Page:The stuff of manhood (1917).djvu/61

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districts and reported that a village was burning down and begged him to come. He hurried out to the village. When he arrived he asked the headmen if they had all the people out of the houses and was told that all had been brought out except one old woman who refused to come. He went to the house where the woman lived and looked in. There she sat on a bag of grain. Lawrence entreated her to come out but she refused, explaining that this bag of grain was all her earthly wealth. If she came out she would starve; she would rather stay and be burned. When Lawrence found his commands and entreaties unavailing, he rushed in, with the embers from the burning roof falling on his shoulders, stooped over and picked up the bag of grain, and left the burning building, the old woman following obediently behind. The next day as he was sitting in his house it flashed on his mind that the bag of grain had been exceedingly heavy and he rode out curiously to the village again to see how much he had lifted. He had no difficulty in finding the old woman and her bag of grain. He stooped over to lift it but could not budge it from the ground. But the day before he had budged it. He had picked it up and carried it. The power to do it was lying latent in him all the while. All he needed was just the piercing call or inspiration adequate to release the buried energy.