an' scolded an' nagged till Addie finally consented. But, la me! how a feller's hopes kin fall! Hard times came. I borrowed on my land to keep Addie supplied with nice things, an' my crops went crooked. I lost money in a sawmill, an' finally got to be a land-renter like I am now, low in health an' spirits, an' dependent on you for even my tobacco--_tobacco_.” Ralph repeated the word, for his voice had become indistinct. “That's all right,” Paul said, testily. “Go on to bed. Settin' up like this ain't goin' to do you no good.” “It does me more good'n you think,” Ralph asserted. “I hold in all day long with not a soul to talk to, an' dyin' to say things to somebody. I ain't hardly got started. Thar's a heap more--a heap that I'm afraid you are too young to understand; but you will some day. Yore time will come, too. Yore lady-love will cross yore track, an' you'll see visions in her eyes that never was on land or sea. I look at you sometimes an' think that maybe you will become a great man, an' I'll tell you why. It is because you are sech a hard worker an' stick to a job so steady, and because you've got sech a hot, spicy temper when folks rile you by treatin' you wrong. Folks say thar is some'n in blood, an' I don't want you to think because I'm sech a flat failure that you have to be. Experts in sech matters say that a body is just as apt to copy after far-off kin as that which is close by, and I want to tell you something. It is about the Rundel stock. Three year ago, when I was a witness in a moonshine case at government court, in Atlanta, my expenses was paid, an' I went down, an' while I was in the city a feller called on me at my boardin'-house. He said the paper had printed my name in connection with the case, an' he looked me up because he was interested in everybody by the name o' Rundel. He was writin' a family history for some rich folks that wanted it all down in black an' white to keep for future generations to look at. He was dressed fine, and talked like a presidin' elder or a bishop. He told me, what I never had heard before, that the name ought to be spelled with an A in front--Arundel. He had a short way o' twistin' it that I can't remember. He said thar was several ways o' callin' the name, an' he laughed an' said he met one old backwoods chap in Kentucky that said his was 'Runnels' because his neighbors called 'im that, an' he liked the sound of it. He set for a good hour or more tellin' me about the ups an' downs of folks by the name. He said what made the whole thing so encouragin' was that the majority of 'em was continually on the rise. He'd knowed 'em, he said, to be plumb down an' out for several generations, an' then to pop up an' produce a man of great fame an' power. He had a list o' big guns as long as yore arm. I knowed I was too far gone to benefit by it myself, but I thought about you, an' I felt comforted. I've always remembered with hope an' pride,