“Therefore, my dear little son Johnny, learn and pray away! and tell Lippus and Jost, too that they must learn and pray. And then you shall come to the garden together. Herewith I commend thee to Almighty God. And greet Aunt Lehne, and give her a kiss for my sake.
“Thy dear Father,
“Martinus Luther.
XIII.
August 3.
The summer is sliding quietly away,—my desolate summer which I dreaded; with the dreams gone from its wild flowers, the crown from its sunsets, the thrill from its winds and its singing.
But I have found out a thing. One can live without dreams and crowns and thrills.
I have not lost them. They lie under the ivied cross with Roy for a little while. They will come back to me with him. “Nothing is lost,” she teaches me. And until they come back, I see—for she shows me—fields groaning under their white harvest, with laborers very few. Ruth followed the sturdy reapers, gleaning a little. I, perhaps, can do as much. The ways in which I must work seem so small and insignificant, so pitifully trivial sometimes, that I do not even like to write them down here. In fact, they are so small that, six months ago, I did not see them at all. Only to be pleasant to old Phœbe, and charitable to Meta Tripp, and faithful to my not very interesting little scholars, and a bit watchful of worn-out Mrs. Bland, and—But dear me, I won’t! They are so little!
But one’s self becomes of less importance, which seems to be the point.