Instead, a traveling minister, collecting funds for a church
orphanage in Memphis, was the speaker for the day. Miss Minerva
rarely missed a service in her own church. She was always on
hand at the Love Feast and the Missionary Rally and gave
liberally of her means to every cause. She was sitting in her
own pew between Billy and Jimmy, Mr. and Mrs. Garner having
remained at home. Across the aisle from her sat Frances Black,
between her father and mother; two pews in front of her were Mr.
and Mrs. Hamilton, with Lina on the outside next the aisle. The
good Major was there, too; it was the only place he could depend
upon for seeing Miss Minerva.
The preacher, after an earnest and eloquent discourse from
the text, "He will remember the fatherless," closed the big
Bible with a bang calculated to wake any who might be
sleeping. He came down from the pulpit and stood close to
his hearers as he made his last pathetic appeal.
"My own heart," said he, "goes out to every orphan child,
for in the yellow fever epidemic of '78, when but two years
old, I lost both father and mother.
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