irly proficient Italian scholar. I could
speak the language fluently and read it fairly well. It wasn't the
fault of Giuseppe if my pronunciation was sometimes queer and if very
often I used the jargon of the provinces. My object was served as long
as I could make myself understood to the men. And I could do that
perfectly.

This year I watched Rafferty's progress with something like envy. The
firm was "D. Rafferty and Co." Within two months I began to see the
name on his dump carts whenever I went to work. Within six months he
secured a big contract for repaving a long stretch of street in our
ward. I knew our firm had put in a bid on it and knew they must have
been in a position to put in a mighty low bid. I didn't wonder so much
about how Dan got this away from us as I did how he got it away from
Sweeney. That was explained to me later when I found that Sweeney was
in reality back of the liquor dealers. Sweeney owned about half their
stores and had taken this method to bring Dan back to the fold, once
he found he couldn't check his progress.

During this year Dan bought a new house and married. We went to the
wedding and it was a grand affair with half the ward there. Mrs.
Rafferty was a nice looking girl, daughter of a well-to-do Irishman in
the real estate business. She had received a good education in a
convent and was altogether a girl Dan could be proud of. The house was
an old-fashioned structure built by one of the old families who had
been forced to move by the foreign invasion. Mrs. Rafferty had
furnished it somewhat lavishly but comfortably.

As Ruth and I came back that night I said:

"I suppose if it had been 'Carleton and Rafferty' I might have had a
house myself by now."

"I guess it's better as it is, Billy," she said, with a smile.

Of course it was better but I began to feel discontented with my
present position. I felt uncomfortable at still being merely a
foreman. When we reached the house Ruth and I took the bank book and
figured out just what our capital in money was. Including the boy's
savings which we could use in an emergency it amounted to fourteen
hundred dollars. During the first year we saved one hundred and twenty
dollars, which added to the eighty we came down here with, made two
hundred dollars. During the second year we saved three hundred and
ninety dollars. During the third year we saved six hundred dollars.
This made a total of eleven hundred and ninety dollars in the bank.