He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide.
I am content with what I have
Little be it or much....”
He perceived that Stephen had stopped playing and was looking at him steadily as he said the words aloud. With a flourish of his paring knife he went on, smiling at the little boy, “Then said the guide, ‘Do you hear him? I will dare to say that this boy lives a merrier life and wears more of that herb called heart’s ease in his bosom than he that is clad in silk and velvet!’
“Silk and velvet!” he said with a humorous scorn, lifting a fold of his gingham apron.
“Is it a ’tory?” asked Stephen, coming up beside his father’s chair.
“You bet your life it is a story, a crackajack of a story.”
“Tell it to me,” said Stephen. He leaned both elbows on the arm of the chair, put his round chin in his hands, tipped his head to one side and turned his shining dark eyes up towards his father’s face.
A phrase came to Lester’s mind, the description of the day when Bunyan had first seen the great invisible world henceforth to be his heart’s home, and how it had begun by his seeing in one of the streets of Bedford, “three or four poor people sitting at a door in the sun talking of the things of God.” He and Stephen were poor people too, sitting in the sun—such golden sunshine as came through the window into the quiet room and fell on the head of his little boy.