it, papa?" she asked, timidly.

"Until he KNOWS something!" The unhappy man struck his palms together,
then got to his feet and began to pace the room, as was his wont when he
talked. "He'll go back to the machine he couldn't learn to tend properly
in the six months he was there, and he'll stick to it till he DOES learn
it! Do you suppose that lummix ever asked himself WHY I want him to
learn it? No! And I ain't a-goin' to tell him, either! When he went
there I had 'em set him on the simplest machine we got--and he stuck
there! How much prospect would there be of his learnin' to run the whole
business if he can't run the easiest machine in it? I sent him there
to make him THOROUGH. And what happened? He didn't LIKE it! That boy's
whole life, there's been a settin' up o' something mulish that's against
everything I want him to do. I don't know what it is, but it's got to be
worked out of him. Now, labor ain't any more a simple question than what
it was when we were young. My idea is that, outside o' union troubles,
the man that can manage workin'-men is the man that's been one himself.
Well, I set Bibbs to learn the men and to learn the business, and HE
set himself to balk on the first job! That's what he did, and the balk's
lasted close on to three years. If he balks again I'm just done with
him! Sometimes I feel like I was pretty near done with everything,
anyhow!"

"I knew there was something else," said Mrs. Sheridan, blinking over
a yawn. "You better let it go till to-morrow and get to bed now--'less
you'll tell me?"

"Suppose something happened to Roscoe," he said. "THEN what'd I have to
look forward to? THEN what could I depend on to hold things together? A
lummix! A lummix that hasn't learned how to push a strip o' zinc along a
groove!"

"Roscoe?" she yawned. "You needn't worry about Roscoe, papa. He's the
strongest child we had. I never did know anybody keep better health than
he does. I don't believe he's even had a cold in five years. You better
go up to bed, papa."

"Suppose something DID happen to him, though. You don't know what it
means, keepin' property together these days--just keepin' it ALIVE, let
alone makin' it grow the way I do. I've seen too many estates hacked
away in chunks, big and little. I tell you when a man dies the wolves
come out o' the woods, pack after pack, to see what they can tear off
for themselves; and if that dead man's chuldern ain't on the job, night
and day, everything he