noon
Sometimes she wanted him to talk and wished that she had the power to lead him into the telling of little facts of his life . She wanted to be told of his mother and father , of his boyhood in the Pennsylvania town , of his dreams and his desires but for the most part she was content to wait and only hoped that nothing would happen to bring an end to her waiting . McGregor began to read books of history and became absorbed in the figures of certain men , all soldiers and leaders of soldiers who stalked across the pages wherein was written the story of man 's life . The figures of Sherman , Grant , Lee , Jackson , Alexander , Caesar , Napoleon , and Wellington seemed to him to stand starkly up among the other figures in the books and going to the Public Library at the noon hour he got books concerning these men and for a time lost interest in the study of law and devoted himself to contemplation of the breakers of laws . There was something beautiful about McGregor in those days . He was as virginal and pure as a chunk of the hard black coal out of the hills of his own state and like the coal ready to burn himself out into power . Nature had been kind to him .