"I hope you won't have any more hard feeling for mother and me. We all treated you pretty harsh that time; we never gave you credit for what you had in you, Van." "I guess it would have taken a prophet to see I had anything in me more than foolishness," I laughed. "Anyhow, it was the best thing that ever happened to me, Will, and I can't be too thankful that you folks in Jasonville threw me out." "Yes, Jasonville ain't just the place for an ambitious man," he sighed. "And, Van,--about May,--it wasn't hardly fair. She cared most for you, then, at any rate; she wouldn't marry me, not for five years." "Don't say another word, Will. May will make the best sort of sister. She's the right kind." So that was the way we made it up as two brothers should. And the next morning, after doing some thinking over night about how I could best help my brother and May, I followed Will over to the store. On the way I met the old judge, looking hardly a day older than when I saw him last. He eyed me hard, as if he didn't know me from the last tramp, but I stopped him and greeted him. "So you're loose once more," he grinned. "I see they shut you up as soon as you struck Chicago." He had a good time laughing at his little joke. "Yes," I replied, "I am out once more, judge. And, from what I hear, the Harringtons have been paying you pretty well for all the green peaches I ever took off your place." He mumbled something, but I turned on my heel, rather proud of myself if the truth be told, being well dressed, with an air of city prosperity. Will was in the bit of an office behind the store. The old place was as mussy and dirty as ever, with fat files of dusty old letters and accounts. The old desk where father used to make up his bills was littered with last year's mail. It was Sunday, and the musty smell of the closed store came in through the door. It all gave me the forlornest feeling I had had in years. "This will never pay, Will," I said to my brother, who was turning the leaves of a worm-eaten day-book. "The time when the small business would pay a man anything worth while is pretty nearly over for good." "I suppose so," he replied despondently. "But somehow we must get a living out of it." "Let the judge have it, if he'll take it. I can find you something better." There was a place in Dround's that Will might work into; and before long he could be of use to me in a scheme that was coming around the corner of my mind into sight. As I talked, Will's eyes brightened. Before we left the little office a new kind of look, the look of hope, had come over his face. I thought he seemed already some years younger. It takes the steps of a treadmill, downward faced, to crush the spirit in a man!