s. Your life is going to be
about like other lives.

And you are going to learn the wonderful lesson thru the years, the
bumps and the tears, that all these things somehow are necessary to
promote our education.

These bumps and hard knocks do not break the fiddle--they turn the pegs.

These bumps and tragedies and Waterloos draw the strings of the soul
tighter and tighter, nearer and nearer to God's great concert pitch,
where the discords fade from our lives and where the music divine and
harmonies celestial come from the same old strings that had been
sending forth the noise and discord.

Thus we know that our education is progressing, as the evil and
unworthy go out of our lives and as peace, harmony, happiness, love and
understanding come into our lives.

That is getting in tune.

That is growing up.

Chapter VIII

Looking Backward

Memories of the Price We Pay

WHAT a price we pay for what we know! I laugh as I look backward--and
weep and rejoice.

I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, altho it is quite
evident that I could have handled a pretty good-sized spoon. But father
being a country preacher, we had tin spoons. We never had to tie a red
string around our spoons when we loaned them for the ladies' aid
society oyster supper. We always got our spoons back. Nobody ever
traded with us by mistake.

Do you remember the first money you ever earned? I do. I walked several
miles into the country those old reaper days and gathered sheaves. That
night I was proud when that farmer patted me on the head and said, "You
are the best boy to work, I ever saw." Then the cheerful old miser put
a nickel in my blistered hand. That nickel looked bigger than any money
I have since handled.

That "Last Day of School"

Yet I was years learning it is much easier to make money than to handle
it, hence the tale that follows.

I was sixteen years old and a school teacher. Sweet sixteen--which
means green sixteen. But remember again, only green things grow. There
is hope for green things. I was so tall and awkward then--I haven't
changed much since. I kept still about my age. I was several dollars
the lowest bidder. They said out that way, "Anybody can teach kids."
That is why I was a teacher.

I had never studied pedagogy, but I had whittled out three rules that I
thought would make it go. My first rule was, Make 'em study. My second,
Make, em recite. That is, fill 'em up and then