night about seven o'clock
And I says to myself , `` Reuben ! you 've never a listened to His voice ; you 've a gone your own way all your life through , and you ai n't a follered Him one day in all the sixty-and-eight years you 've a bin on this ` ere blessed earth ! '' Well , I began to think I 'd better say that prayer my dear old missis a told me , `` Wash me , and I shall be whiter than snow . '' And then 't was last Toosday night about seven o'clock I got the answer . ' The old man paused , took his pipe out of his mouth , and looked up at the blackened rafters across his little kitchen with a quivering smile about his lips ; whilst Betty , with knitted brows , tried hard to follow him in what he was saying . ` I was a-turnin ' over the leaves of the old Book , ' he continued , ` when I come to a tex ' which stared me full in the face , and round it was pencilled a thick black line , which was the doin ' of my missis . I 'll read it for you , little maid . '