the means of making them understand.

He told them gradually about Wittemore; not as he might have told them
directly after seeing him off, nor quite as he had expected to tell
them. It was a little more full; it gave them a little kinder, keener
insight into a character that they had hitherto almost entirely
condemned and ignored. They did not laugh! It was a revelation to them.
They listened with respect for the student who had gone to his mother's
dying bed. They had all been long enough away from their own mothers to
have come to feel the worth of a mother quite touchingly. Moreover, they
perceived that Courtland had seen more in Wittemore than they had ever
seen. He had a side, it appeared, that was wholly unselfish, almost
heroic in a way. They had never suspected him of it before. His long,
horse-like face, with the little light china-blue eyes always anxious
and startled, appeared to their imaginations with a new appeal. When he
returned they would be kinder to him.

"Poor old Abner!" said Tennelly, thoughtfully. "Who would have thought
it! Carrying medicine to an old bedridden crone! And was going to stick
to his job even when his mother was dying! He's got some stuff in him,
after all, if he hasn't much sense!"

Courtland was led to go on talking about the old woman, picturing in a
few words the room where she lay, the pitifully few comforts, the inch
of candle, the tea without sugar or milk, the butterless toast! He told
it quite simply, utterly unaware, that he had told how he had made the
toast. They listened without comment as to one who had been set apart to
a duty undesirable but greatly to be admired. They listened as to one
who had passed through a great experience like being shut up in a mine
for days, or passing unharmed through a polar expedition or a lonely