e has an ulterior purpose in view. He is
always more or less of an enigma, because he goes through life wearing
a mask. He endeavors to hide every trait that is not favorable to
himself. Never, if he can help it, do we get a glimpse of the real man.

How different the man who comes out in the open, who has no secrets,
who reveals his heart to us, and who is frank, broad and liberal! How
quickly he wins our confidence! How we all like and trust him! We
forgive him for many a slip or weakness, because he is always ready to
confess his faults, and to make amends for them. It he has bad
qualities, they are always in sight, and we are ready to make
allowances for them. His heart is sound and true, his sympathies are
broad and active. The very qualities he possesses--frankness and
simplicity,--are conducive to the growth of the highest manhood and
womanhood.

In the Black Hills of South Dakota there lived a humble, ignorant
miner, who won the love and good will of everyone. "You can't 'elp
likin' 'im," said an English miner, and when asked why the miners and
the people in the town couldn't help liking him, he answered. "Because
he has a 'eart in 'im; he's a man. He always 'elps the boys when in
trouble. You never go to 'im for nothin'."

Bright, handsome young men, graduates of Eastern colleges, were there
seeking their fortune; a great many able, strong men drawn there from
different parts of the country by the gold fever; but none of them held
the public confidence like this poor man. He could scarcely write his
name, and knew nothing of the usages of polite society, yet he so
intrenched himself in the hearts in his community that no other man,
however educated or cultured, had the slightest chance of being elected
to any office of prominence while "Ike" was around.

He was elected mayor of his town, and sent to the legislature, although
he could not speak a grammatical sentence. It was all because he had a
heart in him; he was a man.

CHAPTER XVII

IF YOU CAN TALK WELL

When Charles W. Eliot was president of Harvard, he said, "I recognize
but one mental acquisition as an essential part of the education of a
lady or gentleman, namely, an accurate and refined use of the
mother-tongue."

Sir Walter Scott defined "a good conversationalist" as "one who has
ideas, who reads, thinks, listens, and who has therefore something to
say."

There is no other one thing which enables us to make so good an