Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 December 1902 — In His "Weakes' Part,” [ARTICLE]

In His "Weakes' Part,”

Bishop David Sessums, of New Orleans, tells a quaint story—the experience of a Southern clergyman. The clergyman, a Mr. Bobbett, had returned to a little town where he had been a minister many years before. To his amazement he found, as sexton of his old church, the same antebellum darky who had tilled that post during his Incumbency. “Well, Uncle Pete, are you still alive?” the minister asked. “Jes’ so-so, Mdrs’ Bobbett. I’m pow’ful troubled with the rlieumatiz, but thank the Lo’d I can still hold my bald up and my limbs ain’t gone back on me yit. But, Mars’ Bobbett, how is you? I don’ think you looking as peart as you used to do.” Bobbett shook his head, says the New York Times. He was suffering from the aftermath of a severe attack of nervous exhaustion, w'hich found proof of its presence in racking headaches. “I suffer a good deal with my head. Uncle Pete,” he answered. “Sometimes it feels like it would set me crazy.” Old Pete nodded his head in sympathy.’ “That’s Jes’ so. Mars’ Bobbett," he answered, “I always have said that illness takes a man in his weakes’ spot. ’Deed, Mars’ Bobbett, it’s a fac’.” The Rev. Mr. Bobbett always refers to his head as his “weakes’ part.”