f no one ever lived beyond
the age of thirty-five it wouldn't be so bad, but think of living to
be even so young as sixty, with a big reputation to sustain through
more than half of that period! I wouldn't want to have to sustain a
big name for twenty-five years. Success entails conspicuousness,
and conspicuousness makes error almost a crime. Put your mind on it
for a moment. Think of Teddy here. How nervous it would make him
in everything he undertook to feel that the eyes of the world were
upon him. And take into consideration that other peculiarity of
human nature which leads us all, you and me as well as every one
else, to believe that the man who does not progress is going
backward, that there is no such thing as standing still; then think
of a man illustrious enough for seventy at twenty-five--at the limit
of success, with all those years before him, and no progress
possible! No, my dear. Don't let's talk of school for Teddy yet."

"I am sure I don't want to force him," said Mrs. Perkins, "but it
sometimes seems to me that he needs lessons in discipline. I can't
be following around after him all the time, and it seems to me some
days that I do nothing but find fault with him. I don't want him to
think I'm a stern mother; and when he tells me, as he did yesterday,
that he wishes I'd take a vacation for a month, I can't blame him."

"Did he tell you that?" asked Thaddeus, with a chuckle.

"Yes, he did," replied Mrs. Perkins. "I'd kept him in a chair for
an hour because he would tease Tommy, and when finally I let him go
I told him that he was wearing me out with his naughtiness. About
an hour later he came back and said, 'You have an awful hard time
bringin' me up, don't you?' I said yes, and added that he might
spare me the necessity of scolding him so often, to which he replied
that he'd try, but thought it would be better if I'd take a vacation
for a month. He hadn't much hope for his own improvement."

Thaddeus shook internally.

"He's perfectly wild, too, at times," Mrs. Perkins continued. "He
wants to do such fearful things. I caught him sliding down the
banisters yesterday head-foremost, and you know how he was at the
Mountain House all summer long. Perfectly irrepressible."

"That's very true," said Thaddeus. "I was speaking of it to the
doctor up there, and asked him what he thought I'd better do."

"And what did he say?" asked Mrs. Perkins.

"He stated his firm belief that there