LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN 
her family. He protested against taking it 
because he might never be able to repay her, 
and, indeed, there was scant hope in his 
condition that he would live to do it. The 
woman insisted, and the pint of milk a day 
which she brought to him saved his life. 
The man who was to become the foremost 
figure in the world in his line of life, and who 
was to pave the way by his own discoveries 
and creations for others of all lands to follow 
in his footsteps, was a stranger in a strange 
land, close to starvation, penniless, beset by 
disease, hard by the gates of death. And yet 
never for an instant did this heroic figure lose 
hope, never did he abandon confidence in him- 
self, not once did he swerve from the path he 
had marked out. In the midst of all he kept 
an unshaken faith. He accepted the trials that 
came, not as a matter of course, not tamely, 
nor with any mock heroics, but as a passing 
necessity. His resolution was of iron, his will 
of steel, his heart of gold; he was fighting in 
the splendid armor of a clean life. 
It was a wan and haggard figure that rose 
at last from his sick bed and wandered from 
place to place in search of work. Matters 
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