says he
has got used to his old man, and he knows every spike in the system, and
there are gray hairs beginning to come around his ears, and he guesses
he will not go away and have to make new acquaintances, and he remains
with the road where he learned to tick, as you are ticking, and one day
he is at the head of it. But if you examine into the head of the man
who gets up from station agent to president, you will find that there is
brain there and no cut feed. Another station agent might get the bighead
the first time he was promoted, and they would have to promote him
backward, on that account, but it would be because there was excelsior
in his head, instead of brain, and he would be mad and jealous, and say
mean things about those who got promoted, and stayed promoted. Now, let
me give you a pointer. Don't train for general manager or president of
a road. Train for the thing you are going to get first, whether it is
operator or brakeman, and when you have mastered the details of that
place, learn something about the next above. It is like going up a
ladder; you have got to go up one step at a time, and get your foot on
the step so it will stay, then go up another step. If you attempt to
step from the ground to the top of the ladder, you are going to split
your pants from Genesis to Revelations, and come down on your neck, and
show your nakedness to those who have watched you try to climb too fast,
and they will laugh at you. Now, go on with your condum ticking, but
tick out something besides d--a--m, dam," and the old man went out to
see if there had been any frost the night before, with an idea that if
there was he would shoot a few teal duck, and cure his rheumatism that
way, instead of putting on liniment.

CHAPTER XXI.

Uncle Ike was out in the front yard in the early morning, in his shirt
sleeves, with no collar on, an old pair of rubber boots to keep the dew
from wetting his feet, and he was helping the Indian summer haze all he
could, by smoking the clay pipe and blowing the smoke up among the red
and yellow leaves of autumn, and as he kicked the beautiful leaves on
the lawn into piles he thought what foolish people they were who claimed
last week that winter had come, because it was a little chilly, when
he could have told them, by half a century's experience, that the most
beautiful part of the year was to come, the Indian summer, the lazy days
when you want to shoot snipe, and eat grapes, and have ap