"My boy,"Fenneben said gently,"Nature gave us the Walnut Valley with its limestone ledges and fine forest trees.But before our Sunrise could be builded the ledge had to be shapen into the hewn stone,the green tree to the seasoned lumber,quarter-sawed oak--quarter-sawed,mind you.Mill,forge and try-pit,ax and saw and chisel,with cleft and blow and furnace heat,shaped them all for Service.Over our doorway is the Sunrise initial.
It stands also for Strife,part of which you know already;but it stands for Sacrifice as well.You are in the shaping.
God grant you may be turned out a man fitted by Sacrifice for Service when the shaping is done."Burleigh rose,silent still,and the two went out together.
At the doorway,he turned to Fenneben,who grasped his hand without a word.And once again,the firm hand clasp of the Dean of Sunrise seemed to bind the country boy to the finer things of life.
It had done the same on that day after the Thanksgiving game when he sat in Fenneben's study,and understood for the first time what gives the right to pride in brawny arm and steel-spring nerve.
After Burleigh left him,Lloyd Fenneben stood for a long time on his veranda in the light of the doorway watching the steady downpour of the warm May rain.As he turned at length to enter the house a rough-looking man with rain-soaked clothing and slouched hat,sprang out of the shadows.
"Stranger,"he called hastily."There's a little child fell in the river round the bend,and his mother got hold of him,but she can't pull him out,and can't hold on much longer.