“Not much!” exclaimed Tom, interrupting me; “Tommy is master here.” “Well, he has the right to obey his son, if he chooses to do so,” I added. “I don’t know, but I can’t help thinking that this matter has come to a head now. Major Toppleton wants me to run the engine, and Tommy don’t want me to do it. I hope the thing will be settled to-day.” It was settled that day. I went home, and pretty soon my father came to his dinner. He had, of course, been my confidant in all the matters relating to my quarrel with Tommy. I told him all about the stirring events of the morning, after we sat down to dinner; and he was so interested that he neglected to touch the food before him till he had heard the whole of it. “Have I done wrong, father?” I asked. “Certainly not. You couldn’t have done anything else. You live here, and the railroad is now the only way for you to come up the lake. You paid your fare, and they had no more right to put you off the cars than they had to throw you into the lake,” he replied, warmly. I ought to add here, that my relations with the road had been discussed every day, and often two or three times a day. My father, and my mother especially, had cautioned me not to be impulsive, and not to resist while it was decent to submit. Our obligations to Major Toppleton were acknowledged, and all of us were very anxious to keep the peace with him. “I don’t see how Major Toppleton can uphold that boy any longer,” added my mother. “I don’t see how he ever could do it,” said my father. “But that is his business, not mine. I don’t think we make much, however, by trying to keep on the right side of these rich men by sacrificing our own self-respect. I am thankful that the major does not hold the mortgage on my house.” “I suppose he could get it, if he wanted it,” suggested my mother. “Well, it has two years to run, whoever has it; and as long as I pay the interest, we shall be safe enough,” continued my father. “I am thankful we are not in such a scrape as we were on the other side of the lake.” We ate our dinner in peace, in spite of the storm which had raged without. My father was in deep thought, and it was not difficult to conjecture the subject of his meditations. Doubtless he congratulated himself most heartily that it was not in the power of either of the magnates to harass and annoy him. The major could discharge us both, and even make Middleport too warm to contain us; but the colonel was ready to receive us both with open arms. It seemed just as though I was a shuttlecock, to be batted back and forth from one side of the lake to the other at the will and pleasure of the mighty men who ruled the neighborhood.