r
of the car and the railroad.

Mr. Hill insisted that Wetherald should remain and teach the Hill
children, but Fate said otherwise. There is no doubt that Hill's love of
books, art, natural history, and his habit of independent thought were
largely fixed in his nature through the influence of this fine Friend,
teacher of children. The Quaker listens for the "Voice," and then acts
without hunting up precedents. In other words, he does the things he
wants to do. Mr. Hill's long hair and full beard form a sort of
unconscious tribute to Wetherald. In fact, let James J. Hill wear a
dusty miller's suit and a wide-brimmed hat and you get the true type of
"Hicksite."

James J. Hill is a score of men in one, as every great man is. But when
the kindly, philosophic, paternal and altruistic "Yim Hill" is in the
saddle, you will see the significance of this story: Just after Mr. Hill
had gotten possession of the Burlington, he made a trip over the road. A
rear-end flagman at Galesburg was boasting to some of his mates about
how he had gone over the division with the new "boss of the ranch."

Here a listener puts in a question, thus: "What kind of a lookin' fellow
is th' ol' man?" And he of the red lantern and torpedoes scratches his
head, and explains, "Well, you see, it's like this: He looks like Jesus
Christ, only he's heavier set!"

* * * * *

The father of James J. Hill was a worthy man, with a good hold on the
simple virtues, a weak chin and a cosmos of slaty gray.

His only claim to immortality lies in the fact that he was the father of
his son. Pneumonia took him, as it often does the physically strong, and
he passed out before he had reached his prime. "Death is the most
joyfullest thing in life," said Thomas Carlyle to Milburn, the blind
preacher, "when it transfers responsibility to those big enough to
shoulder it, for that's the only way you can make a man."

I once saw a boy of fourteen on the prairies of Kansas transformed into
a man, between the rising of the sun and its setting. His father was
crushed beneath a wagon that sluiced and toppled in crossing a gully.
The hub caught the poor man square on the chest, and after we got him
out he never spoke. Six children and the mother were left, the oldest
boy being fourteen. A grave was dug there on the prairie the next day,
and this boy of fourteen patted down the earth over his father's grave,
with the back of a spade. He then hitch