XX HE DINES OUT, IMPEDED BY SUPERSTITIONS
XXIII HE REVILES DESTINY AND CLIMBS A WALL
XXV HE ADVANCES IN THE ATTACK ON SELWOODE
XXVI HE ASSISTS IN THE DIVERSION OF BIRDS
XXVIII HE PARTICIPATES IN SUNDRY CONFIDENCES
XXIX HE ALLOWS THE MERITS OF IMPERFECTION
THE EPILOGUE: WHICH SUGGESTS THAT SECOND THOUGHTS--
_"In the house and garden of his dream he saw a child moving, and could divide the main streams at least of the winds that had played on him, and study so the first stage in that mental journey."_
_The Prologue: Which Deals with the Essentials_
It appeared to me that my circumstances clamored for betterment, because never in my life have I been able to endure the contact of unhappiness. And my mother was always crying now, over (though I did not know it) the luckiest chance which had ever befallen her; and that made me cry too, without understanding exactly why.
So the child, that then was I, procured a pencil and a bit of wrapping-paper, and began to write laboriously:
"You know that Papa died and please comfort Mama and give Father a crown of Glory Ammen
This appeared to the point as I re-read it, and of course God would understand that children were not expected to write quite as straight across the paper as grown people. The one problem was how to deliver this, my first letter, most expeditiously, because when your mother cried you always cried too, and couldn't stop, not even when you wanted to, not even when she promised you five cents, and it all made you horribly uncomfortable.
I knew that the big Bible on the parlor table was God's book. Probably God read it very often, since anybody would be proud of having written a book as big as that and would want to look at it every day. So I tiptoed into the darkened parlor. I use the word advisedly, for there was not at this period any drawing-room in Lichfield, and besides, a drawing-room is an entirely different matter.
Everywhere the room was cool, and, since the shades were down, the outlines of the room's contents were uncomfortably dubious; for just where the table stood had been, five days ago, a big and oddly-shaped black box with beautiful silver handles; and Uncle George had lifted me so that I could see through the pane of glass, which was a part of this funny box, while an infinity of decorous people rustled and whispered....