But as I ran, and ran, every afternoon, my mile, the boys stopped laughing, and I heard them say among themselves, "Old Gregory, he'll get there!"
After the exercise there would be the rub-down with fragrant witch hazel ... then supper!
A dining-room, filled to the full, every table, with five hundred irrepressible boys ... it was a cheerful and good attendance at each of the three meals. We joined together in saying a blessing. We sang a lusty hymn together, accompanied on the little, wheezy, dining-room organ. I liked the good, simple melodies sung, straight and hearty, without trills and twirls....
Every night, just before "lights out," at ten, fifteen minutes was set aside, called "silent time"—and likewise in the morning, just before breakfast-bell—for prayer and religious meditation.
Jimmy Anderson, my little blond roommate, fair-haired and delicate-faced as a girl (his sisters, on the contrary, not femininely pretty, as he, but masculine and handsome)—Jimmy Anderson read his Bible and knelt and prayed during both "silent times."
I read the Bible and prayed for the quiet, religious luxury of it. My prayer, when I prayed, was just to "God," not Jehovah ... not to God of any sect, religion, creed.
"Dear God," ran always my prayer, "Dear God, if you really exist, make me a great poet. I ask for nothing else. Only let me become famous."
I was so happy in my studies,—my work, even,—my wanderings in the woods and along the country roads, with the poets under my arms.... I read them all, from Layamon's Brut on. For, for me, all that existed was poetry. At this stage of my life it was my be-all and end-all.