setting sun.

I see, now, her dark figure standing against the sunlight as it stood
that day with Amos in its shadow. What a singular eloquence in her pose
and gestures and in her silence! I remember how it bound our
tongues--that silence of hers! She covered her eyes with her left hand
as she turned away from us. Slowly her right hand rose above her head
with its index finger extended and slowly came down to her side. It rose
again with two fingers showing and descended as before. She repeated
this gesture until her four bony fingers had been spread in the air
above her. How it thrilled me! Something jumped to life in my soul at
the call of her moving hand. I passed a new gate of my imagination, I
fancy, and if I have a way of my own in telling things it began that
moment.

The woman turned with a kindly smile and sat down in the grass again and
took the sheet of paper and resting it on a yellow-covered book began to
write these words:

"I see the longing of the helper. One, two, three, four great
perils shall strike at him. He shall not be afraid. God shall fill
his heart with laughter. I hear guns, I hear many voices. His name
is in them. He shall be strong. The powers of darkness shall fear
him, he shall be a lawmaker and the friend of God and of many
people, and great men shall bow to his judgment and he shall--"

She began shaking her head thoughtfully and did not finish the sentence,
and by and by the notion came to me that some unpleasant vision must
have halted her pencil.