"I have various friends in boarding school, but there isn't
one to whom I could have told what I am always thinking about, as I have
told you. You are so different from them. Will you be my friend?"
Bruno firmly grasped Salo's proffered hand and cried out with beaming
eyes, "Yes, Salo, I will be your friend my whole life long. I wish I
could do you a favor, too, as you have done me."
"But I have not done anything for you," Salo said with surprise.
"Oh, yes, you have. Now that I know I have a friend I have lost my dread
of living with the Knippel boys. I know that I can let them do as they
please, for I'll know that I have a friend who thinks as I do and would
have the same feeling about their actions, I'll be able to tell you
everything, and you will tell me what you think. I can let them alone
and think of you."
"Do you know, Bruno, the way I feel a real friendship ought to be?" Salo
said with glowing eyes, for this had made him happy, too. "I think it
ought to be this way: if we have to hear of anything that is ugly, mean
or rough, we ought to think right away: I have a friend who would never
do such a thing. If we hear of something though that pleases us, because
it is fine, noble and great, we should think again: My friend would do
the same. Don't you agree with me?"
Bruno judged himself very severely, because his mother had held up his
own faults to him so that he knew them very well. He replied
hesitatingly, "I wish one could always be the way one wants to be.
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