, for very shame, as
I confess that it was the first time, for years, that I had done as
well as I knew how to do. I got my pay, and ate an honestly earned,
though frugal supper, that evening. I think you will understand me
when I tell you that I went to bed happier that night than I had before
for a long time. The "Other Fellow" said, "It is all right, Old Boy!
Stand by!" I did "stand by," and I have been standing by ever since.

And first, as I learn you are still teaching, I want to ask you never
to give up your boys, nor your way of managing them. You can never
know how much you did for me in the Emburg school. Those old days come
back to me almost every hour, and their essence is a part of my being.
I know that you must have thought, ten thousand times, that all your
work was lost, and counted for nothing. You had every reason in the
world for thinking so, and doubtless did think so. But I want to beg
of you now, in the name of the new life that has eventually come to me
through the medium of those old school days, not to be discouraged. I
tell you, my dear teacher, that not one of such words and deeds will
fail, at last, of reaching the purpose for which it was primarily
intended. So please be patient with the boys, and keep on as you were,
years ago, and do not be discouraged because it is long till the
harvest. It will ripen in due time. The reapers shall come also,
bearing their sheaves, and it is at your feet that they will lay them
down.

But I wish especially to thank you for your wisdom and faithfulness in
our last interview. On that occasion you struck the key note to the
whole situation when you virtually kicked me out of your house, and
told me that if I ever got up I must climb for myself. That was a new
doctrine for me then, but I understand it thoroughly now. It is sound
doctrine too, though it takes long to see it so.

You were wise, too, to watch me till I got out of town on that
September afternoon. If you had given me ten dollars at your home and
told me to buy a ticket, I doubt if I should have done it, even if I
had promised to, and meant to do so when I promised. The chances are I
should have spent the money for drink, and then have gone to jail.
That is the way of a man such as I was then. An habitual drunkard is
not to be trusted, not even by himself.

I shudder as I write these things, and I only reveal them to you,
hoping that they may, perchance, be the means of your