. I reckon you'll have to go, honey; but
it'll sure be lonesome while you're away; an' when you do come back
you'll never be my little kid any more." His voice kept gettin' sadder
an' sadder until I about snuffled myself when he continued "I'll rub up
my talk all I can while you're away, an' then if you bring out any
friends next summer you can tell 'em that I'm the foreman an' that you
let me eat in the house while your father is takin' a trip to Europe."

The ol' man would have played that part about as natural as a bull
buffalo, but he fooled himself into believin' it, an' his voice was
purty shaky at the end. Barbie's eyes filled up with tears, an' when he
stopped an' began to totter feebly toward the house, she ran up an'
threw her arms about his neck, an' said. "Dad. I just hate you--you
don't play fair. You start the game under one set o' rules an' then
when you get the worst of it you just simply crawfish. When we were
sayin' mean things out in the open, I just natchly put it all over you;
an' now you flop over on your back an' work that 'coals o' fire' stunt,
an' I just hate you. You know in your heart I'd be proud of you in any
company on earth, but the' is a heap o' difference between you an' me.
You have been successful, an' strangers will respect you for it; but
it's got to be a show-down with me every time. If I don't learn the new
gaits, so a stranger will think I'm city-broke, some fresh tourist is
apt to get the idee that I'm as uncivilized as my manners, an' it won't
do to tramp on my toes--not overly often. But I don't have to leave
you. I'll just turn in an' do the job right here on the ranch, an'
accordin' to the very latest models. You get me a lot o' books an' all
the magazines an' fashion papers, an' hanged if I don't turn out a job
'at'll fool the best of 'em. You're a mean old Daddy, you are, for a
fact; but we snake too dandy a duet for me to go away an' leave you to
grind out a solo all alone. But--but I sure wanted to go."

Well, Jabez grinned all over; but I saw that he wasn't through with it
so easy. Barbie wasn't the one to throw her rope before she was all
braced for the jerk, an' the' wouldn't be any kinks in her logic,
neither. She had thrown a purty stout string of arguments, an' I was
full prepared when they told me that he was to have his way about it,
an' she was to go to college that very fall.

She did go in less'n a month to a prep-school clear down East. A
prep-school is a so