, and now you are trying to ruin the boys and those
two fool preachers. People know it, too, and I am ashamed to show my
face for the talk."

When he seemed to have finished, I asked:

"How long since you learned my real character?"

This spurred him to new wrath, and he exclaimed:

"There now, that's the next of it. You will go and tell that I've abused
you. It's not me. I never suspected your honesty, but my mother, yes, my
poor old mother. I would not care, if you could only behave yourself
before my mother!"

I sat leaning my elbows on my table with my head in my hands, and the
words "ruined Samuel" became a refrain. I thought of the danger out of
which I had plucked him while in Louisville, of the force with which I
had grappled him with hooks of steel, as he hung on the outer edge of
that precipice of dissipation, while I clung to the Almighty Arm for
help. I thought of the tears and solemnity with which this man had given
to me the dying message of that rescued brother. Earth seemed to be
passing away, and to leave no standing room. I was teaching school in
the abandoned meeting-house. It was noon recess and I must hurry or be
late. I passed into the hall and out of the house, with the thought "I
cross his threshold now for the last time;" but I must remain near and
finish my school, when I would be present to meet those monstrous
charges before the world. My reveries did not interfere with my school
duties, and when they were over I sat in the old meeting-house or walked
its one aisle, with the quiet dead lying all around me, thinking of that
good fight which I should fight, ere I finished my course, and lay down
to rest as they did. But the sun went down, the long twilight drew on
the coming night, and I was homeless. Where should I go?

I thought of the Burkhammers, whose little son lay among the dead beside
me. I had tended him in his last illness and prepared his body for
burial. They were German tenants of Judge Wilkins and to reach their
house I must pass through the dark valley over which now lay a new pall.
There were lights in the house as I passed, and Tom rattled his chain
and gave forth one of those shrieks which pierced the air for a mile. I
was glad to know that he was not loose, and that it was only my phantom
which crouched in every available place, ready to spring. The bears
bellowed a response to his shriek, but I did not hasten. The stream, so
loud and angry on that night of my first ent