s in mourning. Mandy
doesn't approve of Daisy, and neither does Calvin. Mandy took to her bed
when she heard the news, and young John cooked breakfast to the tune of
his Daddy's lamentations. But it was a good breakfast."

"Marriage," said the Major, "seems rather epidemic in these days."

Randy rose restlessly and sat on the porch rail. "Why in the world does
John want to marry Daisy----"

"Why not?" easily. "There's some style about Daisy----"

"But there are lots of nice, comfortable, hard-working girls in this
neighborhood."

"Lead me to 'em," Truxton mimicked young John, "lead me to 'em. Mary
says that Daisy is the best of the lot. She has plenty of good sense
back of her foolishness, and she is one of the best cooks in the county.
She and John are planning to go up to Washington and open an
old-fashioned oyster house. She says that people are complaining that
they can't get oysters as they did in the old days, and she is going to
show them. I wouldn't be surprised if they made a success of it. And I
tell you this--I envy John. He will have a paying business, and here I
am without a thing ahead of me, and I have married a wife and the ravens
won't feed us."

Randy stuck his hands in his pockets with an air of sudden resolution.

"Look here," he said, "why can't we go halves in this car business? It
will pay our expenses, and we can finish our law course at the
University."

"Law? Oh, look here, Randy, I thought you had given that up."

"I haven't, and why should you? We will finish, and some day we will
open an office together."

The Major, whistling softly, listened and said nothing.

"I have been thinking a lot about it," Randy went on, "and I can't see
much of a future ahead of me. Not the kind of future that our families
are expecting of us. You and I have got to stand for something, Truxton,
or some day the world will be saying that all the great men died with
Thomas Jefferson."

The Major went on with his lilting tune. What a pair they were, these
lads! Randy, afire with his dreams, and rather tragic in his dreaming.
Truxton, light as a feather--laughing.

"Why can't we give to the world as much as the men who have gone before
us?" Randy was demanding. "Are we going to take everything from our
ancestors, and give nothing to our descendants?"

Truxton chuckled. "By Jove," he said, "now that I come to think of it, I
am the head of a family--there's Fiddle-dee-dee, and I shall have to
reckon wi