But my desire to go, and dreaming of it, impressed it
and him upon me more, perhaps, than the boys who really went were
impressed. How outside of it all I felt when I used to go down
there to the school exhibitions! It was after that that I had
my dream of going to Harpersfield Seminary--the very name had a
romantic sound. Though Father had promised me I might go, when
the time came he couldn't afford it; he didn't mean to go back
on his word, but there was very little money--I wonder how they
got along so well as they did with so little."
"As a boy it had been instilled into my mind that God would strike
one dead for mocking him. One day Ras Jenkins and I were crossing
this field when it began to thunder. Ras turned up his lips to
the clouds contemptuously. 'Oh, don't, you'll be struck,' I cried,
cringing in expectation of the avenging thunderbolt. What a
revelation it was when he was not struck! I immediately began to
think, 'Now, maybe God isn't so easily offended as I thought'; but
it seemed to me any God with dignity ought to have been offended
by such an act."
Mr. Burroughs showed me the old rosebush in the pasture, all that
was left to mark the site where a house had once stood; even before
his boyhood days this house had become a thing of the past.
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