by years of
successful labor. To us he was a living example of the rewards which
come to endeavor, and so it was with evident self-consciousness that he
now sat very erect, thinking, perhaps, that he would hear some views akin
to his own.

"I was born in a narrow valley," the Professor pursued, "and perhaps I
might have dozed there like the dogs, but I learned that beyond the
mountains there was another valley, broader and richer. I longed to live
there. One day I crossed the mountains to it and I found it all that I
had heard. But it, too, had its wall of mountains and my eyes followed
them, and I learned that beyond them was still another valley, broader
and richer. And I went on. So it will be with you. There is a big nail
factory down by the river--I saw it as I came in, and I am sure that to
some of us to own that factory might be a life's ambition. How fine it
would be when our work was ended to fold our hands peacefully and say: 'I
have fought the good fight, I have run the race, I have made a million
kegs of nails!'"

Judge Bundy half rose from his chair. Through the hall sounded a
smothered murmur of applause, for it is always satisfying to hear a truth
which hits another. Judge Bundy would have wholly risen from his chair,
but he was checked by a hundred covert smiles and Doctor Todd laid a hand
upon his quivering, indignant knee. All unconscious of the cause of this
stifled mirth, and fired by it as in the old days he was fired when Stacy
Shunk leered beneath the shadow of his hat, the Professor leaned far over
the desk with both hands outstretched.

"I have failed utterly in my own living," he cried. "I have loafed and
lagged. At times I have worked hard until I wearied myself chasing
shadows. But in my failure I have learned a few things. We may live and
doze in our little valley, but still we shall long for the broader and
richer valley across the mountains. The yearning for that something
better is born in us all. Shall we call it simply something more; shall
we measure our service in kegs of nails or shall we seek for something
really better? If we listen we can hear in the depths of our souls the
divine drumbeat, and it is strange what cowards we are when we come to
march to it. But we can march to it. We may not know why we go, nor
where, but we can go straight. The country we travel may seem waste, but
we cross it under God's sealed orders, given to us when we opened our
eyes