"Congratulations! I need prayers more!" he said under his breath.
"But--poor little thing! I might as well have stepped on a
kitten! ... I certainly did tell her to hope for better things and
they'd come.... I didn't know I was going to be one of 'em!"
Then, as he continued to unpack he grinned in spite of himself, for
into his mind came a poem of Guiterman's he'd read lately, about an
agnostic Brahmin who didn't believe in prayer, and came
inadvertently on a tiger praying for a meal in the jungle:
_"The trustful Tiger closed his prayer--
Behold--a Brahmin trembling there!
The Brahmin never scoffed a whit.
The Prayer had answer_.--He _was_ It."
"I wonder," mused John, "whether she's a kitten, or a tiger? Anyway,
_I_ was _It_! ... I can't stand any more of anything just now.
I'll get out till dinner-time!"
He tiptoed downstairs, and in his turn slid out the back door. The
Haveniths were still talking to the Harringtons on the front
veranda, he noted with a certain pleasure in their durance, and
Phyllis' back looked polite but tired. He headed for the adjacent
woods, diving into the leafy coolness with a feeling of escape. The
wood blew cool and a little moist, and fragrant with far-off
wood-smoke, and there was a feeling of solitude that he liked. He
sighed with relief as he rounded the turn in the wood-path.
And there before him, at the foot of her great oak, stood Joy, not
expecting him in the least.
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