This was
considered a very fine thing to do--it served the purpose
of the "Finis" at the end of the book, or the "Let us
pray," at the end of the sermon.
The applause was very loud and very genuine.
Bud Perkins, who was the wit of the Perkins family, and
called by his mother a "regular cut-up," was at last
induced to sing. Bud's "Come-all-ye" contained twenty-
three verses, and in it was set forth the wanderings of
one, young Willie, who left his home and native land at
a very tender age, and "left a good home when he left."
His mother tied a kerchief of blue around his neck. "God
bless you, son," she said. "Remember I will watch for
you, till life itself is fled!" The song went on to tell
how long the mother watched in vain. Young Willie roamed
afar, but after he had been scalped by savage bands and
left for dead upon the sands, and otherwise maltreated
by the world at large, he began to think of home, and
after shipwrecks, and dangers and hair-breadth escapes,
he reached his mother's cottage door, from which he had
gone long years before.
Then of course he tried to deceive his mother, after the
manner of all boys returning after a protracted absence--
Oh, can you tell me, ma'm, he said,
How far to Edinboro' town.
But he could not fool his mother, no, no! She knew him
by the kerchief blue, still tied around his neck.
When the applause, which was very generous, had been
given, Jim Russell wanted to know how young Willie got
his neck washed in all his long meanderings, or if he
did not wash, how did he dodge the health officers.
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