arse and toilsome methods
which had been necessary for himself were necessary for a trained and
cultured understanding!

"What do you want me to do?" asked Arthur.

Hiram drew a breath of relief. The boy was going to show good sense and
willingness after all. "I guess you'd better learn barrel-making first,"
said he. He rose. "I'll take you to the foreman of the cooperage, and
to-morrow you can go to work in the stave department. The first thing is
to learn to make a first-class barrel."

Arthur slowly rose to follow. He was weak with helpless rage. If his
father had taken him into the office and had invited him to help in
directing the intellectual part of that great enterprise, the part that
in a way was not without appeal to the imagination, he felt that he might
gradually have accustomed himself to it; but to be put into the mindless
routine of the workingman, to be set about menial tasks which a mere
muscular machine could perform better than he--what waste, what
degradation, what insult!

He followed his father to the cooperage, the uproar of its machinery
jarring fiercely upon him, but not so fiercely as did the common-looking
men slaving in torn and patched and stained clothing. He did not look at
the foreman as his father was introducing them and ignored his proffered
hand. "Begin him at the bottom, Patrick," explained Hiram, "and show him
no favors. We must give him a good education."

"That's right, Mr. Ranger," said Patrick, eying his new pupil dubiously.
He was not skilled in analysis of manner and character, so Arthur's
superciliousness missed him entirely and he was attributing the cold and
vacant stare to stupidity. "A regular damn dude," he was saying to
himself. "As soon as the old man's gone, some fellow with brains'll do
him out of the business. If the old man's wise, he'll buy him an annuity,
something safe and sure. Why do so many rich people have sons like that?
If I had one of his breed I'd shake his brains up with a stave."

Arthur mechanically followed his father back to the office. At the door
Hiram, eager to be rid of him, said: "I reckon that's about all we can do
to-day. You'd better go to Black and Peters's and get you some clothes.
Then you can show up at the cooperage at seven to-morrow morning, ready
to put in a good day's work."

He laid his hand on his son's shoulder, and that gesture and the
accompanying look, such as a surgeon might give his own child upon whom
he was perfor