One tow-headed boy sitting there in a front row dreaming dreams, if the sermons touched him not, was yet thrilled to the depths of his being by that tall preacher.  Somewhere, I said, he had a spark within him.  I think he never knew it:  or if he knew it, he regarded it as a wayward impulse that might lead him from his God.  It was a spark of poetry:  strange flower in such a husk.  In times of emotion it bloomed, but in daily life it emitted no fragrance.  I have wondered what might have been if some one—­some understanding woman—­had recognised his gift, or if he himself as a boy had once dared to cut free!  We do not know:  we do not know the tragedy of our nearest friend!

By some instinct the preacher chose his readings mostly from the Old Testament—­those splendid, marching passages, full of oriental imagery.  As he read there would creep into his voice a certain resonance that lifted him and his calling suddenly above his gray surroundings.

How vividly I recall his reading of the twenty-third Psalm—­a particular reading.  I suppose I had heard the passage many times before, but upon this certain morning——­

Shall I ever forget?  The windows were open, for it was May, and a boy could look out on the hillside and see with longing eyes the inviting grass and trees.  A soft wind blew in across the church; it was full of the very essence of spring.  I smell it yet.  On the pulpit stood a bunch of crocuses crowded into a vase:  some Mary’s offering.  An old man named Johnson who sat near us was already beginning to breathe heavily, preparatory to sinking into his regular Sunday snore.  Then those words from the preacher, bringing me suddenly—­how shall I express it?—­out of some formless void, to intense consciousness—­a miracle of creation: 

“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:  for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

Well, I saw the way to the place of death that morning; far more vividly I saw it than any natural scene I know:  and myself walking therein.  I shall know it again when I come to pass that way; the tall, dark, rocky cliffs, the shadowy path within, the overhanging dark branches, even the whitened dead bones by the way—­and as one of the vivid phantasms of boyhood—­cloaked figures I saw, lurking mysteriously in deep recesses, fearsome for their very silence.  And yet I with magic rod and staff walking within—­boldly, fearing no evil, full of faith, hope, courage, love, invoking images of terror but for the joy of braving them.  Ah, tow-headed boy, shall I tread as lightly that dread pathway when I come to it?  Shall I, like you, fear no evil!

So that great morning went away.  I heard nothing of singing or sermon and came not to myself until my mother, touching my arm, asked me if I had been asleep!  And I smiled and thought how little grown people knew—­and I looked up at the sad sick face of the old preacher with a new interest and friendliness.  I felt, somehow, that he too was a familiar of my secret valley.  I should have liked to ask him, but I did not dare.  So I followed my mother when she went to speak to him, and when he did not see, I touched his coat.