But even spectacles did not make reading possible at once. He stared at the sheet for a long time before he understood exactly what Amos meant.
"Dear Uncle, you will be surprised to hear that I am going to give up my school. I have written to the directors. There are plenty others who will be glad to have the place. Uncle, I have found peace. For a long time I have been uneasy in a spiritual way. But I have found a friend and he says that what I need is to work hard and the soul will take care of itself. I work in the furnace and in the evening I am with him. He is a Salvation Army worker. There are three men and two women who work together. One man and one woman are married, the rest are single people. It is like the idea of the Kloster in a way. I hope you were not anxious. I had a heavy burden on me, Uncle."
When he at last understood, Grandfather was violently excited, not by anger or by disappointment, but by hope. If Amos had found peace, so much the better. But he need not stay away—this was the place for him to labor; let him bring his friends here! Grandfather penned a forgiving, welcoming response.
But Amos was not to be persuaded. He answered saying that he was glad he was forgiven, but a life of meditation and prayer suited none of them; they must be up and doing, the harvest was white. "It is our custom to go where sin is," explained Amos. "We do not wait for sinners to come to us."
"'We'!" repeated Grandfather.
The word had for Amos a specific meaning.
"There is a young woman here, Corporal Sally, who is a noble woman. She has had a sad history, but has come through." Little did Grandfather dream the struggling against sin, represented by a worldly Ellen, behind these simple sentences!
Then, alas for both writer and reader, Amos explained that he could no longer believe in the keeping of the Seventh Day, the ceremony of Foot-washing, the exchange of the holy kiss. He did not hold them to be the essentials of religion.
He said in conclusion that if Grandfather needed him, if he should be sick, for instance, he could come at once. He signed himself Grandfather's "in the Lord."
"In the Lord!" Grandfather lifted his stout old stick and brought it down heavily. It struck "Esther Waters" and Esther fell to the floor. "The Raft" was torn across one of its grimmest pages, "Madame Bovary" was cruelly slashed.