Because the straight man has only good ends to
serve, he has no failures; though he may have disappointments, he has no
defeats; for the true secret of life is to be content with what is
decreed, to earn bread and make store only as conscience directs, and not
to set one's heart on material things.
He got out of bed soon after daylight, dressed, and went to the stable
and hitched his horse to the buggy. The world was washed clean, that was
sure. It was muddy under foot, but it was a country where the roads soon
dried, and he would suffer little inconvenience from the storm. He bade
his host good-bye and drove away intent to reach the city in time for
breakfast. He found the roads heavy, and the injury of the storm was
everywhere to be seen. Yet it all did not distract him, for he was
thinking hard of the things that lay ahead of him to do--the heart-
breaking things that his defeat meant to him.
At last he approached a bridge across a stream which had been badly swept
by the storm. It was one of the covered bridges not uncommon in Canada.
It was not long, as the river was narrow, and he did not see that the
middle pier of the bridge had been badly injured. Yet as he entered the
bridge, his horse still trotting, he was conscious of a hollow, semi-
thunderous noise which seemed not to belong to the horse's hoofs and the
iron wheels of the carriage.
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