It was a happy day, for the growing cords expressed in a satisfactory manner my new sense of obligation to those I loved.

Imaginary conversations came into my brain as I worked and were rehearsed in whispers.
"Why, Bart, you're a grand worker," my uncle would say in my fancy.
"You're as good as a hired man." "Oh, that's nothing," I would answer modestly.

"I want to be useful so you won't be sorry you took me and I'm going to study just as Mr.Wright did and be a great man if I can and help the poor people.

I'm going to be a better scholar than Sally Dunkelberg, too." What a day it was!--the first of many like it.

I never think of those days without saying to myself: "What a God's blessing a man like Silas Wright can be in the community in which his heart and soul are as an open book!" As the evening came on I took a long look at my cords.