In its peace my soul emptied itself of the bitterness which had been filling and spoiling it , and grew normal and healthy again , aided thereto by Abel 's wise words . He never preached , but he radiated courage and endurance and a frank acceptance of the hard things of life , as well as a cordial welcome of its pleasant things . He was the sanest soul I ever met . He neither minimized ill nor exaggerated good , but he held that we should never be controlled by either . Pain should not depress us unduly , nor pleasure lure us into forgetfulness and sloth . All unknowingly he made me realize that I had been a bit of a coward and a shirker . I began to understand that my personal woes were not the most important things in the universe , even to myself . In short , Abel taught me to laugh again ; and when a man can laugh wholesomely things are not going too badly with him . That old garden was always such a cheery place . Even when the east wind sang in minor and the waves on the gray shore were sad , hints of sunshine seemed to be lurking all about it . Perhaps this was because there were so many yellow flowers in it . Tamzine liked yellow flowers . Captain Kidd , too , always paraded it in panoply of gold . He was so large and effulgent that one hardly missed the sun . Considering his presence I wondered that the garden was always so full of singing birds . But the Captain never meddled with them . Probably he understood that his master would not have tolerated it for a moment . So there was always a song or a chirp somewhere . Overhead flew the gulls and the cranes . The wind in the pines always made a glad salutation .
Abel and I paced the walks , XXXXX high converse on matters beyond the ken of cat or king .
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