dear father couldn't so much as draw a straight line unless he had a
ruler, I'm sure. And I'm not bright at all, except maybe about
sewing. But you are different. I've always felt that, Peter, from
the time you were a little baby. At the age of five months you cut
two teeth without crying once! You were a _wonderful_ baby. I _knew_
it was in you to do something remarkable. Never you doubt your
mother's word about _that_, Peter! You'll make your mark in the
world yet! God couldn't fail to answer my prayers--and you the last
Champneys."

Peter was too innately kind and considerate to dim her joy with any
doubts. He knew how he was rated--berated is the better word for it.
He knew acutely how bad his marks were: his shoulders too often bore
witness to them. The words "dunce" and "sissy" buzzed about his ears
like stinging gnats. So he wasn't made vainglorious by his mother's
praise. He received it with cautious reservations. But her faith in
him filled him with an immense tenderness for the little woman, and
a passionate desire, a very agony of desire, to struggle toward her
aspirations for him, to make good, to repay her for all the
privations she had endured. A lump came in his throat when he saw
her place the little sketch under his father's picture, where her
eyes could open upon it the first thing in the morning, and close to
it at night.

"Ah, my dear! God's will be done--I'm not complaining--but I wish,
oh, how I wish you could be here to see what our dear child can do!"
she told the smiling crayon portrait. "Some of these days the little
son you've never seen is going to be a great man with a great
name--_your_ name, my dear, _your_ name!"