The toughened muscles of his
strong, slim body no longer ached in rebellion at his tasks. Work had
become a part of the rhythm of life. He could sing at his hardest task.
The freedom and strength of the woods had gotten into his blood. In this
world of waving trees, of birds and beasts, of laughing sky and rippling
waters, there were no masters, no slaves. Millions in gold were of no
value in its elemental struggle. Character, skill, strength and manhood
only counted. Poverty was teaching him the first great lesson of human
life, that man shall eat his bread in the sweat of his brow and that
industry is the only foundation on which the moral and material universe
has ever rested or can rest.
Solitude and the stimulus of his mother's mind were slowly teaching him
to think--to think deeply and fearlessly, and think for himself.
Entering now in his ninth year, he was shy, reticent, over-grown,
consciously awkward, homely and ill clad--he grew so rapidly it was
impossible to make his clothes fit. But in the depths of his hazel-grey
eyes there were slumbering fires that set him apart from the boys of his
age. His mother saw and understood.
A child in years and yet he had already learned the secrets of the toil
necessary to meet the needs of life. He swung a woodman's axe with any
man. He could plow and plant a field, make its crop, harvest and store
its fruits and cook them for the table.
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