tramp on my corn an'
the next he'd scratch me between the shoulders; but the more he said
the more I see that I did not have any regular place in the team; I was
just a colt playin; beside, an' it gritten on me something fierce.

"Jabez," I sez, "it's hard for me to explain myself. I like this place
an' you know it; but if you had a son o' your own, you wouldn't like to
see him settlin' down before he'd struggled up a little. I'm old enough
now to take a practical view o' life, an' I intend to become a business
man."

He tried not to grin, I'll say that for him, but he couldn't cut it.
"Why, bless your heart, boy, you never will be practical, an' as for
business, you have about the same talent for it as a grizzly bear. You
enjoy life as you go along, an' you enjoy it full an' free; a business
man don't enjoy anything but makin' money. You may be rich some day,
but it won't be from attendin' to business. Now take a lay-off if you
want to, an' get this nonsense out of your system, then come back here.
You know 'at Barbie misses you every minute you're away."

"All right," I sez, "I'll try it. I want to leave this place once, the
same as if we was both grownup, not as if we had had a child's quarrel.
I'll go an' I'll take my lay-off by bucklin' tight down to business;
but if it don't seem to agree with me, why, I'll come back here an'
make a report."

"Now, don't stay away long, cause the little girl is lonesome for
company, an' as she sez to me the other night, you're better company
than any book, an' you've got more intelligence than a school-teacher."

"Yes," I went on, "an' I don't require beatin' as often as a fur rug,
an' my hair don't shed off as bad as a dog's, an' if I could just
forget that I 'm a human bein' I wouldn't be any more bother than the
rest o' the furnishings; but that is the one thing that 's on my mind
just now--I 'm a man, an' it's time I began to practice at it."

Barbie wasn't quite so easy to get away from as Jabez was. She couldn't
believe but what we'd been quarrelin'. When you came right down to
givin' the actual reason for my departure without mentionin' any o' the
true cause, it was a rather delicate project for a man who hadn't no
experience in makin' political speeches: an' Barbie gave me a purty
complete goin' over.

We talked it out for a week, but my mind was made up to go an' the'
wasn't anything that could stop me, unless it was mighty important; an'
at last she stopped argu