Explore "The Debatable Land" by Arthur Willis Colton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
One warm, rainy evening in the year '44, and in the great city that is flanked on either side by a river and a strait, Father Andrew plodded along an avenue of small shops, whose windows rested their chins on the wet sidewalk and blinked through steaming panes. His dingy umbrella dripped in the rain, and the skirts of his robe flapped against his white stockings. He had in his mind no more than presently the opening of the door in the brick wall of a cloister court, the sleepy roll of the vesper service, refection, complines, a little private, companionable prayer, such as ever seems to be heard kindly if one is trustful, and then the sleep which comes to tired saint and sinner alike with singular tolerance. Alas! one's fat legs became tired enough with climbing stairways, and the soul sore with its strained sympathies.
A lean, wet-haired boy, plodding past him, glanced up with large, drowsy-lidded eyes, and slid under his broad umbrella, making no comment. Father Andrew chuckled and sighed. Giving and taking were a simple incident, if giving were merely to carry an umbrella for two, taking merely to step under it, and charity were not charity but companionship.