classes. But my little cripple lad stayed. I supposed that he was a beggar. And I said to myself, 'Surely this boy deserves alms. His condition betokens his need.' So I went to him at recess and said, 'My lad, what do you want?' He looked me eagerly in the face and said: 'Mr. Truett, I want to go to school. Oh, sir, I want to be somebody in the world. I will always be a cripple. The doctors have told me that, but,' he said, 'I want to be somebody.'
"He had won me. He told me of their poverty, and that was taken care of. I watched that lad for weeks and weeks. How bright his mind was! How eager he was to know! One day I called him into my office and said to him: 'My boy, I want you to tell me something more about yourself.' He told me how, a few months before, his father had been killed in the great cotton mill where he worked, and the few dollars he had saved up were soon gone. They tried to do their best in the county where they were, but found it difficult; so his mother said one day: 'Let us move to the next county, where they do not know us. Perhaps we can do better where we are not known.' So they moved and now he had come into my school. He said, 'I want to help mother, and I want to be somebody in the world; so I made my appeal to you to come to your school.' It was time in a moment for the bell to ring for books. I laid my
