As Raven read this, he found himself breathing heavily in the excitement of knowing what it cost the man to write so nakedly for casual eyes. To that elder generation, trained in the habit of thought that prevailed in a country region, so many years ago, it was little short of blasphemy. He turned a page, and had a cumulative surprise. For time had leaped. The date was seven years later. Old Crow was now over sixty, and this was the year before his death. Raven could hardly believe in the likelihood of so wide a leap, but the first line showed him it was actual. The subject matter was different and so was the style. The sentences raced as if they were in a hurry to get themselves said before the pen should drop from a palsied hand. "I gave up writing with that last line. I thought there was no more to say. I didn't even want to read it over. If I hadn't said it well, still I had said it and I didn't see any better way. I wanted to fortify the boy against the loneliness of feeling there was nobody that understood. I wanted to tell him I understood. That was all I could do for him at that time. But a great deal more has happened. The last of it happened over two years ago, but I was too busy to write it down. Besides, I didn't know there would be such things to write. The boy knows me a little now. He comes up oftener. His mother brings him. She is very sweet and gentle, but she will not leave him alone with me because I am queer and she is afraid I may teach him to be queer. She does not understand. She wouldn't if I told her. She takes things as they are. There are no questions in her mind. There will be in the boy's. They have begun to come. I can see them more than ever by the look in his eyes. Several years ago, about when I finished writing in this book, I saw I should have to give up questioning myself and calling on God. There were no answers. If there were, He didn't mean to let me have them. I mustn't keep on. It was dangerous. I got no good out of it and I should come to harm. And if I had got to live, I must be as near like other folks as I could. So I must be as busy as I could. And it came to me that over beyond the mountain there were folks poorer than I am, and that knew less, a good deal less. I didn't know anything about God, but I did know I must keep clean and eat the right food. So I begun to take long tramps round the countryside, and wherever I went I'd try to find out the sick and, if the family was poor, work for them a while and sit up with the sick one, and, if he was discouraged, try to help him through.