es open at last. The God who made me is up
there, and He knows and cares how I go on with the job. As for answering
my appeals for help when I get hard pressed--the biggest sign I have of
that is a human one. Since Bobby Burns came to sleep in that little bed
next mine, it's been a whole lot easier to get on."

A deep sigh was Chester's reply to this. He had a small boy and girl of
his own. For their sakes and Winifred's he knew he must fight this fight
out and win. But as for getting tangible help from the Creator of a body
handicapped by nerves like his! He began to say this, but Burns broke in
upon him with the answer he would least have expected at a moment like
this a great, ringing laugh, the sound of which brought the slow blood
to Chester's white face.

"If you consider wrecked nerves like mine a laughing matter--" he broke
out.

But Burns, his laugh over, was sober again and his voice was earnest.
"Arthur Chester, don't make Him responsible for your 'wrecked nerves.'
They weren't wrecked when you were furnished with them. You've done the
wrecking yourself by breaking pretty nearly every law that governs the
workings of the human machine. You're paying the penalty. But you're
going to get the upper hand. From now on, in spite of your office life,
you're going to get good red blood in your veins--and your brains. The
worst is over now--the second week will be easier. But what I'm trying
to tell you is that you'll get that upper hand a lot quicker if"--his
cheek grew hot with this strange, unaccustomed effort at putting things
he had never spoken of before into words--"if you'll just reach up and
take hold of that 'Upper Hand' that, according to my new belief and
experience, is ready to reach down to you. It's stronger than yours:
you'll feel the upward pull."

He broke off and got to his feet. The two had been sitting on a fallen
log, looking off over the hills toward a distant river winding its blue
length through fields of living green.

"I wasn't exactly cut out for a preacher, Ches," he added after a
minute. "I hope my talk doesn't sound to you like 'cant.' I'm a pretty
poor specimen of a chap to be setting up my own example for anybody to
follow."

"I don't think you've been setting up your own example," Chester
replied. He pulled himself up limply from the log, yet out of his face
had gone the black look which had been there when he came up the hill.
"And what you've said doesn't sound like 'cant' to