When Southern Mary left us, she gave to Aunt Hildy something to help
make out Jane North's pension papers, and the first step Aunt Hildy took
toward doing this was in the fall of 1853, when she painted Jane's house
inside and out. Then in the next year she built a new fence for her, and
insisted on helping Louis make some improvements needed to give more
room, and from this time the old homestead where Jane's father and
mother had lived and died, became the children's home, with Jane as its
presiding genius, having help to do the work. From six to eight children
were with her; three darling little girls whom Louis found in the
streets of a city in the winter of 1855, were brought to the Home by
him, and he considered them prizes.
To be independent in thought and action was Louis' wisdom. He had regard
for the needs of children as well as of adults, for he remembered that
the girls and boys are to be the men and women of the years to come, and
to help them help themselves was his great endeavor.
"For this," he would say, "is just what our God does for us, Emily. He
teaches the man who constantly observes all things around him, that the
proper use of his bounty is what he most needs to know, and to live by
the side of natural laws, moving parallel with them, is the only way to
truthfully solve life's master problem. Yea, Emily, painting pictures is
grand work; to see the ideal growing as a reality about us, to know we
are the instruments in God's hands for doing great good; and are not the
years verifying the truth of what I said to you, when a boy I told you I
needed your help, and also that you did not know yourself? I knew the
depth of your wondrous nature.
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