I was in
all conscience fearfully hungry, and I said so, though I did not
mean to. I had never seen a real live monk before, and my Lutheran
training had not exactly inclined me in their favor. I ate of the
food set before me, not without qualms of conscience, and with a
secret suspicion that I would next be asked to abjure my faith, or
at least do homage to the Virgin Mary, which I was firmly resolved
not to do. But when, the meal finished, I was sent on my way with
enough to do me for supper, without the least allusion having been
made to my soul, I felt heartily ashamed of myself. I am just as
good a Protestant as I ever was. Among my own I am a kind of heretic
even, because I cannot put up with the apostolic succession; but I
have no quarrel with the excellent charities of the Roman Church,
or with the noble spirit that animates them. I learned that lesson
at Fordham thirty years ago.
Up the railroad track I went, and at night hired out to a truck-farmer,
with the freedom of his haymow for my sleeping quarters. But when
I had hoed cucumbers three days in a scorching sun, till my back
ached as if it were going to break, and the farmer guessed that he
would call it square for three shillings, I went farther.
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