With the thing in her hand,
And the look on her face had a light and a bloom
I could not understand.
Then she showed me the message and said,
With a sigh of respite,--
"My last boy is dead. I can sleep. I can sleep
Without dreaming to-night."




CHAPTER VI

SURPRISES

When all the evidence is in--
When all the good--and all the sin--
The Impulses--without--within
Are catalogued--with reasons showing--
What great surprises will await
The small, the near-great and the great
Who thought they knew how things were going!


Stories crowd in upon me as I write. Let no one ever say that this is
a dull world! It is anything but dull! It is a pitiful, heartbreaking
world, full of injustice, misunderstandings, false standards, and
selfishness, but it is never dull. Neither is it a lost world, for the
darkest corners of it are illuminated here and there by heroic deeds
and noble aspirations. Men who hilariously sold their vote and