I attended a banquet the other night, but they had no such
bread and butter as we boys had there in the shade of that
apple-tree. It was real bread and real butter, and the appetite was
real, too, and that helped to invest grandmother with a halo.
Sometimes she would add jelly, and that caused our cup of joy to run
over. She just could not bear a hungry look on the face of a boy,
and when such a look appeared she exorcised it in the way that a boy
likes. What I liked about her was that she never attached any
conditions to her bread and butter--no, not even when she added
jelly, but her gifts were as free as salvation. The more I think of
the matter, the more I am convinced that her gifts were salvation,
for I know, by experience, that a hungry boy is never a good boy, at
least, not to excess.
Whatever the vicissitudes of life might be to me, I knew that I had a
city of refuge beside grandmother's big armchair, and when trouble
came I instinctively sought that haven, often with rare celerity. In
that hallowed place there could be no hunger, nor thirst, nor
persecution.
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