And he was right. Upon him and upon such as he the salvation of the
world _does_ depend. But it is well, indeed, that these
unrecognized, dreaming, saviors of the world do not know, as they
dream, that their crosses, even then, are being prepared for them. It
is their salvation that they do not know. It is the salvation of the
world that they do not know.

And then, as one from the deck of a ship bound for a foreign land
looks back upon his native shore when the vessel puts out from the
harbor, this man turned from his years that were to come to his years
that were past and from dreaming of his future slipped back into the
dreams of his Yesterdays. Perhaps it was the song of the bobo-link
that did it; or it may have been the music of the meadow lark; or
perhaps it was the bluebird's cheerful notes, or the woodpecker's loud
tattoo--whatever it was that brought it about, the man dreamed again
the dreams of his boyhood--dreamed them even as he dreamed the dreams
of his manhood.

And there was no one to tell him that, in dreaming, his boyhood and
his manhood were the same.

Once again a boy, on a drowsy summer afternoon, he lay in the shade of
the orchard trees or, in the big barn, sought the mow of new mown hay,
and, with half closed eyes, slipped away from the world that droned
and hummed and buzzed so lazily about him into another and better
world of stirring adventure and brave deeds. Once again, when the sun
was hidden under heavy skies and a steady pouring rain shut him in,
through the dusk of the attic he escaped from the narrow restrictions
of the house, and, from his gloomy prison, went out into a fairyland