June 8th, 1776
Some startling news this day.
I visiting Slant at the noon hour with Pro Bono, we came upon Miss Nsia, who was carrying water to the ailing. “A ministering angel,” said Bono, and pressed her free hand to his lips.
“Ha!” she scolded with a laugh. “You shut you devil mouth.” She pulled away and flicked his cheek with her fingers.
“We has news,” Bono announced to me, and the unwonted shyness of his manner conveyed his news faster than word.
Miss Nsia said, “I am the greatest fool that ever walk on mud.”
“We is getting married.”
My thoughts were in a ferment; I barely knew what to say.
I wished them hearty congratulations, and enlarged upon the importance, at moments of great strife, of the forging of those bonds which unify human variance and align individuals in amity, providing safe haven so that the tenderer of sentiments might once again bud and flourish despite the incursions of violence.
“You give him some water and a rasher of bacon,” said Bono, “he’d go on for some time in this vein.”
Their delight was too great to note that their announcement may have occasioned any uneasiness in me, though I stammered, and imagine I blushed. Confronting their joy, once I have settled my wits, I am sure I shall feel joy in sympathy; Bono would do so for me.
I pray to remember the pleasure in other’s triumphs. We must endeavor to smile not just with the face upon the sweet felicities of others, but with the heart.
This afternoon, we were returned to our details. I spent hours neck-deep in a hole.