I couldn't think for that piece about "Spring" going over in my head: "I am coming, I am coming: Hark! the little bee is humming: See! the lark is soaring high, In the bright and sunny sky; All the birds are on the wing: Little maiden, now is spring." I made up my mind that it was of enough importance to call for the biggest prayer I could think of and that I would go up in the barn to the top window, stand on a beam, and turn my face to the east, where Jesus used to be, and I'd wrestle with the Lord for freedom, as Jacob wrestled with the Angel on the banks of the Jabbok in the land of Ammon.

I was just getting up steam to pray as hard as ever I could; for days I'd been thinking of it, and I was nearly to the point where one more killdeer crying across the sky would have sent me headlong from the schoolhouse anywhere that my feet were on earth, and the air didn't smell of fried potatoes, kraut, sweat, and dogs, like it did whenever you sat beside Clarissa Polk.

When I went to supper one night; father had been to Groveville, and he was busy over his papers.
After he finished the blessing, he seemed worried, at last he said the funds were all out, and the county would make no appropriation so school would have to close next week.
Well that beats me! I had faith in that prayer I was going to make, and here the very thing I intended to ask for happened before I prayed.
I decided I would save the prayer until the next time I couldn't stand anything another minute, and then I would try it with all my might, and see if it really did any good.

After supper I went out the back door, spread my arms wide, and ran down the orchard to the fence in great bounds, the fastest I ever went in my life.

I climbed my pulpit in the corner and tried to see how much air my lungs would hold without bursting, while I waved my arms and shouted at the top of my voice: "Praise ye the Lord! Praised be His holy name!" "Ker-awk!" cried an old blue heron among the cowslips below me.