And, while he knew he had really been in the way
at the cooperage and had earned nothing, yet--his ease about his social
status permitting--he felt a sense of self-respect which was of an
entirely new kind, and had the taste of the fresh air of a keen, clear
winter day.

This, however, could not last. The estate was settled up; the fiction
that he was of the proprietorship slowly yielded to the reality; the
men, not only those over him but also those on whose level he was
supposed to be, began to judge him as a man. "The boys say," growled
Waugh to Howells, "that he acts like one of them damn spying dude sons
proprietors sometimes puts in among the men to learn how to work 'em
harder for less. He don't seem to catch on that he's got to get his
money out of his own hands."

"Touch him up a bit," said Howells, who had worshiped Hiram Ranger and in
a measure understood what had been in his mind when he dedicated his son
to a life of labor. "If it becomes absolutely necessary I'll talk to him.
But maybe you can do the trick."

Waugh, who had the useful man's disdain of deliberately useless men and
the rough man's way of feeling it and showing it, was not slow to act on
Howells's license. That very day he found Arthur unconsciously and even
patronizingly shirking the tending of a planer so that his teacher, Bud
Rollins, had to do double work. Waugh watched this until it had "riled"
him sufficiently to loosen his temper and his language. "Hi, there,
Ranger!" he shouted. "What the hell! You've been here goin' on six months
now, and you're more in the way than you was the first day."

Arthur flushed, flashed, clenched his fists; but the planer was between
him and Waugh, and that gave Waugh's tremendous shoulders and fists a
chance to produce a subduing visual impression. A man, even a young man,
who is nervous on the subject of his dignity, will, no matter how brave
and physically competent, shrink from avoidable encounter that means
doubtful battle. And dignity was a grave matter with young Ranger in
those days.

"Don't hoist your dander up at me," said Waugh. "Get it up agin'
yourself. Bud, next time he soldiers on you, send him to me."

"All right, sir," replied Bud, with a soothing grin. And when Waugh was
gone, he said to Arthur, "Don't mind him. Just keep pegging along, and
you'll learn all right."

Bud's was the tone a teacher uses to encourage a defective child. It
stung Arthur more fiercely than had Waugh's. I