The ol' man would have played that part about as natural as a bull buffalo, but he fooled himself into believin' it, an' his voice was purty shaky at the end. Barbie's eyes filled up with tears, an' when he stopped an' began to totter feebly toward the house, she ran up an' threw her arms about his neck, an' said. "Dad. I just hate you--you don't play fair. You start the game under one set o' rules an' then when you get the worst of it you just simply crawfish. When we were sayin' mean things out in the open, I just natchly put it all over you; an' now you flop over on your back an' work that 'coals o' fire' stunt, an' I just hate you. You know in your heart I'd be proud of you in any company on earth, but the' is a heap o' difference between you an' me. You have been successful, an' strangers will respect you for it; but it's got to be a show-down with me every time. If I don't learn the new gaits, so a stranger will think I'm city-broke, some fresh tourist is apt to get the idee that I'm as uncivilized as my manners, an' it won't do to tramp on my toes--not overly often. But I don't have to leave you. I'll just turn in an' do the job right here on the ranch, an' accordin' to the very latest models. You get me a lot o' books an' all the magazines an' fashion papers, an' hanged if I don't turn out a job 'at'll fool the best of 'em. You're a mean old Daddy, you are, for a fact; but we snake too dandy a duet for me to go away an' leave you to grind out a solo all alone. But--but I sure wanted to go." Well, Jabez grinned all over; but I saw that he wasn't through with it so easy. Barbie wasn't the one to throw her rope before she was all braced for the jerk, an' the' wouldn't be any kinks in her logic, neither. She had thrown a purty stout string of arguments, an' I was full prepared when they told me that he was to have his way about it, an' she was to go to college that very fall. She did go in less'n a month to a prep-school clear down East. A prep-school is a sort of a calf college, you know; an' she had to train there a solid year before they had the nerve to turn her loose on a full-grown university. But she had a head on her, Barbie had; an' when she got squared away, she made 'em all get down an' scratch. They do say that she put more life an' vim in that institution than anybody what had ever give it a work-out before. Ol' Cast Steel went down twice the first winter, an' never let her know 'at he was in the neighborhood, for fear it would make her think 'at he was pinin' for her. He just went down there an' bought some store clothes an' prowled around waitin' for the chance to see her at a distance--never even lined out the professors to see if they were doin' their duty, nor mixed in the game the slightest bit. Talk about bein' game? I reckon that puts a shadow on anything ever that man had to face.