Finally she agreed to live with me again if I remained sober for three
years. I was put on probation--the Methodist way. Now I had been on the
level for fifteen months, and I had twenty-one months more to go. She
was strong-minded and would stick to her word, so I did not see how I
could take the job as sexton.
I told Mr. Irvine that was the way things stood and for him to get
some one else. He said, "Pretty slim chances, but we will pray about
it." He and I went up to Sixty-seventh Street, where Mrs. Ranney was
working as laundress, and after a little talk we came to the point. I
was a go-ahead man, and tried every way to get her to promise to come
down, but she wouldn't say yes. I'll never forget that night in the
laundry if I live a hundred years; she took no stock in me at all. I was
giving it up as a bad job; she wouldn't come, and that settled it. We
got up to go when Mr. Irvine asked if she would object to a word of
prayer. She said, "No," and we had a little prayer-meeting right there.
We bade Mrs. Ranney good-night and left.
The next night she came down and we showed her all over the church. The
sexton who had been living there hadn't kept the living apartments
clean, and she did not like them very much, but when she went away she
said, "If I only could be sure you would keep sober I would go with
you, but I can't depend on you.
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