“Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.”
In Cold Blood“Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.” is the embroidered message on the bookmark in Bonnie Clutter’s Bible. On the final day of her life, the Bible was the only item on her bedside table, making the admonition a quiet but foreboding detail in the account of her last hours.
The Bookmark and Its Setting
Before retiring, Bonnie Clutter hung the calico housedress she had worn, put on a trailing nightgown and fresh white socks, and exchanged her ordinary glasses for reading spectacles. Although she subscribed to several periodicals, none lay beside her bed; only the Bible did. Inside it, a stiff piece of watered silk served as a bookmark, bearing the admonition in embroidery.
Meaning in the Narrative
The words urge vigilance and prayer while emphasizing that the hour cannot be known. The narrative places them amid the precise, ordinary preparations of bedtime, and their warning becomes ominous in retrospect because this was the final day of Bonnie Clutter’s life. The contrast rests in the object itself: a familiar devotional book, marked by a message about an unforeseeable moment, sits alone beside the bed.
