"Why can't we give to the world as much as the men who have gone before
us?" Randy was demanding. "Are we going to take everything from our
ancestors, and give nothing to our descendants?"
Truxton chuckled. "By Jove," he said, "now that I come to think of it,
I am the head of a family--there's Fiddle-dee-dee, and I shall have to
reckon with Fiddle-dee-dee's children and grandchildren and
great-grandchildren--who will expect that my portrait will hang on the
wall at Huntersfield."
"It is all very well to laugh," said Randy hotly, "but that is the way
it looks to me; that we have got to show to the world that our
ambitions are--big. It is all very well to talk about the day's work.
I am going to do it, and pay my way, but there's got to be something
beyond that to think about--something bigger than I have ever known."
He gained dignity through the sincerity of his purpose. The Major,
still whistling softly, wondered what had come over the boy. He
recognized a difference since he had last talked to him. Randy was not
only roused; he was ready to look life in the face, to wrest from it
the best. "If that is what love of the little girl is doing for him,"
said the Major to himself, "then let him love her."
Truxton continued to treat the situation lightly. "Look here," he
said, "do you think you are going to be the only great man in our
generation?"
Randy laughed; but the fire was still in his eyes. "The county will
hold the two of us."
And now the Major spoke. "No man can be great by simply saying it.
But I think most of our great men have expected things of themselves.
They have dreamed dreams of greatness. I fancy that Lincoln did in his
log cabin, and Roosevelt on the plains. And it wasn't egotism--it was
a boy's wish to give himself to the world. And the wish was the urge.
And the trouble with many of our men in these days is that they are
content to dream; of what they can get instead of what they can do.
Paine has the right idea. There must be a day's work no matter how
hard, and it must be done well, but beyond that must be a dream of
bigger things for the future----"
Truxton stood up. "I asked for bread and you have given me--caviar.
Sufficient unto the day is the greatness thereof. And in the meantime,
Randy, I will make the grand gesture--and help you sell cars." He was
grinning as he left them. "Good-bye, Major. Good-bye, T. Jefferson,
Jr. Let me know when you want me in your Cabinet."
It was late that afternoon that Mary, looking for her husband, found
him in the Judge's library.
"What are you doing?" she asked, with lively curiosity.
Truxton was sitting on the floor with a pile of calf-bound books beside
him.
"What are you doing, lover?"
"Come here and I'll tell you." He made a seat for her of four of the
big books. His arm went around her and he laid his head against her
shoulder.
"Mary," he said, "I am carving a pedestal."
"You are what?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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