CHAPTER XXII.

The Rhinehart society belonged to the Eddyville circuit. The circuit preacher resided in Eddyville. His appointments at the Rhinehart school-house were usually on every alternate Sunday, but occasionally he would hold a series of meetings in the neighborhood. Those protracted meetings were usually held in the winter and if school was being taught the people would congregate in the school-house of evenings, and in the daytime would meet at one or another of the small and unpretentious homes of that neighborhood.

Rev. Samuel Hestwood was once pastor of the Eddyville circuit. He came about the time the war of the rebellion broke out. Not long after coming, he held a protracted meeting in the Rhinehart neighborhood. He was a good man, a good singer and a forceful preacher. The older members seemed to "take a new start for the Kingdom." A number of the young people became converted - among them our friend, Pierce Ratliff. What joy there was that day in that little, plain congregation,
when Pierce-jolly, good-hearted Pierce, who was the life of the neighborhood and a favorite with everybody rose up and told with joy beaming in his face and tears streaming down his cheeks, that God, for Christ's sake had forgiven his sins. What a thrill ran through that little company of worshipers! Every face beamed with joy. I can never forget the glad look on the face of his saintly old mother as she went about shaking hands with everybody and thanking the Lord for converting her son. And Brother Hestwood, how happy he looked when Pierce, in giving his testimony, said: "Mr. Hestwood, I thank the Lord for permitting me to hear your preaching. You convinced me that I ought to be a Christian every time I heard you preach." Then he went on to say, "Ever since this meeting began I have felt that I ought to give my heart to God and lead a new and better, life. Early this morning I went away down a slough west of my house and when I had reached a place where I thought nobody but God could hear me, I fell on my knees, I wrestled with my convictions, my pride and my love of the world. I told God all about it and promised then and there if He would for Christ's sake forgive my sins, I would serve Him all the days of my life. When I arose from my knees I felt that the burden of sin was taken from my soul and I was a new creature in Christ Jesus. "

The next time that Pierce was at our house after that memorable meeting, we looked out and saw Gorrell coming up the lane. Pierce got up and walked quickly down to meet him. I watched them until they met, when Pierce threw his arms around Gorrell's neck and there they stood embracing each other, "John and Phineas." I stood in the kitchen door and watched those strong, manly men as they came toward the house. Tears of joy and sympathy were in my own eyes as I saw the tears and look of tenderness in theirs. They both were strong, manly men, would scorn to go back on their word, were square in their dealings, never took advantage of the helpless nor of widows and orphans, even when they made no pretentions to being Christians.

They had been honest and honorable boys, but something beyond that had come to them. That something, while it made them none the less manly, gave them the courage to stand up for Christ and accept the Kingdom of Heaven as little children. They had a new experience, a touch of the Spirit which was in Christ. That day when we sat down to dinner, Pierce asked a blessing. He always had a good, honest face, but after the experience I have been telling about, his face fairly shone. How well he talked in meeting. He had the gift naturally of expressing his thoughts clearly and interestingly. He never said anything that sounded flat or insipid, no matter what his subject was, and especially when he would rise up in a religious meeting we all felt sure we were going to hear something interesting, instructive and to the point. Many predicted that Pierce would be a preacher. In one sense, he was a preacher from the time he was converted. Some of the ministers and many others, members of the church, used to say to him: "Brother Ratliff, you ought to be a minister." His reply usually was, "Oh, I couldn't preach, I am not good enough, and if I was good enough I am not well enough educated." He always regretted not having had better advantages of education in his youth, and after he came from California and he and his mother settled down to living on a farm, the way never seemed to be open for him to go to school. He was a prosperous farmer, made money and added to his acres. Was liberal in his donations to the church and to the poor.

There was a very, poor family living in our neighborhood. One morning Pierce was driving down the lane. There was snow on the ground. The man was over in the field gathering corn. Pierce stopped to speak to him, and as the man came toward. him he observed his bare toes sticking out of his ragged shoes. As the poor man came toward him smiling, Pierce said, "Why, man, aren't your feet nearly frozen?" "I don't mind it much," said the man, whereupon Pierce put his hand down in his pocket, took out some money and handed it to him, saying: "Stop gathering that corn and go right straight down to Eddyville and get yourself a pair of boots." Then Pierce drove on. That is just one of many kind acts performed by Pierce Ratliff. He had a kind heart and a good mind, much as he, bilked about his want of book learning. He lacked a good deal of being ignorant. Being a close observer of men and things, he was quite well informed. I used to think he understood what he read the best of anybody I ever knew who made so little pretensions to being learned. But whether he be called learned or unlearned, he possessed the instincts of a gentleman, and as he has gone along life's journey he has managed to find out a great deal about some things and a little about a great many things.

Pierce stuck to the faith, led class meetings and prayer meetings, and was never absent from meeting unless unavoidably detained. He and his good old saintly mother continued to live together on his farm until Pierce began to be called an old bachelor. But finally he became acquainted with, courted and married a hand-
some, accomplished young lady, Miss Addie F. Thomas. He and his young wife idolized each other. He made for her a nice home, furnished with many comforts. Pierce had been a good son, good brother, a good friend, and true to that noble manliness born in him, was a devoted husband. How often they used to come flying into our house to see Gorrell and me; with joy beaming all over their faces. But that dream of happiness was cut short by death. Addie, the happy young wife, was suddenly snatched away by that uncompromising reaper, who paid no attention to the breaking heart of the stricken husband nor the pitiful wailing of his little motherless baby. How vividly that terrible day is stamped on my memory! A large mirror fell from the wall and was shivered into a thousand pieces. I had scarcely gotten the glass swept up when there was a ring at my door. I went to the door and there stood a boy with a telegram. I tore it open and read:

"COME AT ONCE. ADDIE IS VERY SICK, "PIERCE. "

I immediately began preparing to go to them, hoping all the time that Pierce in his fright had thought things more serious than they really were. But as I was hurrying to the train I met Taylor Kalbach coming from there. I knew from the look of tenderness in his face that something terrible had happened. We halted a moment, and all that he said was: "She is dead!" Then we hurried on.

How my heart ached for Pierce and how I dreaded to meet him. I found him walking the floor, wringing his hands in the agony of despair. There Addie lay, cold and white and still. Kind friends had done all that it was possible to do. Neither the agonizing prayers of the heart-broken husband, the skill of physicians, nor the sympathy and efforts of friends could keep back that terrible messenger. The young life had gone out; there Addie lay, so white and so still, dressed as I had seen her thirteen months before, when she and Pierce stood hand in hand while Brother Pillsbury pronounced them husband and wife. Addie was an only child, idolized by her parents. I went into another room, where I found her father sitting in silent, motionless, tearless grief. Her mother, who happened at that time to be many miles away, was notified by telegram of her daughter's serious illness. She flew as fast as railroad trains could carry her, but when she arrived that beloved daughter was cold and still. I can never forget the agonizing grief of that mother.

These terrible sorrows. come-we can't tell why. Perhaps it will all be revealed to us some time. Addie was laid to rest in Forest Cemetery, and in a few months a little grave was made close to hers. Pierce had "moved heaven and earth" in trying to keep their baby boy, but it was not to be. The Lord took him. On that self-same day that baby's aged and saintly grandmother, Margaret Wade Ratliff, entered into the rest prepared for the just. I love to think of the life of that honest, unpretentious,
unselfish Christian woman. I sometimes tell Pierce that he ought to thank the Lord for his having sprung from such an honorable and Christian stock. I was intimately acquainted with that saintly woman for a quarter of a century, and in all those years I never knew her to do an act or say a word which I thought was sinful. She was not a long-faced, canting Christian, who was always seeing something in others to condemn, but was charitable, cheerful, hospitable, and was not given to seeing faults in others. She was exceedingly obliging to her neighbors, without seeming to think she had done anything out of the ordinary, or usual. The man who was born of a woman with a character like hers, and had the example of a life like hers all through his boyhood and early manhood, surely has something to be grateful for.

Pierce chose one of the beautiful spots in Forest Cemetery wherein to lay his precious dead. There lie his young wife, his baby and his mother. By the mother's side lies all that is mortal of her son John, who many years ago met a sudden and tragic death by being thrown from a horse. John was as charming mid attractive in his manners as his brother Pierce. A gray granite monument is there to tell who are the occupants of that lovely, shady, grassy spot. All the Summer through the grass is kept shorn and flowers bloom on the graves.

Pierce has endured many sore trials and fiery of deals, but with it all has steadfastly clung to his faith in Christ. He has been an active business man, has made much money, and might have been wealthy if his heart had been less tender and less inclined to respond to the calls of Christian work and the needy poor. Some years ago he was engaged as a traveling salesman for a large agricultural implement house in Minneapolis, which business kept him on the road and in hotels, where he was continually coming in contact with infidels, agnostics and scoffers at the religion of Jesus Christ, land at the teaching of the Bible. I used to wonder if he would withstand the scoffs and jeers; criticisms and cunning sophistry a Christian is compelled to hear on railroad trains, in the offices of hotels, and the many circumstances surrounding a man engaged as a traveling salesman, and come out of it all with his faith unshaken. I must confess I sometimes felt afraid he would not. But I might have "given to the winds my fears," for God gave him grace to stand up for Christ and defend the faith whenever and where ever he heard it defamed. Instead of growing weaker in the faith he came out stronger. When in the city he worked in missions, talked on the street, and whenever an opportunity was presented, held up Christ and salvation to the unngodly. He has given much to foreign missions, and is now conducting a mission in Sioux City, where he resides and is in business.

Pierce Ratliff is a self-made man, if any man can truly be called self-made. He started out when a boy, without money or influential friends he worked for twenty-five cents a day. The time same when he could command fifteen hundred dollars a year as a traveling salesman. Pierce Ratliff has shown himself a hero in more than one instance and on more than one occasion. I was talking with a gentleman not long ago who crossed the plains in 1854 in the same train in which Pierce Ratliff went and drove an ox team for Thomas Edwards. He engaged to drive that team through, and do anything else which might come up and need doing in the way of guarding their teams and other animals which they were driving through to Oregon. The gentleman remarked during our talk that Pierce, though a mere boy never shirked a duty no matter how irksome or how dangerous. The gentleman went on to say: "Pierce never seemed to be afraid to undertake anything which was necessary to be done. When we came to Green River we found the stream deep and swift and cold. The teams and wagons were taken across in a ferry-boat, and the loose cattle were made to swim the stream. It was necessary for some one to mount a horse and keep in the stream to make the cattle take and keep the proper direction. It looked like taking a great risk; the rest hesitated, but Pierce mounted a horse and lunged right in. He soon found himself in great peril. The river swift and cold, the cattle frightened and swimming in every direction, and he and his horse in the midst and in great peril. He found himself and horse being carried down that raging torrent in spite of all he could do. He slid off the horse, thinking he would be in less danger, but that raging, seething torrent carried him on and on. He was in the very jaws of death, but was fighting for life with all the nerve and muscle he possessed. When almost, exhausted and ready to give it up, he struck a bar, and with almost superhuman strength threw himself on that bar more dead than alive; the company were wrought up to the highest pitch; they ran down and along the bank, some shouting to give him courage and others trying to throw him ropes, but with it all he had to save himself."

I have heard Pierce relate that terrible experience. Every act of his life passed before his mind like a panorama and when he struck that bar he put forth every particle of strength in his body. Pierce made a terrible struggle for his life in Green river, but would risk his life for what some would consider a trifling matter. When on that adventurous journey they had to be continually on the watch for Indians after they crossed the Missouri river. Indians would steal their cattle and horses if they had a chance. In spite of all their watchfulness, one morning a lot of their stock was gone. Part of their team was gone, which was a calamity indeed. So some of them must follow those Indians and, if possible, recover their oxen. Some of the men volunteered to undertake that perilous adventure, Pierce Ratliff among the rest. They mounted their horses and struck out. A little colt belonging to the herd which they were taking, or trying to take to Oregon, followed, as its mother had been pressed into the service.

They found the trail over which the cattle had been driven by the Indians, followed it up, and after going, as they supposed, some eight or ten miles, discovered some of their cattle grazing on the prairie. Near by was a ravine lined with willows where they had good reason to suppose the Indians who had driven off their stock were in hiding. Some of the men got around the cattle in sight and started them toward the camp. Others skirmished around among the willows (the little colt among the rest) hoping to find the balance of their property, all the time in mortal fear of being picked off by those treacherous Indians. Those who had gone on called back to them to come on and let the rest go. They started to join the others, but as they were leaving that dangerous ground a pitiful wail was heard. The poor little colt had become entangled in the willows, and just under a bank some three or four feet high, and was making desperate efforts to climb the bank. Pierce was one of those who had been venturing among the willows. He felt, as well as the rest, that they were in danger, but the pitiful cries of that poor little colt touched his heart. He turned back, sprang off his horse, seized the colt by the head and drew it up the bank. It scampered off to overtake the others and Pierce mounted his horse and moved off on short notice too. When he joined the others he was told by some of them that he was the biggest fool they ever saw to take the chance of being shot and scalped by an Indian to save a colt that wasn't worth ten dollars. Pierce's reply was, "I may be a fool, but I couldn't go off and leave anything begging so pitifully
for help as that colt was."