ess is goin' to be my slave. I don't know
what I'm going to do because I haven't seen yet what battle-field is
best worth winnin'. When I see what's the biggest--I'll win it."

"So you want us to take what we've saved and gamble it all on your good
opinion of yourself. Do you realize, my son, that we ain't got much and
that we've saved what we have got by goin' without all our lives? When
that's gone, we won't have nothin' left to gamble with a second time.
Ain't it a good deal to pay for learnin' the folly of self-conceit?"

The boy's answer was direct and swift and confident. "One chance is all
I need. It's only a coward that wants a guarantee of more chances, if he
fails once. What sort of a farmer do you think Paul will ever make? He
couldn't heft a second-growth log of timber. But out there in the world
where a man's rated higher than a mule maybe Paul's got it in him to be
great. Some day Mary's goin' to be a woman and a beautiful woman. She's
got a right to life. Don't you ever see the difference between life an'
just livin'? It's the difference between havin' a soul and havin'
nothin' but a belly."

"Do you suppose"--the father spoke petulantly despite his resolution to
hear his son to the end--"do you suppose we've always been poor because
we liked it?"

"If you stay poor," came the prompt retort, "it's because you won't let
me change it. We're stayin' here an' slowly starvin' our hearts an'
brains an' souls because Money's got us bluffed. I'm goin' to make money
my slave an' not my master--an' if you'll trust me you can have it to
play with."

"You tell me that you are one of the almightiest great men that was ever
born, an' that somethin' keeps on tellin' you so. You tell me that I
can't understand the voice you hear," said Tom Burton slowly. "Don't you
know that all the lunatic asylums are full of Emperors of Germany and
Kings of England--an' they all hear them same kind of voices? That's why
they're there."

"But there's one Emperor of Germany and one King of England outside them
places--an' they're on thrones. All the masters of the world have felt
their power an' folks have laughed at 'em--at first." Ham spoke with
desperate seriousness that made his eyes glow steadily and forcefully.
"And yet the big things have been done by those men, and from the first
_they_ knew that they were different. You say I've been braggin'. Did
you ever hear me say one word before yesterday about bein' different
from a