Two years ago he had closed the pages of his own past. Now he knew that he was closing the book upon yet another stage of his own development. Fellowship, understanding, sympathy, the common human struggles! From John Calvin’s interpretation David Joslin turned to an interpretation of his own. He read from larger pages.
The night passed at length. Dawn grayed the dull windows of the saloon front, opaqued that passers-by might not see what went on within. But this dull dawn was the opening of a new horizon to David Joslin. He saw a wider world. He had learned that dogma is not life.
He heard the door open. The owner of the place entered, his usually impassive face curiously turned toward the interior. Joslin walked forward to meet him, on his face now at least the semblance of a smile. John Moran himself smiled, as he looked and saw the untouched glass upon the table.
“Well, friend, you’ve won,” said he. “Here’s your quarter back again.”
Joslin felt in his hand the weight of a gold piece, but he put it back, his lip somewhat trembling. “I thank you,” said he, “but I can’t take it.”
“Yes. But I’ll have to finish my own way, I reckon,” said David Joslin. “You see, I’ve been going to school up North here. But now I’ve concluded not to go there any more. No—I don’t need it.”
He smiled now, as he extended his hand with that quality upon his face which brought friends to him so quickly, and held them so staunchly.
“Good-by,” said he, clasping his brother’s hand in his own large one. “I thank you more than I can tell you. I’m better than when I came in here last night. You’ve been a good Samaritan.”
And so David Joslin passed out into a larger world and a wider dawn.
IN THE Cumberlands, at the Forks of the Kentucky life went on as it had from time immemorial. There were few more houses than there had been a hundred years ago, no more roads, little more of civilization. But one morning, while yet the dawn was young, a man standing contemplatively on the stoop of his house, hands in pockets, looked idly up to the summit of the tall hill, which dominated the little town, and the gaze of this man lingered. There seemed to be someone up there, so far away that he could not be identified.