For the first time was lifted the
sense of struggle that had always been with him.
The outstanding notes of his boyhood had been poverty and
meagerness. It was as if he and his neighbors had been flung into
a lake where they must keep swimming to escape drowning. There had
been no rest from labor. Sometimes the tragedy of disaster had
swept over a family. But on the campus of the university he found
the sheltered life. The echo of that battling world came to him
only faintly.
He began to make tentative friendships, but in spite of the advice
of his cousin they were with the men who did not count. Samuel
Miller was an example. He was a big, stodgy fellow with a slow
mind which arrived at its convictions deliberately. But when he
had made sure of them he hung to his beliefs like a bulldog to a
bone.
It was this quality that one day brought them together in the
classroom. An instructor tried to drive Miller into admitting he
was wrong in an opinion. The boy refused to budge, and the teacher
became nettled.
"Mr. Miller will know more when he doesn't know so much," the
instructor snapped out.
Jeff's instinct for fair play was roused at once, all the more
because of the ripple of laughter that came from the class.
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