proceed, he could hear
the voluble explanation of the proud citizen who was interpreting to
strangers.

This, Nelson thought, was success. Here were the successful men. The man
who had failed looked at them. Eve roused him by a shrill cry, "There
they are. There's May and the girls. Let me out quick, Uncle!"

He stopped the horse and jumped out himself to help her. It was the
first time since she came under his roof that she had been away from it
all night. He cleared his throat for some advice on behavior. "Mind and
be respectful to Mrs. Arlington. Say yes, ma'am, and no, ma'am----" He
got no further, for Eve gave him a hasty kiss and the crowd brushed her
away.

"All she thinks of is wearing fine clothes and going with the fellers!"
said her brother, disdainfully. "If I had to be born a girl, I wouldn't
be born at all!"

"Maybe if you despise girls so, you'll be born a girl the next time,"
said Nelson. "Some folks thinks that's how it happens with us."

"Do YOU, Uncle?" asked Tim, running his mind forebodingly over the
possible business results of such a belief. "S'posing he shouldn't be
willing to sell the pigs to be killed, 'cause they might be some friends
of his!" he reflected, with a rising tide of consternation. Nelson
smiled rather sadly. He said, in another tone: "Tim, I've thought so
many things, that now I've about given up thinking. All I can do is to
live along the best way I know how and help the world move the best I'm
able."

"You bet _I_ ain't going to help the world move," said the boy; "I'm
going to look out for myself!"

"Then my training of you has turned out pretty badly, if that's the way
you feel."

A little shiver passed over the lad's sullen face; he flushed until he
lost his freckles in the red veil and burst out passionately: "Well, I
got eyes, ain't I? I ain't going to be bad, or drink, or steal, or do
things to git put in the penitentiary; but I ain't going to let folks
walk all over me like you do; no, sir!"

Nelson did not answer; in his heart he thought that he had failed with
the children, too; and he relapsed into that dismal study of the face of
Failure.

He had come to the city to show Tim the sights, and, therefore, though
like a man in a dream, he drove conscientiously about the gay streets,
pointing out whatever he thought might interest the boy, and generally
discovering that Tim had the new information by heart already. All
the while a question pounded itself, lik