His Family by Ernest Poole (popular ebook readers txt) 📕

had groped its way in darkness, and after all its struggles had come now barely to the dawn. And then a voice within him cried,

“What is humanity but a child? In the name of the dead I salute the unborn!”

Slowly a glow appeared in his dream, and once again the scene had changed. The light was coming from long rows of houses rising tall and steep out of a teeming city street. And from these lighted houses children now came pouring forth. They filled the street from wall to wall with a torrent of warm vivid hues, they joined in mad tempestuous games, they shouted and they danced with glee, they whirled each other ’round and ’round. The very air seemed quivering. Then was heard the crash of a band, and he saw them marching into school. In and in and in they pressed, till the school seemed fairly bursting. Out they came by another way, and went off marching down the street with the big flag waving at their head. He followed and saw the street divide into narrower streets and bye-ways, into roads and country lanes. And all were filled with children. In endless multitudes they came⁠—marching, marching, spreading, spreading, like wide bobbing fields of flowers rolling out across the land, toward a great round flashing sun above a distant rim of hills.

The sun rose strangely dazzling. It filled the heavens with blinding light. He felt himself drawn up and up⁠—while from somewhere far behind he heard the cry of Deborah’s child. A clear sweet thrill of happiness came. And after that⁠—we do not know.

For he had left his family.

Colophon

His Family
was published in 1917 by
Ernest Poole.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Bob Kenyon,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2004 by
Rick Niles, Melissa Er-Raqabi, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.

The cover page is adapted from
Cliff Dwellers,
a painting completed in 1913 by
George Bellows.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
November 15, 2021, 2:14 a.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/ernest-poole/his-family.

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Uncopyright

May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.

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