Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/229

 world bound together by swift-rollin' wheels of lightnin' speed; who saw through the child's kite the continents talkin' together—their rapt eyes saw all these glorious possibilities and wuz derided for it and called idiots by them who looked down on 'em and told 'em it wuz folly, idiocy of the deepest degree to see anything in the fallin' apple beyond the possibility of a pie. This is the same kind of worldly common sense that makes us onmindful every day of our life of the presence of real heroes in our midst who, manly, honest, and God-fearin', are tryin' to vanquish the ills of life and conquer success."

"I spoze you think Tom Willis is one of them heroes," sez Tamer coldly, cold as a ice-suckle.

"Yes, seein' you've asked, I'll tell you plain I do think so, and I lay out to look on him now with the same pair of eyes I would when he got his name writ down on the pillow of fame; he needs my sympathy now—he wouldn't then, if I wuz livin' to give it to him. It would be a good thing for these heroes and for our own souls if we put a few of the flowers we put on the monuments of dead heroes into the empty hands, the poor, tired, scarred hands of our live heroes to-day. If a few of the smiles and hurrahs we keep for onanswerin' eyes and ears was spent on our live heroes who are fightin' life's battles jest as General Grant fought his, straight on the line, with no manoovers or false movements, straightforward and simple and manly"

"You are thinkin' of Tom Willis agin," sez Tamer Ann sarcastickally.

"Yes, I am," sez I firmly. "Tom Willis has got genius, perseverance, good common sense and a lovin' heart, and that is jest the stuff heroes are made of. Genius alone is flighty and takes a man offen his feet,