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THE MIRACLE MAN

hat from his head, he flung himself on the ground and plunged face and head, feverishly, tigerishly, into the little brook that ran beside the path. Again and again he buried his face in the cold, clear, refreshing water—and then, still on hands and knees, he raised his head to listen. Softly, full of a great peace, full of a strange sweetness that knew no discord, no strife, the notes of the chapel bell floated across the fields. Evening had come; the day's work was done—it was benediction time. It was the call of the faithful—the Angelus of those who believed.

It came, the revulsion, to Madison in a choked sob—and he stood up. The day's work was done—here. Here they would go in quiet thankfulness each from the farm to his little cottage, each to his simple, wholesome meal, each to the twilight hours of gentle communion as they talked to one another from their doorways, each to his bed and his rest, tranquil in the love of God and of man.

Madison flung back the dripping hair from his forehead. Strange, the contrast that, unbidden, came insistently to him now: The liquid notes of the bell wafted sweetly on the evening breeze; the howling, jangling turmoil of the city slums, of his familiar haunts where, in mad chaos, reigned the hawkers' cries, the thunder of the elevated trains, the noisome traffic of the street, the raucous clang of trolley bells—the sweet perfume of the fields, the smell of trees, of earth, of all of God's pure things untouched, unsoiled; the stench of