intellectually. We folk who have to do more constantly
with reading and writing are apt to think that the other folk who have
more to do with making and marketing have not so much mind, but I fancy
we make a mistake in that now and then. It is only another kind of mind
which they have quite as much of as we have of ours. It was intellectual
force that built up the Plated-Ware Works of Eastridge, where there
was no other reason for their being, and it was mental grip that held
constantly to the management, and finally grasped the ownership. Nobody
ever said that Talbert had come unfairly into that, or that he had
misused his money in buying men after he began to come into it in
quantity. He was felt in a great many ways, though he made something of
a point of not being prominent in politics, after being president of
the village two terms. The minister of his church was certainly such a
preacher as he liked; and nothing was done in the church society without
him; he gave the town a library building, and a soldier's monument; he
was foremost in getting the water brought in, which was natural enough
since he needed it the most; he took a great interest in school matters,
and had a fight to keep himself off the board of education; he went into
his pocket for village improvements whenever he was asked, and he was
the chief contributor to the public fountain under the big elm. If he
carefully, or even jealously guarded his own interests, and held the
leading law firm in the hollow of his hand, he was not oppressive, to
the general knowledge. He was a despot, perhaps, but he was Blackstone's
ideal of the head of a state, a good despot. In all his family relations
he was of the exemplary perfection which most other men attain only on
their tombstones, and I had found him the best of neighbors. There were
some shadows of diffidence between the ladies of our families, mainly on
the part of my wife, but none between Talbert and me. He showed me, as
a newspaper man with ideals if not abilities rather above the average, a
deference which pleased my wife, even more than me.

It was the married daughter whom she most feared might, if occasion
offered, give herself more consequence than her due. She had tried to
rule her own family while in her father's house, and now though she
had a house of her own, my wife believed that she had not wholly
relinquished her dominion there. Her husband was the junior member of
the law firm which Talber