I
was honest in trying to do my duty, and it grieved me to think he was
not. Another young colored boy whom I took, is a physician in our city
to-day, and another who came to my house to be instructed has been
graduated at the Normal School of our State with high honors, being
chosen as the valedictorian of the class, and he is to-day principal of
a Philadelphia school.
"I tell you this truth has always been before me, and I have run the
risk of my life almost daily in practising upon it. My school was really
injured for a time, and dwindled down to a few scholars, but I kept
right along, and the seed which was self-sowing, sprang up around me,
and to-day I have more than I can do, and the people know I am right."
The blue eyes of Mr. Dayton sparkled as he paused in his recital,
running his fingers through his hair, and for a time evidently wandering
in the labyrinthine walks of the soul's mathematics, whose beautifully
defined laws might make all things straight, and it was only the sight
of John's towering form in the doorway that roused him, and he said:
"I have brought to you Davies' Legendre. I thought he would receive more
thanks in the years to come than now, for is it not always so? Are not
those who move beyond the prescribed limits of the circle of to-day,
unappreciated, and must we not often wait for the grave to cover their
bodies, and their lives to be written, ere we realize what their hearts
tried to do for us? It is a sad fact, and one which shapes itself in the
mould of a selfish ignorance, which covers as a crust the tender growing
beauty of our inner natures.
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