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Riis, Jacob A., 1849-1914

"The Making of an American"

"I guess so. What do you say? I
think you will do. Better come along and let me give you a note to
him now."
As in a dream, I walked across the street with him to his office
and got the letter which was to make me, half-starved and homeless,
rich as Crusus, it seemed to me. Bob went along, and before I
departed from the school a better home than I could give him was
found for him with my benefactor. I was to bring him the next day.
I had to admit that it was best so. That night, the last which Bob
and I spent together, we walked up and down Broadway, where there
was quiet, thinking it over. What had happened had stirred me
profoundly. For the second time I saw a hand held out to save me
from wreck just when it seemed inevitable; and I knew it for His
hand, to whose will I was at last beginning to bow in humility that
had been a stranger to me before. It had ever been my own will,
my own way, upon which I insisted. In the shadow of Grace Church I
bowed my head against the granite wall of the gray tower and prayed
for strength to do the work which I had so long and arduously
sought and which had now come to me; the while Bob sat and looked
on, saying clearly enough with his wagging tail that he did not know
what was going on, but that he was sure it was all right.


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