at!" he snorted. "Eat! It's work that makes men eat! And it's
imagination that keeps people from eatin'. Busy men don't get time for
that kind of imagination; and there's another thing you'll notice
about good health, if you'll take the trouble to look around you Mrs.
Sheridan: busy men haven't got time to be sick and they don't GET sick.
You just think it over and you'll find that ninety-nine per cent. of the
sick people you know are either women or loafers. Yes, ma'am!"

"Honey," she said again, drowsily, "you better come to bed."

"Look at the other boys," her husband bade her. "Look at Jim and Roscoe.
Look at how THEY work! There isn't a shiftless bone in their bodies.
Work never made Jim or Roscoe sick. Jim takes half the load off my
shoulders already. Right now there isn't a harder-workin', brighter
business man in this city than Jim. I've pushed him, but he give me
something to push AGAINST. You can't push 'nervous dyspepsia'! And look
at Roscoe; just LOOK at what that boy's done for himself, and barely
twenty-seven years old--married, got a fine wife, and ready to build
for himself with his own money, when I put up the New House for you and
Edie."

"Papa, you'll catch cold in your bare feet," she murmured. "You better
come to bed."

"And I'm just as proud of Edie, for a girl," he continued, emphatically,
"as I am of Jim and Roscoe for boys. She'll make some man a mighty good
wife when the time comes. She's the prettiest and talentedest girl in
the United States! Look at that poem she wrote when she was in school
and took the prize with; it's the best poem I ever read in my life, and
she'd never even tried to write one before. It's the finest thing I
ever read, and R. T. Bloss said so, too; and I guess he's a good enough
literary judge for me--turns out more advertisin' liter'cher than any
man in the city. I tell you she's smart! Look at the way she worked me
to get me to promise the New House--and I guess you had your finger
in that, too, mamma! This old shack's good enough for me, but you and
little Edie 'll have to have your way. I'll get behind her and push her
the same as I will Jim and Roscoe. I tell you I'm mighty proud o' them
three chuldern! But Bibbs--" He paused, shaking his head. "Honest,
mamma, when I talk to men that got ALL their boys doin' well and worth
their salt, why, I have to keep my mind on Jim and Roscoe and forget
about Bibbs."

Mrs. Sheridan tossed her head fretfully upon the pillow.