that what you used to
do when you was boy, because it was
so cold you said. Maybe it's
foolish Of me, Willie, but just to
| please me, who hain't had my boy
| with me for twenty years-just to kind
| of humor me, let me hear you say your
prayers tonight, as you used to-
Say my prayers u? After twenty
| years of back-slidin' an neglect, say
my prayers +? I just lay there and
shivered. How could ] tell mother /
had forgotten EN-? -
"'Say 'em after me, Willie, as you
used to, said mother. !,
$50 mother began: "Now I lay me,
says she.
"tNow I lay me- says I.
"'Down to sleep, says mother.
"'Down to Sleep says l and SO
through it all to the end, mother lined
it out to me and 1 repeated it. Dam
| nation Bill wasn't there at all there
wasn't any such man as Damnation
Bill any more twas justme-Willie,
Damnation Bill was done forever
II was there fortnight, and every
night mother came in and tucked me
up and said my prayers with ME. 1t
done her good, and so it did me. She
wasn't t afeared when I told her that l
must come back West an settle up
business before I went to live with her
in the old homestead the rest of her
days. She had always had faith in
me because she an father had been
so careful about bringin' me up in the
way I should go, an she allowed that
with him an her prayin' for me IAN
with ME prayin' too, as she believ-
ed).:why, it would have been impossi-
Bile for me to learn to lie an gamble
an swear. That's what hurt me most
boys-what she said about the swear
in ! It's all right for you to call me
the old name-that's my punishment,
and I've brought it on myself: I'm
not kickin'. l hain't got religion; l
hain't no better than anybody else.
But may God forever paralyze my
tongue if ever in heedlessness, OF jest,
or anger I lay that tongue of mine
to any word that, if she ever heard of
it, would open mother 8 eyes to the
truth of my old life and give pain to
her confdin' heart.
We fellows never called him Dam
nation Bill after that; no, from that
time on, it was just plain Bill-out OF
respect to him and his mother.