I want to know the price of eggs, bacon, and coffee, but I need not go into camp on the price-list. Having purchased my bacon and eggs, I like to move along to where my friend is sitting, and hear him tell of his experiences with glaciers and icebergs, and so become inoculated with the world-enlarging virus. Or, if he comes in to share my bacon and eggs, these mundane delights lose none of their flavor by being garnished with conversation on Andean themes. I'm glad to have my friend push that greatest of monuments, "The Christ of the Andes," over into my world. I arise from the table feeling that I have had full value for the money I expended for eggs and bacon.

I'd like to have in my world a liberal sprinkling of stars, for when I am looking at stars I get away from sordid things, for a time, and get my soul renovated. I think St. Paul must have been associating with starry space just before he wrote the last two verses of that eighth chapter of Romans. I can't see how he could have written such mighty thoughts if he had been dwelling upon clothes or symptoms. The reading of a patent-medicine circular is not specially conducive to thoughts of infinity. So I like, in my meditations, to take trips from star to star, and from planet to planet. I like to wonder whether these planets were rightly named—whether Venus is as beautiful as the name implies, and whether the Martians are really disciples of the warlike Mars. I like to drift along upon the canals on the planet Mars, with heroic Martians plying the oars. I have great fun on such spatial excursions, and am glad that I ever annexed these planets to my world. I can take these stellar companions with me to my potato-patch, and they help the day along.

I want pictures in my world, too, and statues; for they show me the hearts of the artists, and that is a sort of baptism. Sometimes I grow a bit impatient to see how slowly some work of mine proceeds. Then I think of Ghiberti, who worked for forty-two years on the bronze doors of the Baptistry there in Florence, which Michael Angelo declared to be worthy of paradise. Then I reflect that it was worth a lifetime of work to win the praise of such as Angelo. This reflection calms me, and I plod on more serenely, glad of the fact that I can count Ghiberti and the bronze doors as a part of my world. When I can have Titian, Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, Raphael, and Rosa Bonheur around, I feel that I have good company and must be on my good behavior. If Corot, Reynolds, Leighton, Watts, and Landseer should be banished from my world I'd feel that I had suffered a great loss. I like to hobnob with such folks as these, both for my own pleasure and also for the reputation I gain through such associations.

I must have people in my world, also, or it wouldn't be much of a world. And I must be careful in my selection of people, if I am to achieve any distinction as a world builder. I just can't leave Cordelia out, for she helps to make my world luminous. But she must have companions; so I shall select Antigone, Evangeline, Miranda, Mary, and Martha if she can spare the time. Among the male contingent I shall want Job, Erasmus, Petrarch, Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare, Milton, and Burns. I want men and women in whose presence I must stand uncovered to preserve my self-respect. I want big people, wise people, and dynamic people in my world, people who will teach me how to work and how to live.

If I can get my world made and peopled to my liking, I shall refute Mr. Wordsworth's statement that the world is too much with us. If I can have the right sort of folks about me, they will see to it that I do not waste my powers, for I shall be compelled to use my powers in order to avert expulsion from their good company. If I get my world built to suit me, I shall have no occasion to imitate the poet's plaint. I suspect there is no better fun in life than in building a world of one's own.



CHAPTER XXV

THIS OR THAT

One day in London a friend told me that on the market in that city they have eggs of five grades—new-laid eggs, fresh eggs, imported fresh eggs, good eggs, and eggs. A few days later we were in the Tate Gallery looking at the Turner collection when he told me a story of Turner. It seems that a friend of the artist was in his studio watching him at his work, when suddenly this friend said: "Really, Mr. Turner, I can't see in nature the colors that you portray on canvas." The artist looked at him steadily for a moment, and then replied: "Don't you wish you could?" Life, even at its best, certainly is a maze. I find myself in the labyrinth, all the while groping about, but quite unable to find the exit. Theseus was most fortunate in having an Ariadne to furnish him with the thread to guide him. But there seems to be no second Ariadne for me, and I must continue to grope with no thread to guide. There in the Tate Gallery I was standing enthralled before pictures by Watts and Leighton, and paying small heed to the Turners, when the story of my friend held a mirror before me, and as I looked I asked myself the question: "Don't you wish you could?"

Those Barbizon chaps, artists that they were, used to laugh at Corot and tell him he was parodying nature, but he went right on painting the foliage of his trees silver-gray until, finally, the other artists discovered that he was the only one who was telling the truth on canvas. Every one of my dilemmas seems to have at least a dozen horns, and I stand helpless before them, fearful that I may lay hold of the wrong one. I was reading in a book the other day the statement of a man who says he'd rather have been Louis Agassiz than the richest man in America. In another little book, "The Kingdom of Light," the author, who is a lawyer, says that Concord, Massachusetts, has influenced America to a greater degree than New York and Chicago combined. I think I'll blot out the superlative degree in my grammar, for the comparative gives me all the trouble I can stand.

Everything seems to be better or worse than something else, and there doesn't seem to be any best or worst. So I'll dispense with the superlative degree. Whether I buy new-laid eggs, or just eggs, I can't be certain that I have the best or the worst eggs that can be found. If I go over to Paris I may find other grades of eggs. Our Sunday-school teacher wanted a generous contribution of money one day, and, by way of causing purse-strings to relax, told of a boy who was putting aside choice bits of meat as he ate his dinner. Upon being asked by his father why he was doing so, he replied that he was saving the bits for Rover. He was reminded that Rover could do with scraps and bones, and that he himself should eat the bits he had put aside. When he went out to Rover with the plate of leavings, he patted him affectionately and said:

"Poor doggie! I was going to bring you an offering to-day; but I guess you'll have to put up with a collection."

I like Robert Burns and think his "To Mary in Heaven" is his finest poem. But the critics seem to prefer his "Highland Mary." So I suppose these critics will look at me, with something akin to pity in the look, and say: "Don't you wish you could?" Years ago some one planted trees about my house for shade, and selected poplar. Now the roots of these trees invade the cellar and the cistern, and prove themselves altogether a nuisance. Of course, I can cut out the trees, but then I should have no shade. That man, whoever he was, might just as well have planted elms or maples, but, by some sort of perversity or ignorance, planted poplars, and here am I, years afterward, in a state of perturbation about the safety of cellar and cistern on account of those pesky roots. I do wish that man had taken a course in arboriculture before he planted those trees. It might have saved me a deal of bother, and been no worse for him.

Back home, after we had passed through the autograph-album stage of development, we became interested in another sort of literary composition. It was a book in which we recorded the names of our favorite book, author, poem, statesman, flower, name, place, musical instrument, and so on throughout an entire page. That experience was really valuable and caused us to do some thinking. It would be well, I think, to use such a book as that in the examination of teachers and pupils. I wish I might come upon one of the books now in which I set down the record of my favorites. It would afford me some interesting if not valuable information.

If I were called upon to name my favorite flower now I'd scarcely know what to say. In one mood I'd certainly say lily-of-the-valley, but in another mood I might say the rose. I do wonder if, in those books back yonder, I ever said sunflower, dandelion, dahlia, fuchsia, or daisy. If I should find that I said heliotrope, I'd give my adolescence a pretty high grade. If I were using one of these books in my school, and some boy should name the sunflower as his favorite, I'd find myself facing a big problem to get him converted to the lily-of-the-valley, and I really do not know quite how I should proceed. It might not help him much for me to ask him: "Don't you wish you could?" If I should let him know that my favorite is the lily-of-the-valley, he might name that flower as the line of least resistance to my approval and a high grade, with the mental reservation that the sunflower is the most beautiful plant that grows. Such a course might gratify me, but it certainly would not make for his progress toward the lily-of-the-valley, nor yet for the salvation of his soul.

I have a boy of my own, but have never had the courage to ask him what kind of father he thinks he has. He might tell me. Again I am facing a dilemma. Dilemmas are quite plentiful hereabouts. I must determine whether to regard him as an asset or a liability. But, that is not the worst of my troubles. I plainly see that sooner or later he is going to decide whether his father is an asset or a liability. We must go over our books some day so as to find out which of us is in debt to the other. I know that I owe him his chance, but parents often seem backward about paying their debts to their children, and I'm wondering whether I shall be able to cancel that debt, to his present and ultimate satisfaction. I'd be decidedly uncomfortable, years hence, to find him but "the runt of something good" because I had failed to pay that debt. When I was a lad they used to say that I was stubborn, but that may have been my unsophisticated way of trying to collect a debt. I take some comfort, in these later days, in knowing that the folks at home credit me with the virtue of perseverance, and I wish they had used the milder word when I was a boy.

There is a picture show just around the corner, and I'm in a quandary, right now, whether to follow the crowd to that show or sit here and read Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies." If I go to see the picture film I'll probably see an exhibition of cowboy equestrian dexterity, with a "happy ever after" finale, and may also acquire the reputation among the neighbors of being up to date. But, if I spend the evening with Ruskin, I shall have something worth thinking over as I go about my work to-morrow. So here is another dilemma, and there is no one to decide the matter for me. This being a free moral agent is not the fun that some folks try to make it appear. I don't really see how I shall ever get on unless I subscribe to Sam Walter Foss's lines:

"No other song has vital breath Through endless time to fight with death, Than that the singer sings apart To please his solitary heart."



CHAPTER XXVI

RABBIT PEDAGOGY

As I think back over my past life as a schoolmaster I keep wondering how many inebriates I have produced in my career. I'd be glad to think that I have not a single one to my discredit, but that seems beyond the wildest hope, considering the character of my teaching. I am a firm believer in temperance in all things; but, in the matter of pedagogy, my practice cannot be made to square with my theory. In fact, I find, upon reflection, that I have been teaching intemperance all the while. I'm glad the officers of my church do not know of my pedagogical practice. If they did, they would certainly take action against me, and in that case I cannot see what adequate defense I could offer. Being a schoolmaster, I could scarcely bring myself to plead ignorance, for such a plea as that might abrogate my license. So I shall just keep quiet and look as nearly wise as possible. It is embarrassing to me to reflect how long it has taken me to see the error of my practice. If I had asked one of my boys he could have told me of the better way.

When we got the new desks in our school, back home, our teacher seemed very anxious to have them kept in their virgin state, and became quite animated as he walked up and down the aisle fulminating against the possible offender. In the course of his sulphury remarks he threatened condign punishment upon the base miscreant who should dare use his penknife on one of those desks. His address was equal to a course in "Paradise Lost," nor was it without its effect upon the audience. Every boy in the room felt in his pocket to make sure that it contained his knife, and every one began to wonder just where he would find the whetstone when he went home. We were all eager for school to close for the day that we might set about the important matter of whetting our knives. Henceforth wood-carving was a part of the regular order in our school, but it was done without special supervision. Of course, each boy could prove an alibi when his own desk was under investigation. It would not be seemly, in this connection, to give a verbatim report of the conversations of us boys when we assembled at our rendezvous after school. Suffice it to say that the teacher's ears must have burned. The consensus of opinion was that, if the teacher didn't want the desks carved, he should not have told us to carve them. We seemed to think that he had said, in substance, that he knew we were a gang of young rascallions, and that, if he didn't intimidate us, we'd surely be guilty of some form of vandalism. Then he proceeded to point out the way by suggesting penknives; and the trick was done. We were ever open to suggestions.

We had another teacher whose pet aversion was match heads. Cicero and Demosthenes would have apologized to him could they have come in when he was delivering one of his eloquent orations upon this engaging theme. His vituperative vocabulary seemed unlimited, inexhaustible, and cumulative. He raved, and ranted, and exuded epithets with the most lavish prodigality. It seemed to us that he didn't care much what he said, if he could only say it rapidly and forcibly. In the very midst of an eloquent period another match head would explode under his foot, and that seemed to answer the purpose of an encore. The class in arithmetic did not recite that afternoon. There was no time for arithmetic when match heads were to the fore. I sometimes feel a bit guilty that I was admitted to such a good show on a free pass. The next day, of course, the Gatling guns resumed their activity; the girls screeched as they walked toward the water-pail to get a drink; we boys studied our geography lesson with faces garbed in a look of innocence and wonder; our mothers at home were wondering what had become of all the matches; and the teacher—but the less said of him the better.

We boys needed only the merest suggestion to set us in motion, and like Dame Rumor in the Aeneid, we gathered strength by the going. One day the teacher became somewhat facetious and recounted a red-pepper episode in the school of his boyhood. That was enough for us; and the next day, in our school, was a day long to be remembered. I recall in the school reader the story of "Meddlesome Matty." Her name was really Matilda. One day her curiosity got the better of her, and she removed the lid from her grandmother's snuff-box. The story goes on to say:

"Poor eyes, and nose, and mouth, and chin A dismal sight presented; And as the snuff got further in Sincerely she repented."

Barring the element of repentance, the red pepper was equally provocative of results in our school.

I certainly cannot lay claim to any great degree of docility, for, in spite of all the experiences of my boyhood, I fell into the evil ways of my teachers when I began my schoolmastering, and suggested to my pupils numberless short cuts to wrong-doing. I railed against intoxicants, and thus made them curious. That's why I am led to wonder if I have incited any of my boys to strong drink as my teachers incited me to desk-carving, match heads, and red pepper.

I have come to think that a rabbit excels me in the matter of pedagogy. The tar-baby story that Joel Chandler Harris has given us abundantly proves my statement. The rabbit had so often outwitted the fox that, in desperation, the latter fixed up a tar-baby and set it up in the road for the benefit of the rabbit. In his efforts to discipline the tar-baby for impoliteness, the rabbit became enmeshed in the tar, to his great discomfort and chagrin. However, Brer Rabbit's knowledge of pedagogy shines forth in the following dialogue:

W'en Brer Fox fine Brer Rabbit mixt up wid de Tar-Baby he feel mighty good, en he roll on de groun' en laff. Bimeby he up'n say, sezee:

"Well, I speck I got you dis time, Brer Rabbit," sezee. "Maybe I ain't, but I speck I is. You been runnin' roun' here sassin' atter me a mighty long time, but I speck you done come ter de een' er de row. You bin cuttin' up yo' capers en bouncin' 'roun' in dis neighborhood ontwel you come ter b'leeve yo'se'f de boss er de whole gang. En den youer allers some'rs whar you got no bizness," sez Brer Fox, sezee. "Who ax you fer ter come en strike up a'quaintance wid dish yer Tar-Baby? En who stuck you up dar whar you is? Nobody in de roun' worril. You des tuck en jam yo'se'f on dat Tar-Baby widout watin' fer enny invite," sez Brer Fox, sezee, "en dar you is, en dar you'll stay twel I fixes up a bresh-pile and fires her up, kaze I'm gwineter bobby-cue you dis day, sho," sez Brer Fox, sezee.

Den Brer Rabbit talk mighty 'umble.

"I don't keer w'at you do wid me, Brer Fox," sezee, "so you don't fling me in dat brier-patch. Roas' me, Brer Fox," sezee, "but don't fling me in dat brier-patch," sezee.

"Hit's so much trouble fer ter kindle a fier," sez Brer Fox, sezee, "dat I speck I'll hatter hang you," sezee.

"Hang me des ez high as you please, Brer Fox," sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, "but do fer de Lord's sake don't fling me in dat brier-patch," sezee.

"I ain't got no string," sez Brer Fos, sezee, "en now I speck I'll hatter drown you," sezee.

"Drown me des ez deep ez you please, Brer Fox," sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, "but do don't fling me in dat brier-patch," sezee.

"Dey ain't no water nigh," sez Brer Fox, sezee, "en now I speck I'll hatter skin you," sezee.

"Skin me, Brer Fox," sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, "snatch out my eyeballs, t'ar out my years by de roots, en cut off my legs," sezee, "but do please, Brer Fox, don't fling me in dat brier-patch," sezee.

Co'se Brer Fox wanter hurt Brer Rabbit bad ez he kin, so he cotch 'im by de behime legs en slung 'im right in de middle er de brier-patch. Dar wuz a considerbul flutter whar Brer Rabbit struck de bushes, en Brer Fox sorter hang 'roun' fer ter see w'at wuz gwineter happen. Bimeby he hear somebody call 'im, en way up de hill he see Brer Rabbit settin' cross-legged on a chinkapin log koamin' de pitch outen his har wid a chip. Den Brer Fox know dat he bin swop off mighty bad. Brer Rabbit was bleedzed fer ter fling back some er his sass, en he holler out:

"Bred en bawn in a brier-patch, Brer Fox—bred en bawn in a brier-patch!" en wid dat he skip out des ez lively ez a cricket in de embers.



CHAPTER XXVII

PERSPECTIVE

I wish I could ever get the question of majors and minors settled to my complete satisfaction. I thought my college course would settle the matter for all time, but it didn't. I suspect that those erudite professors thought they were getting me fitted out with enduring habits of majors and minors, but they seem to have made no allowance for changes of styles nor for growth. When I received my diploma they seemed to think I was finished, and would stay just as they had fixed me. They used to talk no little about finished products, and, on commencement day, appeared to look upon me as one of them. On the whole, I'm glad that I didn't fulfil their apparent expectations. I have never been able to make out whether their attentions, on commencement day, were manifestations of pride or relief. I can see now that I must have been a sore trial to them. In my callow days, when they occupied pedestals, I bent the knee to them by way of propitiating them, but I got bravely over that. At first, what they taught and what they represented were my majors, but when I came to shift and reconstruct values, some of them climbed down off their pedestals, and my knee lost some of its flexibility.

We had one little professor who afforded us no end of amusement by his taking himself so seriously. The boys used to say that he wrote letters and sent flowers to himself. He would strut about the campus as proudly as a pouter-pigeon, never realizing, apparently, that we were laughing at him. At first, he impressed us greatly with his grand air and his clothes, but after we discovered that, in his case at least, clothes do not make the man, we refused to be impressed. He could split hairs with infinite precision, and smoke a cigarette in the most approved style, but I never heard any of the boys express a wish to become that sort of man. Had there occurred a meeting, on the campus, between him and Zeus he would have been offended, I am sure, if Zeus had failed to set off a few thunderbolts in his honor. We used to have at home a bantam rooster that could create no end of flutter in the chicken yard, and could crow mightily; but when I reflected that he could neither lay eggs nor occupy much space in a frying-pan, I demoted him, in my thinking, from major rank to a low minor, and awarded the palm to one of the less bumptious but more useful fowls. Our little professor had degrees, of course, and has them yet, I suspect; but no one ever discovered that he put them to any good use. For that reason we boys lost interest in the man as well as his garnishments.

Our professor of chemistry was different. He was never on dress-parade; he did not pose; he was no snob. We loved him because he was so genuine. He had degrees, too, but they were so obscured by the man that we forgot them in our contemplation of him. We knew that they do not make degrees big enough for him. I often wonder what degrees the colleges would want to confer upon William Shakespeare if he could come back. Then, too, I often think what a wonderful letter Abraham Lincoln could and might have written to Mrs. Bixby, if he had only had a degree. Agassiz may have had degrees, but he didn't really need them. Like Browning, he was big enough, even lacking degrees, to be known without the identification of his other names. If people need degrees they ought to have them, especially if they can live up to them. Possibly the time may come when degrees will be given for things done, rather than for things hoped for; given for at least one stage of the journey accomplished rather than for merely packing a travelling-bag. If this time ever comes Thomas A. Edison will bankrupt the alphabet.

In this coil of degrees and the absence of them, I become more and more confused as to majors and minors. There in college were those two professors both wearing degrees of the same size. Judged by that criterion they should have been of equal size and influence. But they weren't. In the one case you couldn't see the man for the degree; in the other you couldn't see the degree for the man. Small wonder that I find myself in such a hopeless muddle. I once thought, in my innocence, that there was a sort of metric scale in degrees—that an A.M. was ten times the size of an A.B.; that a Ph.D. was equal to ten A.M.'s; and that the LL.D. degree could be had only on the top of Mt. Olympus. But here I am, stumbling about among folks, and can't tell a Ph.D. from an A.B. I do wish all these degree chaps would wear tags so that we wayfaring folks could tell them apart. It would simplify matters if the railway people would arrange compartments on their trains for these various degrees. The Ph.D. crowd would certainly feel more comfortable if they could herd together, so that they need not demean themselves by associating with mere A.M.'s or the more lowly A.B.'s. We might hope, too, that by way of diversion they would put their heads together and compound some prescription by the use of which the world might avert war, reduce the high cost of living, banish a woman's tears, or save a soul from perdition.

Be it said to my shame, that I do not know what even an A.B. means, much less the other degree hieroglyphics. Sometimes I receive a letter having the writer's name printed at the top with an A.B. annex; but I do not know what the writer is trying to say to me by means of the printing. He probably wants me to know that he is a graduate of some sort, but he fails to make it clear to me whether his degree was conferred by a high school, a normal school, a college, or a university. I know of one high school that confers this degree, as well as many normal schools and colleges. There are still other institutions where this same degree may be had, that freely admit that they are colleges, whether they can prove it or not. I'll be glad to send a stamped envelope for reply, if some one will only be good enough to tell me what A.B. does really mean.

I do hope that the earth may never be scourged with celibacy, but the ever-increasing variety of bachelors, male and female, creates in me a feeling of apprehension. Nor can I make out whether a bachelor of arts is bigger and better than bachelors of science and pedagogy. The arts folks claim that they are, and proceed to prove it by one another. I often wonder what a bachelor of arts can do that the other bachelors cannot do, or vice versa. They should all be required to submit a list of their accomplishments, so that, when any of the rest of us want a bit of work done, we may be able to select wisely from among these differentiated bachelors. If we want a bridge built, a beefsteak broiled, a mountain tunnelled, a loaf of bread baked, a railroad constructed, a hat trimmed, or a book written, we ought to know which class of bachelors will serve our purpose best. Some one asked me just a few days ago to cite him to some man or woman who can write a prize-winning short story, but I couldn't decide whether to refer him to the bachelors of arts or the bachelors of pedagogy. I might have turned to the Litt.D.'s, but I didn't suppose they would care to bother with a little thing like that.

In college I studied Greek and, in fact, won a gold medal for my agility in ramping through Mr. Xenophon's parasangs. That medal is lost, so far as I know, and no one now has the remotest suspicion that I ever even halted along through those parasangs, not to mention ramping, or that I ever made the acquaintance of ox-eyed Juno. But I need no medal to remind roe of those experiences in the Greek class. Every bluebird I see does that for me. The good old doctor, one morning in early spring, rhapsodized for five minutes on the singing of a bluebird he had heard on his way to class, telling how the little fellow was pouring forth a melody that made the world and all life seem more beautiful and blessed. We loved him for that, because it proved that he was a big-souled human being; and pupils like to discover human qualities in their teachers. The little professor may have heard the bluebird's singing, too; but if he did, he probably thought it was serenading him. If colleges of education and normal schools would select teachers who can delight in the song of a bluebird their academic attainments would be ennobled and glorified, and their students might come to love instead of fearing them. Only a man or a woman with a big soul can socialize and vitalize the work of the schools. The mere academician can never do it.

The more I think of all these degree decorations in my efforts to determine what is major in life and what is minor, the more I think of George. He was an earnest schoolmaster, and was happiest when his boys and girls were around him, busy at their tasks. One year there were fourteen boys in his school, fifteen including himself, for he was one of them. The school day was not long enough, so they met in groups in the evening, at the various homes, and continued the work of the day. These boys absorbed his time, his strength, and his heart. Their success in their work was his greatest joy. Of those fourteen boys one is no more. Of the other thirteen one is a state official of high rank, five are attorneys, two are ministers of the Gospel, two are bankers, one is a successful business man, and two are engineers of prominence. George is the ideal of those men. They all say he gave them their start in the right direction, and always speak his name with reverence. George has these thirteen stars in his crown that I know of. He had no degrees, but I am thinking that some time he will hear the plaudit: "Well done, good and faithful servant."



CHAPTER XXVIII

PURELY PEDAGOGICAL

It was a dark, cold, rainy night in November. The wind whistled about the house, the rain beat a tattoo against the window-panes and flooded the sills. The big base-burner, filled with anthracite coal, was illuminating the room through its mica windows, on all sides, and dispensing a warmth that smiled at the storm and cold outside. There was a book in the picture, also; and a pair of slippers; and a smoking-jacket; and an armchair. From the ceiling was suspended a great lamp that joined gloriously in the chorus of light and cheer. The man who sat in the armchair, reading the book, was a schoolmaster—a college professor to be exact. Soft music floated up from below stairs as a soothing accompaniment to his reading. Subconsciously, as he turned the pages, he felt a pity for the poor fellows on top of freight-trains who must endure the pitiless buffeting of the storm. He could see them bracing themselves against the blasts that tried to wrest them from their moorings. He felt a pity for the belated traveller who tries, well-nigh in vain, to urge his horses against the driving rain onward toward food and shelter. But the leaves of the book continued to turn at intervals; for the story was an engaging one, and the schoolmaster was ever responsive to well-told stories.

It was nine o'clock or after, and the fury of the storm was increasing. As if responding to the challenge outside, he opened the draft of the stove and then settled back, thinking he would be able to complete the story before retiring. In the midst of one of the many compelling passages he heard a bell toll, or imagined he did. Brought to check by this startling sensation, he looked back over the page to discover a possible explanation. Finding none, he smiled at his own fancy, and then proceeded with his reading. But, again, the bell tolled, and he wondered whether anything he had eaten at dinner could be held responsible for the hallucination. Scarcely had he resumed his reading when the bell again tolled. He could stand it no longer, and must come upon the solution of the mystery. Bells do not toll at nine o'clock, and the weirdness of the affair disconcerted him. The nearer he drew to the foot of the stair, in his quest for information, the more foolish he felt his question would seem to the members of the family. But the question had scarce been asked when the boy of the house burst forth: "Yes, been tolling for half an hour." Meekly he asked: "Why are they tolling the bell?" "Child lost." "Whose child?" "Little girl belonging to the Norwegians who live in the shack down there by the woods."

So, that was it! Well, it was some satisfaction to have the matter cleared up, and now he could go back to his book. He had noticed the shack in question, which was made of slabs set upright, with a precarious roof of tarred paper; and had heard, vaguely, that a gang of Norwegians were there to make a road through the woods to Minnehaha Falls. Beyond these bare facts he had never thought to inquire. These people and their doings were outside of his world. Besides, the book and the cheery room were awaiting his return. But the reading did not get on well. The tolling bell broke in upon it and brought before his mind the picture of a little girl wandering about in the storm and crying for her mother. He tried to argue with himself that these Norwegians did not belong in his class, and that they ought to look after their own children. He was under no obligations to them—in fact, did not even know them. They had no right, therefore, to break in upon the serenity of his evening.

But the bell tolled on. If he could have wrenched the clapper from out that bell, the page of his book might not have blurred before his eyes. As the wind moaned about the house he thought he heard a child crying, and started to his feet. It was inconceivable, he argued, that he, a grown man, should permit such incidental matters in life to so disturb his composure. There were scores, perhaps hundreds, of children lost somewhere in the world, for whom regiments of people were searching, and bells were tolling, too. So why not be philosophical and read the book? But the words would not keep their places, and the page yielded forth no coherent thought. He could endure the tension no longer. He became a whirlwind—slamming the book upon the table, kicking off the slippers, throwing the smoking-jacket at random, and rushing to the closet for his gear. At ten o'clock he was ready—hip-boots, slouch-hat, rubber coat, and lantern, and went forth into the storm.

Arriving at the scene, he took his place in the searching party of about twenty men. They were to search the woods, first of all, each man to be responsible for a space about two or three rods wide and extending to the road a half-mile distant. Lantern in hand, he scrutinized each stone and stump, hoping and fearing that it might prove to be the little one. In the darkness he stumbled over logs and vines, became entangled in briers and brambles, and often was deluged with water from trees as he came in contact with overhanging boughs. But his blood was up, for he was seeking a lost baby. When he fell full-length in the swale, he got to his feet the best he could and went on. Book and room were forgotten in the glow of a larger purpose. So for two hours he splashed and struggled, but had never a thought of abandoning the quest until the child should be found.

At twelve o'clock they had reached the road and were about to begin the search in another section of the wood when the church-bell rang. This was the signal that they should return to the starting-point to hear any tidings that might have come in the meantime. Scarcely had they heard that a message had come from police headquarters in the city, and that information could be had there concerning a lost child when the schoolmaster called out: "Come on, Craig!" And away went these two toward the barn to arouse old "Blackie" out of her slumber and hitch her to a buggy. Little did that old nag ever dream, even in her palmiest days, that she could show such speed as she developed in that four-mile drive. The schoolmaster was too much wrought up to sit supinely by and see another do the driving; so he did it himself. And he drove as to the manner born.

The information they obtained at the police station was meagre enough, but it furnished them a clew. A little girl had been found wandering about, and could be located on a certain street at such a number. The name of the family was not known. With this slender clew they began their search for the street and house. The map of streets which they had hastily sketched seemed hopelessly inadequate to guide them in and out of by-streets and around zigzag corners. They had adventures a plenty in pounding upon doors of wrong houses and thus arousing the fury of sleepy men and sleepless dogs. One of the latter tore away a quarter-section of the schoolmaster's rubber coat, and became so interested in this that the owner escaped with no further damage. After an hour filled with such experiences they finally came to the right house. Joy flooded their hearts as the man inside called out: "Yes, wait a minute." Once inside, questions and answers flew back and forth like a shuttle. Yes, a little girl—about five years old—light hair—braided and hanging down her back—check apron. "She's the one—and we want to take her home." Then the lady appeared, and said it was too bad to take the little one out into such a night. But the schoolmaster bore her argument down with the word-picture of the little one's mother pacing back and forth in front of the shack, her hair hanging in strings, her clothing drenched with rain and clinging to her body, her eyes upturned, and her face expressing the most poignant agony. When they left she had thus been pacing to and fro for seven hours and was, no doubt, doing so yet. The mother-heart of the woman could not withstand such an appeal, and soon she was busy in the difficult task of trying to get the little arms into the sleeves of dress and apron. Meanwhile, the two bedraggled men were on their knees striving with that acme of awkwardness of which only men are capable, to ensconce the little feet in stockings and shoes. The dressing of that child was worthy the brush of Raphael or the smile of angels. At three o'clock in the morning the schoolmaster stepped from the buggy and placed the sleeping baby in the mother's arms, and only the heavenly Father knows the language she spoke as she crooned over her little one. As the schoolmaster wended his way homeward, cold, hungry, and worn he was buoyant in spirit to the point of ecstasy. But he was chastened, for he had stood upon the Mount of Transfiguration and knew as never before that the mission of the schoolmaster is to find and restore the lost child.



CHAPTER XXIX

LONGEVITY

I'm quite in the notion of playing a practical joke on Atropos, and, perhaps, on Methuselah, while I'm about it. I'm not partial to Atropos at the best. She's such a reckless, uppish, heedless sort of tyrant. She rushes into huts, palaces, and even into the grand stand, and lays about her with her scissors, snipping off threads with the utmost abandon. She wields her shears without any sort of apology or by your leave. Not even a check-book can stay her ravages. Her devastation knows neither ruth nor gentleness. I don't like her, and have no compunction about playing a joke at her expense. I don't imagine it will daunt her, in the least, but I can have my fun, at any rate.

It is now just seven o'clock in the evening, and I shall not retire before ten o'clock at the earliest. So here are three good hours for me to dispose of; and I am the sole arbiter in the matter of disposing of them. My neighbor John has a cow, and he is applying the efficiency test to her. He charges her with every pound of corn, bran, fodder, and hay that she eats, and doctor's bills, too, I suppose, if there are any. Then he credits her with all the milk she furnishes. There is quite a book-account in her name, and John has a good time figuring out whether, judged by net results, she is a consumer or a producer. If I can resurrect sufficient mathematical lore, I think I shall try to apply this efficiency test to my three hours just to see if I can prove that hours are as important as cows. I ought to be able, somehow, to determine whether these hours are consumers or producers.

I read a book the other evening whose title is "Stories of Thrift for Young Americans," and it made me feel that I ought to apply the efficiency test to myself, and repeat the process every waking hour of the day. But, in order to do this, I must apply the test to these three hours. In my dreamy moods, I like to personify an Hour and spell it with a capital. I like to think of an hour as the singular of Houri which the Mohammedans call nymphs of paradise, because they were, or are, beautiful-eyed. My Hour then becomes a goddess walking through my life, and, as the poet says, et vera incessu patuit dea. If I show her that I appreciate her she comes again just after the clock strikes, in form even more winsome than before, and smiles upon me as only a goddess can. Once, in a sullen mood, I looked upon her as if she were a hag. When she returned she was a hag; and not till after I had done full penance did she become my beautiful goddess again.

A young man who had been spending the evening in the home of a neighbor complained that they did not play any games, and did nothing but talk. I could not ask what games he meant, fearing that I might smile in his face if he should say crokinole, tiddledy-winks, or button-button. Later on I learned that much of the talking was done that evening by a very cultivated man who has travelled widely and intelligently, and has a most engaging manner in his fluent discussions of art, literature, archaeology, architecture, places, and peoples. I was sorry to miss such an evening, and think I could forego tiddledywinks with a fair degree of amiability if, instead, I could hear such a man talk. I have seen people yawn in an art gallery. I fear to play tiddledywinks lest my hour may resume the guise of a hag. But that makes me think of Atropos again, and the joke I am planning to play on her. Still, I see that I shall not soon get around to that joke if I persist in these dim generalities, as a schoolmaster is so apt to do.

Well, as I was saying, these three hours are at my disposal, and I must decide what to do with them here and now. In deciding concerning hours I must sit in the judgment-seat whether I like it or not. Tomorrow evening I shall have other three hours to dispose of the same as these, and the next evening three others, and my decision to-night may be far-reaching. In six days I shall have eighteen such hours, and in fifty weeks nine hundred. I suppose that a generous estimate of a college year would be ten hours a day for one hundred and eighty days, or eighteen hundred hours in all. I am quite aware that some college boys will feel inclined to apply a liberal discount to this estimate, but I am not considering those fellows who try to do a month's work in the week of examination, and spend their fathers' money for coaching. Now, if eighteen hundred hours constitute a college year then my nine hundred hours are one-half a college year, and it makes a deal of difference what I do with these three hours.

If I had only started this joke on Atropos earlier and had applied these nine hundred hours on my college work, I could have graduated in three years instead of four, and that surely would have been in the line of efficiency. But in those days I was devoting more time and attention to Clotho than to Atropos. I would fain have ignored Lachesis altogether, but she made me painfully conscious of her presence, especially during the finals when, it seemed to me, she was unnecessarily diligent in her vocation. I could have dispensed with much of her torsion with great equanimity. I suppose that now I am trying to square accounts with her by playing this joke on her sister.

So I have decided that I shall read a play of Shakespeare to-night, another one to-morrow evening, and continue this until I have read all that he wrote. In the fifty weeks of the year I can easily do this and then reread some of them many times. I ought to be able to commit to memory several of the plays, too, and that would be good fun. If those chaps back yonder could recite the Koran word for word I shall certainly be able to learn equally well some of these plays. It would be worth while to recite "King Lear," "Macbeth," "Othello," "Hamlet," "The Tempest," and "As You Like It," the last week of the year just before I take my vacation of two weeks. If I can recite even these six plays in those six evenings I shall feel that I did well in deciding for Shakespeare instead of tiddledywinks.

Next year I shall read history, and that will be rare fun, too. In the nine hundred hours I shall certainly be able to read all of Fiske, Mommsen, Rhodes, Bancroft, McMaster, Channing, Bryce, Hart, Motley, Gibbon, and von Holst not to mention American statesmen. About the Ides of December I shall hold a levee and sit in state as the characters of history file by. I shall be able to call them all by name, to tell of the things they did and why they did them, and to connect their deeds with the world as it now is. I can't conceive of any picture-show equal to that, and all through my year with Shakespeare I shall be looking forward eagerly to my year with the historians. I plainly see that the neighbors will not need to bring in any playthings to amuse and entertain me, though, of course, I shall be grateful to them for their kindly interest. Then, the next year I shall devote to music, and if, by practising for nine hundred hours, I cannot acquire a good degree of facility in manipulating a piano or a violin, I must be too dull to ever aspire to the favor of Terpsichore. If I but measure up to my hopes during this year I shall be saved the expense of buying my music ready-made. The next year I shall devote to art, and by spending one entire evening with a single artist I shall thus become acquainted with three hundred of them. If I become intimate with this number I shall not be lonesome, even if I do not know the others. I think I shall give an art party at the holiday time of that year, and have three hundred people impersonate these artists. This will afford me a good review of my studies in art. It may diminish the gate receipts of the picture-show for a few evenings, but I suspect the world will be able to wag along.

Then the next year I shall study poetry, the next astronomy, and the next botany. Thus I shall come to know the plants of earth, the stars of heaven, and the emotions of men. That ought to ward off ennui and afford entertainment without the aid of the saloon. In the succeeding twelve years I shall want to acquire as many languages, for I am eager to excel Elihu Burritt in linguistic attainments even if I must yield to him as a disciple of Vulcan. If I can learn a language and read the literature of that language each year, possibly some college may be willing to grant me a degree for work in absentia. If not, I shall poke along the best I can and try to drown my grief in more copious drafts of work.

And I shall have quite enough to do, for mathematics, the sciences, and the arts and crafts all lie ahead of me in my programme. I plainly see that I have played my last game of tiddledywinks and solitaire. But I'll have fun anyhow. If I gain a half-year in each twelve-month as I have my programme mapped out, in seventy years I shall have a net gain of thirty-five years. Then, when Atropos comes along with her scissors to snip the thread, thinking I have reached my threescore and ten, I shall laugh in her face and let her know, between laughs, that I am really one hundred and five, and have played a thirty-five-year joke on her. Then I shall quote Bacon at her to clinch the joke: "A man may be young in years but old in hours if he have lost no time."



CHAPTER XXX

FOUR-LEAF CLOVER

I have no ambition to become either a cynic, a pessimist, or an iconoclast. To aspire in either of these directions is bad for the digestion, and good digestion is the foundation and source of much that is desirable in human affairs. Introspection has its uses, to be sure, but the stomach should have exemption as an objective. A stomach is a valuable asset if only one is not conscious of it. One of the emoluments of schoolmastering is the opportunity it affords for communing with elect souls whose very presence is a tonic. Will is one of these. He has a way of shunting my introspection over to the track of the head or the heart. He just talks along and the first thing I know the heart is singing its way through and above the storm, while the head has been connected up to the heart, and they are doing team-work that is good for me and good for all who meet me. At church I like to have them sing the hymn whose closing couplet is:

"I'll drop my burden at his feet And bear a song away."

I come out strong in singing that couplet, for I like it. In a human sense, that is just what happens when I chat with Will for an hour. When I ask him for bread, he never gives me a stone. On the contrary, he gives me good, white bread, and a bit of cake, besides.

In one of our chats the other day he was dilating upon Henry van Dyke's four rules, and very soon had banished all my little clouds and made my mental sky clear and bright. When I get around to evolving a definition of education I think I shall say that it is the process of furnishing people with resources for profitable and pleasant conversation. Why, those four rules just oozed into the talk, without any sort of flutter or formality, and made our chat both agreeable and fruitful. Henry Ward Beecher said many good things. Here is one that I caught in the school reader in my boyhood: "The man who carries a lantern on a dark night can have friends all about him, walking safely by the help of its rays and he be not defrauded." Education is just such a lantern and this schoolmaster, Will, knows how to carry it that it may afford light to the friends about him.

Well, the first of van Dyke's rules is: "You shall learn to desire nothing in the world so much but that you can be happy without it." I do wonder if he had been reading in Proverbs: "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." Or he may have been reading the statement of St. Paul: "For I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content." Or, possibly, he may have been thinking of the lines of Paul Laurence Dunbar,

"Sometimes the sun, unkindly hot, My garden makes a desert spot; Sometimes the blight upon the tree Takes all my fruit away from me; And then with throes of bitter pain Rebellious passions rise and swell— But life is more than fruit or grain, And so I sing, and all is well."

I am plebeian enough to be fond of milk and crackers as a luncheon; but I have just a dash of the patrician in my make-up and prefer the milk unskimmed. Sometimes, I find that the cream has been devoted to other, if not higher, uses and that my crackers must associate perforce with milk of cerulean hue. Such a situation is a severe test of character, and I am hoping that at such junctures along life's highway I may find some support in the philosophy of Mr. van Dyke.

I suspect that he is trying to make me understand that happiness is subjective rather than objective—that happiness depends not upon what we have, but upon what we do with what we have. I couldn't be an anarchist if I'd try. I don't grudge the millionaire his turtle soup and caviar. But I do feel a bit sorry for him that he does not know what a royal feast crackers and unskimmed milk afford. If the king and the anarchist would but join me in such a feast I think the king would soon forget his crown and the anarchist his plots, and we'd be just three good fellows together, living at the very summit of life and wishing that all men could be as happy as we.

The next rule is a condensed moral code: "You shall seek that which you desire only by such means as are fair and lawful, and this will leave you without bitterness toward men or shame before God." No one could possibly dissent from this rule, unless it might be a burglar. I know the grocer makes a profit on the things I buy from him, and I am glad he does. Otherwise, he would have to close his grocery and that would inconvenience me greatly. He thanks me when I pay him, but I feel that I ought to thank him for supplying my needs, for having his goods arranged so invitingly, and for waiting upon me so promptly and so politely. I can't really see how any customer can feel any bitterness toward him. He gives full weight, tells the exact truth as to the quality of the goods, and in all things is fair and lawful. I have no quarrel with him and cannot understand why others should, unless they are less fair, lawful, and agreeable than the grocer himself. I suspect that the grocer and the butcher take on the color of the glasses we happen to be wearing, and that Mr. van Dyke is admonishing us to wear clear glasses and to keep them clean.

The third rule needs to be read at least twice if not oftener: "You shall take pleasure in the time while you are seeking, even though you obtain not immediately that which you seek; for the purpose of a journey is not only to arrive at the goal, but also to find enjoyment by the way." I have seen people rushing along in automobiles at the mad rate of thirty or forty miles an hour, missing altogether the million-dollar scenery along the way, in their haste to get to the end of their journey, where a five-cent bag of peanuts awaited them. Had I been riding in an automobile through the streets of Tacoma I might not have seen that glorious cluster of five beautiful roses on a single branch in that attractive lawn. Because of them I always think of Tacoma as the city of roses, for I stopped to look at them. I have quite forgotten the objective point of my stroll; I recollect the roses. When we were riding out from Florence on a tram-car to see the ancient Fiesole I plucked a branch from an olive-tree from the platform of the car. On that branch were at least a dozen young olives, the first I had ever seen. I have but the haziest recollection of the old theatre and the subterranean passages where Catiline and his crowd had their rendezvous; but I do recall that olive branch most distinctly. I cannot improve upon Doctor van Dyke's statement of the rule, but I can interpret it in terms of my own experiences by way of verifying it. I am sure he has it right.

The fourth rule is worthy of meditation and prayer; "When you attain that which you have desired, you shall think more of the kindness of your fortune than of the greatness of your skill. This will make you grateful and ready to share with others that which Providence hath bestowed upon you; and truly this is both reasonable and profitable, for it is but little that any of us would catch in this world were not our luck better than our deserts." I shall omit the lesson in arithmetic to-morrow and have, instead, a lesson in life and living, using these four rules as the basis of our lesson. My boys and girls are to have many years of life, I hope, and I'd like to help them to a right start if I can. Some of my many mistakes might have been avoided if my teachers had given me some lessons in the art of living, for it is an art and must be learned. These rules would have helped, could I have known them. I am glad to know that my pupils have faith in me. When I pointed out a nettle to them one day, they avoided it; when I showed them a mushroom that is edible, they accepted the statement without question. So I'll see what I can do for them to-morrow with these four rules. Then, if we have time, we shall learn the lines of Mrs. Higginson:

"I know a place where the sun is like gold, And the cherry blooms burst with snow, And down underneath is the loveliest nook, Where the four-leaf clovers grow.

One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith, And one is for love, you know, And God put another in for luck— If you search, you will find where they grow.

But you must have hope, and you must have faith, You must love and be strong—and so, If you work, if you wait, you will find the place Where the four-leaf clovers grow."



CHAPTER XXXI

MOUNTAIN-CLIMBING

Mountain-climbing is rare sport. And it is sport if only one has the courage to do it. We had gone to the top of Vesuvius on the funicular railway; but one man decided to make the climb. We forgot the volcano in our admiration of the climber. Foot by foot he made his way zigzagging this way and that, slipping, falling, and struggling till at last he reached the summit. Then, fifty throats poured forth a lusty cheer to do him honor. He was not good to look at, for his clothing was crumpled and soiled, the veins stood out on his neck, his hair was tousled, his face was red and streaming with sweat; yet, for all that, we cheered him and meant it, too. He acknowledged our applause in an honest, simple way, and then disappeared in the crowd. He was not posing as a heroic figure, but was just an honest mountain-climber who accepted the challenge of the mountain and won. In our cheering we did just what the world does: we gave the laurel wreath to the man who wins in a test of courage.

I think "Excelsior" is pretty good stuff in the way of depicting mountain-climbing, and I always want to cheer that young chap as he fights his way toward the top. He could have stopped down there in the valley, where everything was snug and comfortable, but he chose to climb so as to have a look around. I thought of him one day at Scheidegg. There we were, nearly a mile and a half above sea-level, shivering in the midst of ice and snow in mid-July, but we had a look around that made us glad in spite of the cold. As Virgil says: "It will be pleasing to remember these things hereafter." I have often noticed that the old soldiers seem to recall the hardest marches, the most severe battles, and the greatest privations more vividly than their every-day experiences.

So the mountain-climbing that I have been doing with my boys and girls stands out like a cameo in my retrospective view. Sometimes we looked back toward the valley, and it seemed so peaceful and beautiful that it caused the mountain before us to seem ominous. At such times, when courage seemed to be oozing, we needed to reinforce one another with words of cheer. The steep places seemed perilously rough at times, and I could hear a stifled sob somewhere in my little company. At such times I would urge myself along at a more rapid pace, that I might reach a higher level and call out to them in heartening tones to hurry on up to our resting-place. We would often sing a bit in the midst of our resting, and when the sob had been changed to a laugh I felt that life was well worth while.

As we toiled upward I was ever on the lookout for a patch of sunlight in the midst of the shadows that it might lure them on. And it never failed. Like magic that sun-spot always quickened their pace, and they often hailed it with a shout. They would even race toward that sunny place, their weariness all gone. When a bird sang we always stopped to listen; and the song acted upon them as the music of a band acts upon drooping soldiers. On the next stage of the journey their eyes sparkled, and their step was more elastic. When one stumbled and fell, we helped him to his feet and praised his effort, wholly ignoring the fall. Sometimes one would become discouraged and would want to drop out of the company and return home. When this happened, we would gather about him and tell him how good it was to have him with us, how he helped us on, and how sorry we should be to have him absent when we reached the top. When he decided to keep on with us, we gave a mighty cheer and then went whistling on our upward way.

We constantly vied with one another in discovering chaste bits of scenery along the way, and we were ever too generous to withhold praise or to appropriate to ourselves the credit that belonged to another. If one found the nest of a bird hidden away in the foliage, we all stopped in admiration. When another discovered a spring gushing out from beneath the rocks, we all refreshed ourselves with the limpid water and poured out our thanks to the discoverer. When a rare flower was found, we took time to examine it minutely till we all felt joy in the flower and in the finder. To us nothing was ever small or negligible that any one of our company discovered. If one started a song we all joined in heartily as if we had been waiting for that one to lead us in the singing. Thus each one, according to his gifts and inclinations, became a leader on one or another of the enterprises connected with our journey.

So, in time, it seemed to us that the big tree came to meet us in order to give its kindly shade for our comfort; that the bird poured forth its song as a special gift to us to give us new courage; that the flower met us at the right time and place to smile its beauty into our lives; that each stream laughed its way to our feet to quench our thirst, and to share with us its coolness; that the mossy bank gave us a special invitation to enjoy its hospitality; that the cloud had heard our wishes and came to shield us from the sun, and that the path came forth from among the thickets to guide us on our way. Because we were winning, all nature seemed to be cheering us on as the people cheered the man at Vesuvius.

Having reached the summit, we sat together in eloquent silence. We had toiled, and struggled, and suffered together, and so had learned to think and feel in unison. Our spirits had become fused in a common purpose, and we could sit in silence and not be abashed. We had become honest with our surroundings, honest with one another, and honest with ourselves, and so could smile at mere conventions and find joy in one another without words. We had encountered honest difficulties—rocks, trees, streams, sloughs, tangles, sand, and sun, and had overcome them by honest effort and so had achieved honesty. We had met and overcome big things, too, and in doing so had grown big. No longer did our hearts flutter in the presence of little things, for we had won poise and serenity.

The fogs had been banished from our minds; our sight had become clear; our spirits had been enlarged; our courage had been made strong, and our faith was lifted up. A new horizon opened up before us that stretched on and on and made us know that life is a big thing. The sky became our companion with all its myriad stars; the sea became our neighbor with all the life it holds, and the landscape became our dooryard, with all its varied beauty and grandeur. The ships upon the sea and the trains upon the land became our messengers of service. The wires and the air sped our thoughts abroad and linked us to the world. We looked straight into the faces of the big elemental things of life and were not afraid.

When we came back among our own people, they seemed to know that some change had taken place and loved us all the more. They came to us for counsel and comfort, paying silent tribute to the wisdom that had come to us from the mountain. They looked upon us not as superiors, but as larger equals. We had learned another language, but had not forgotten theirs. We nestled down in their affections and told them of our mountain, and they were glad.

* * * * *

And now I sit before the fire and watch the pictures in the flickering flames. In my reverie I see my boys and girls, companions in the mountain-climbing, going upon their appointed ways. I see them healing and comforting the sick, relieving distress, ministering to the needy, and supplanting darkness with light. I see them in their efforts to make the world better and more beautiful, and life more blessed. I see them bringing hope and courage and cheer into many lives. They are bringing the spirit of the mountain down into the valley, and men rejoice. Seeing them thus engaged, and hearing them singing as they go, I can but smile and smile.

THE END