o we sang "Onward, Christian Soldier, Marching as to War," and followed
up with:

Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve And press with rigour on; A heavenly
race demands thy zeal And an immortal crown.

When we had finished, and as Martha rose from her seat, the minister
impulsively put his hands on her shoulders, and said:

"Martha, this is the greatest night of my life."

He took a turn up and down the room, and then with an exultant boyish
laugh said:

"We'll go to town to-morrow and pick out that sewing-machine!"

I remained with them that night and part of the following day, taking
a hand with them in the garden, but of the events of that day I shall
speak in another chapter.

CHAPTER V. I PLAY THE PART OF A SPECTACLE PEDDLER

Yesterday was exactly the sort of a day I love best--a spicy,
unexpected, amusing day--crowned with a droll adventure.

I cannot account for it, but it seems to me I take the road each morning
with a livelier mind and keener curiosity. If you were to watch me
narrowly these days you would see I am slowly shedding my years. I
suspect that some one of the clear hill streams from which I have been
drinking (lying prone on my face) was in reality the fountain of eternal
youth. I shall not go back to see.

It seems to me, when I feel like this, that in every least thing upon
the roadside, or upon the hill, lurks the stuff of adventure. What a
world it is! A mile south of here I shall find all that Stanley found in
the jungles of Africa; a mile north I am Peary at the Pole!

You there, brown-clad farmer on the tall seat of your wagon, driving
townward with a red heifer for sale, I can show you that life--your
life--is not all a gray smudge, as you think it is, but crammed, packed,
loaded with miraculous things. I can show you wonders past belief in
your own soul. I can easily convince you that you are in reality a poet,
a hero, a true lover, a saint.

It is because we are not humble enough in the presence of the divine
daily fact that adventure knocks so rarely at our door. A thousand times
I have had to learn this truth (what lesson so hard to learn as the
lesson of humility!) and I suppose I shall have to learn it a thousand
times more. This very day, straining my eyes to see the distant wonders
of the mountains, I nearly missed a miracle by the roadside.

Soon after leaving the minister and his family--I worked with them in
their garden with great delight most of the forenoo