After I explained what I had been doing, he looked at me strangely, twisted up his beard, put the end in his mouth, and began chewing. He took my hand, something he never did before, and we walked home in silence. He went straight upstairs, and I found some fresh papers, which I read downstairs. When I went up to go to bed he was sitting in his chair, staring at the wall and still chewing his beard. My coming aroused him. He said, “Good night, John,” and we went to bed. The next evening he came in as usual. He read his paper and I read whatever came to my hand. When we went upstairs, he said: “John, the Sisters taught you many prayers, did they?” “Yes, sir, all the prayers. I know them all,” I said proudly. “How about reading?” he asked. I read him a piece from a newspaper fairly well. “And writing, John? Yes, I know you learned to write and spell. Your letters to me were very good. How’s your arithmetic, John? How many are eight times nine, John?” I was stuck. I hesitated and blushed. He saw my confusion and gave me an easier one. “Seven times six, John?” I was stuck again and got more confused. “Start at the beginning, John, maybe you can get it that way.” I started at seven times one, got as far as seven times four, and fell down. This was torture. I think he saw it, too, for he said, “Oh, well, John, that will come to you later. Don’t worry about it; just keep on trying.” He was a sharp at mathematics, and I think my failure to learn multiplication hurt him more than if he had caught me spelling bird with a “u,” or sugar with two “gs.” After a month of idleness it was decided that I should go to the district school, which had been built in our town while I was at the Sisters’. I got a new set of books and started bravely off. We had a woman teacher, very strict, but fair to us all. I learned rapidly everything but arithmetic, which did not seem to agree with me, nor does it yet, for that matter. I also learned to play ball, football, marbles, and, I must admit, hooky, the most fascinating of all small-boy games. These new games, and so many other interesting new things, soon crowded the prayers into the background of my mind, but not entirely out of it. I said them no more at night and morning, nor any other time. But I still remember them, and I believe now, after forty prayerless years, I could muster a passable prayer if the occasion required it and there were not so many people about who could do it so much better.