"There were so many different opinions about it, and so many theories and beliefs, that after a time the people began to wonder whether there was really any gold in the mine at all. Some doubted and disbelieved, and a great many walked all about over the mine and had not faith enough to dig beneath the surface.
"Yet the gold was there, Jamie--it is there--a great mine of beautiful, shining gold. There is enough for everyone; yet few have obtained a supply sufficient for their own needs."
The story was finished and there was silence in the room. Then the thin little hand crept into Margaret's.
"Is that the way you think about the Bible, Margy?"
"Yes, Jamie. The Bible is a great mine of Truth; few, if any, have found the whole of it, and many, many have not found sufficient for their needs."
The boy's eyes were grave and serious; a grain of truth had been sown in fertile soil. Then after a time the blue-veined lids fluttered and closed and the boy fell asleep.
The spring opened early; the great drifts of snow yielded beneath the sun's warm rays and miniature rivulets and rills rushed and babbled down the hillside. Bare brown patches of earth showed here and there over the Flat, and unsightly piles of rubbish and debris were again laid bare; the mantle that had covered them melted and slipped away as though glad to be free.
The children of the Flat, long housed in close, cramped quarters, were hilarious at sight of the brown Mother Earth; and this great-hearted Mother to whom they turned instinctively never fails and never disappoints, but remains always heart to heart with the best in human nature. Poor waifs of children they were, unkept and ill-clad in spite of the efforts that had been made in their behalf.
There was no school on the Flat; the children who went to school climbed the long hill and went over into Edgerly and entered the ranks with the Edgerly fledglings. But many of these children never climbed the long hill, never saw the Christian city and never entered a schoolhouse.
Mrs. Thorpe had long felt that these children should be gathered together and instructed; now the conviction came to her that it must be done.