"Just for the present, you know, until he sees what he can do, poor
fellow," she said, and Ried accepted the little room joyfully, and
helped fit it up.
CHAPTER XXIX
"WHAT IF I BELONGED?"
You think things are taking very rapid strides? Well, don't you know
that there come periods when they do just that thing, or appear to? Why,
even the buds on the trees teach us the lesson. How many springtimes
have you gone to your bed feeling that the season was late, and the
trees were bare, and the fruits would all be backward, and Nature was
dawdling along in a very wearisome fashion; and awakened in the morning
to find that there had in the night been a gentle rain, and a movement
of mysterious power among the buds and the grasses, and that now, in the
morning sunshine, the world had burst into bloom? Yet, did you really
suppose, after all, that the _work_ was done in one night?
There was progress of several sorts in the class at the South End. Even
a casual observer could have seen a change in the boys that first Sunday
after they had attended Dirk's mother to the grave. The dignity of that
hour of sorrow was still upon them. Even the very reckless and
world-hardened will offer a certain degree of respect to death.
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