So in the ugly little building near Dooley's saloon in South Harvey the
two towns met and worked together; and all to heal a broken heart, a
bruised life. From out of the unexplored realm where our dreams are
blooming into the fruit of reality one evening came Mr. Left with this
message: "Whoever in the joy of service gives part of himself to the
vast sum of sacrificial giving that has remained unspent, since man
began to walk erect, is adding to humanity's heritage, is building an
unseen temple wherein mankind is sheltered from its own inhumanity. This
sum of sacrificial giving is the temple not made with hands!"
Now the foundations of that part of the temple not made with hands in
South Harvey, may be said to have been laid and the watertable set on
the day when Laura Van Dorn first laughed the bell-chime laugh of her
girlhood. And that day came well along in the summer. It was twilight
and the Doctor was sitting with his wife and daughter on their east
veranda when Morty Sands came flitting across the lawn like a striped
miller moth in a broad-banded outing suit. He waved gayly to the little
company in the veranda and came up the steps at two bounds, though he
was a man of thirty-eight and just the least bit weazened.
"Well," he said, with his greetings scarcely off his lips, "I came to
tell you I've sold the colt!"
The chorus repeated his announcement as a question.
"Yes, sold the colt," solemnly responded Morty. And then added, "Father
just wouldn't! I tried to get that two hundred in various ways--adding
it to my cigar bill; slipping it in on my bill for raiment at Wright &
Perry's, but father pinned Kyle down, and he stuttered out the truth. I
tried to get the horse-doctor to charge the two hundred into his bill
and when father uncovered that--I couldn't wait any longer so I've sold
the colt!"
"Well, Morty, what for in Heaven's name?" asked Laura. Morty began
fumbling in his pockets before he spoke. He did not smile, but as his
hand came out of an inside pocket, he said gently: "For two hundred and
seventeen dollars and a half! I fought an hour for that half dollar!" He
handed it to the Doctor, saying: "It's for the kindergarten. You keep it
for her, Doctor Jim!"
When Morty had gone Mrs. Nesbit said: "What queer blood that Sands blood
is, Doctor. There is Mary Sands's heart in that boy, and Daniel has bred
nothing into him. They must have been a queer breed a generation or two
back!"
The Doctor did not answer. He took the money which Morty had given to
him, handed it to Laura and said: "And now my dear, accept this token of
devotion from Sir Mortimer Sands, of the golden heart and wooden head!"
And then Laura laughed, not in derision, not in merriment even, but in
sheer joy that life could mean so much. And as she laughed the temple
not made with hands began to rise strong and beautiful in her heart and
in the hearts of all who touched her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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