hat they call it so long as Jim's all
right. And he is all right. Why, there isn't money enough in the
bank to have brought that look to Jim's face when he reported that
morning, and any offer to pay him for his help to Harry, either in
money or school credits, would have seemed an insult. My neighbor
John tells me many things about sheep and the way to drive them. He
says when he is driving twenty sheep along the road he doesn't bother
about the two who frisk back to the rear of the flock so long as he
keeps the other eighteen going along. He says those two will join
the others, all in good time. That helped me with those three boys.
I knew that Tom and Charley would go along all right, so asked them
to go over to Harry's before I mentioned the matter to Jim. When I
did ask him he came leaping and frisking into the flock as if he were
afraid we might overlook him. What a beautiful straight furrow he
ploughed, too. His arithmetic work now must make the angels smile.
I shall certainly mention sheep, the hen, and the white rag in my
book on farm pedagogy.

CHAPTER XIV

SINNERS

I take unction to myself, sometimes, in the reflection that I have a
soul to save, and in certain moments of uplift it seems to me to be
worth saving. Some folks probably call me a sinner, if not a
dreadful sinner, and I admit the fact without controversy. I do not
have at hand a list of the cardinal sins, but I suspect I might prove
an alibi as to some of them. I don't get drunk; I don't swear; I go
to church; and I contribute, mildly, to charity. But, for all that,
I'm free to confess myself a sinner. Yet, I still don't know what
sin is, or what is the way of salvation either for myself or for my
pupils. I grope around all the while trying to find this way. At
times, I think they may find salvation while they are finding the
value of _x_ in an algebraic equation, and possibly this is true. I
cannot tell. If they fail to find the value of _x_, I fall to
wondering whether they have sinned or the teacher that they cannot
find _x_.

I have attended revivals in my time, and have had good from them. In
their pure and rarefied atmosphere I find myself in a state of
exaltation. But I find myself in need of a continuous revival to
keep me at my best. So, in my school work, I feel that I must be a
revivalist or my pupils will sag back, just as I do. I find that the
revival of yesterday will not suffice for to-day. Like th