I have found that
all the good things and all the bad things that come to a man who tries
to do right are just to prove to him that he is on the right path. They
are just the flowers and sunbeams, and the rocks and snakes, too, that
mark the way. And--I have found out more than that. I have found out the
answer to my 'why?'"

"What is it?" asked Stephen, gazing at him curiously from the
wonder-height of his own special happiness.

"I have found out that the only way to heaven for the children of men is
through the earth," said Christopher.

DEAR ANNIE

ANNIE HEMPSTEAD lived on a large family canvas, being the eldest of six
children. There was only one boy. The mother was long since dead. If
one can imagine the Hempstead family, the head of which was the Reverend
Silas, pastor of the Orthodox Church in Lynn Corners, as being the
subject of a mild study in village history, the high light would
probably fall upon Imogen, the youngest daughter. As for Annie, she
would apparently supply only a part of the background.

This afternoon in late July, Annie was out in the front yard of the
parsonage, assisting her brother Benny to rake hay. Benny had not cut
it. Annie had hired a man, although the Hempsteads could not afford to
hire a man, but she had said to Benny, "Benny, you can rake the hay and
get it into the barn if Jim Mullins cuts it, can't you?" And Benny had
smiled and nodded acquiescence. Benny Hempstead always smiled and nodded
acquiescence, but there was in him the strange persistency of a willow
bough, the persistency of pliability, which is the most unconquerable
of all. Benny swayed gracefully in response to all the wishes of others,
but always he remained in his own inadequate attitude toward life.

Now he was raking to as little purpose as he could and rake at all. The
clover-tops, the timothy grass, and the buttercups moved before his rake
in a faint foam of gold and green and rose, but his sister Annie raised
whirlwinds with hers. The Hempstead yard was large and deep, and had two
great squares given over to wild growths on either side of the gravel
walk, which was bordered with shrubs, flowering in their turn, like a
class of children at school saying their lessons. The spring shrubs had
all spelled out their floral recitations, of course, but great clumps
of peonies were spreading wide skirts of gigantic bloom, like dancers
courtesying low on the stage of summer, and shafts of green-white Yucca