her reason have I set upon paper
this narrative of the man's ingratitude, simply telling the story and
drawing no conclusions whatever.

Barkis was not endowed with much in the way of worldly possessions. His
father had died when the lad was very young, and had left the boy and
his mother to struggle on alone. But there was that in both of them
which enabled the mother to feel that the boy was worth struggling for,
and the boy at a very early age to realize the difficulties of the
struggle, and to like the difficulties because they afforded him an
opportunity to help his mother either by not giving her unnecessary
trouble or in bringing to her efforts in their mutual behalf aid of a
very positive kind.

Boys of this kind--and in saying this I cast no reflections whatsoever
upon that edifying race of living creatures whom I admire and respect
more than any other--are so rare that it did not take the neighbors of
the Barkis family many days to discover that the little chap was worth
watching, and if need be caring for in a way which should prove
substantial. There are so many ways, too, in which one may help a boy
without impairing his self-reliance that on the whole it was not very
difficult to assist Barkis. So when one of his neighbors employed him in
his office at a salary of eight dollars a week, when other boys received
only four for similar service, the lad, instead of feeling himself
favored, assumed an obligation and made himself worth five times as much
as the other boys, so that really his employer, and not he, belonged to
the debtor class.

Some said it was a pity that little Barkis wasted his talents in a real
estate office, but they were the people who didn't know him. He expended
his nervous energy in the real estate office, but his mind he managed to
keep free for the night school, and when it came to the ultimate it was
found that little Barkis had wasted nothing. He entered college when
several other boys--who had not served in a real estate office, who had
received diplomas from the high-school, and who had played while he had
studied--failed.

That his college days were a trial to his mother every one knew. She
wished him to keep his end up, and he did--and without spending all that
his mother sent him, either. The great trouble was that at the end of
his college course it was understood that Barkis intended studying
medicine. When that crept out the neighbors sighed. They deprecated the
resolve a