Chapter VIII: Part 8

Something happened soon after this, and Mr. Wright went back to Philadelphia before I could send in my contributions. Then my old mother was taken very ill, and I had no time for literature. Mr. Wright kept in touch with the country paper, and when my contributions no longer appeared, he wrote me to know the reason why. I told him that I was nursing my dying mother, and was obliged to drop literature until all was over. He wrote me again and extended his sympathy, and what was of still more material benefit—a bank note. It came when poverty and sorrow were sweeping over me, and it gave me courage.

It was so pleasant to know that this big-hearted man was thinking of me, away down in the big city. He was the first educated man to find any merit in my feeble attempts at writing for publication. His appreciation came like rain to a famishing flower. It was something I had been hungering for through the miserable years when all the future looked like a narrow horizon, that dipped down into a coming storm of hopelessness.

I never saw Mr. Wright but that one time, and never heard directly from him again. I never had the opportunity to tell him how much good his kind words of appreciation had done for me. He died while I was living in Colorado, and my soul was filled with sorrow and regret. I had always hoped to meet him again and thank him for the good he had so unconsciously imparted to me. I knew that an inspiration had gone out of my life when he died, though he never dreamed of the great uplift he had given me.

I am writing these lines to show the reader how much good one man’s appreciative words can do for another. We all have a subtle force within ourselves for doing good or harm to our fellow men. The thought pebble we carelessly toss into the intellectual stream of our neighbor may start little waves to vibrating and extending into a circle around him, which will greatly influence his future life.

After Mr. Wright’s death there was a space of fifteen years in which no man could transmit an inspiration to my soul and give my mind a new impetus. Then, outside a little country church, I met for the first time the other man who touched a vibrating chord in my soul, and a new world of hope opened up, like the lifting of a dense fog often reveals the distant mountains.

INDEX

Page
Frontispiece 1
Biographical Appreciation 3
I Plead Guilty 9
Religion of Humanity 10
Joe Bailey’s Ride 12
The Other Man’s Baby 13
The Pathos of Humor 15
The Pine Creek Tragedy 16
The Homesick Boy 18
Friends Who Pass in the Dark 19
Voice of the Stone 20
Ingratitude 22
Orphan Eva 23
Loving the World 24
Lost in the Snow 26
A Plea for Childhood 27
Thoughts of Immortality 29
Teach Sentiment 30
The Soul of Sorrow 31
Visiting the Old Home 32
The Wayward Boy 34
A Wasted Life 35
Garret Memories 36
Your Baby Still 38
Wish I were a Jew 39
Memories 40
Sweetened with Sorrow 42
In Her Dreams 43
The Mortgaged Mother 45
The Toy Maker 46
The Mother-in-Law 47
Bob White 49
Whipping a Child 51
Not a Clinging Vine 52
The Saloon in Our Town 53
The Homesick Child 55
Why He Quit Hunting 56
The Hard-Luck Showman 58
Playing with Hearts 59
True Friendship 61
Sighing of the Pines 62
The Homesick Horses 64
The Blind Cigarmaker 65
The Three Classes 66
Hissed and Hooted 68
The War with Self 69
Crippled Joe and the Showman 71
Race Suicide 73
For a Stage Career 74
The Dead of the Land and Sea 76
Where Dreams Come True 77
It Might Have Been 79
A Misguided Mother 80
The World is Blind 82
Wrong on the Throne 83
The Voices We Understand 84
Chasing the Cows Up 86
Flowers for the Living 87
The Hobo’s Story 89
In the Looking Glass 90
Ungrateful Young Girls 92
The Giant Pine 93
The Little House-Keeper 95
The Male Flirt 96
Memories of the Old Trunk 98
The Auction Block 100
The Old Yard Master 101
Books that Made Me Think 103
Forgotten Graves 104
In the Open Door 105
The Judge’s Tears 107
The Dog’s Kiss 108
Love Letters 110
At the Pool of Life 112
A Palace Without Love 113
The Soldier’s Diary 114
Two Men Who Touched My Soul 116