"You're a man now, Nick," he said slowly, as if the words had been revolving in his brain for some time and he had just received the power of speech. "Yes, pa." "Whatever he is, he don't git it from his pa," put in Marthy Burr as she bent over the shirt. "He ain't got nothin' of yo'rn onless it's yo' hair, an' that's done sobered down till you wouldn't know it." Amos waited patiently until she had finished, and then went on heavily as if the pause had been intentional, not enforced. "You've got as much schoolin' as most city chaps," he said. "Much good it'll do you, I reckon. I never saw nothin' come of larnin' yet, 'cep'n worthlessness. But you'd set yo' mind on it, an' you've got it." "Thar warn't none of yo' hand in that, Amos Burr," cried his wife, checking him again before he had recovered breath from his last sentence. "Many's the night I've wrastled with you till you war clean wore out with sleeplessness, 'fo' you'd let the child keep on at his books." "I ain't never seen no good come of it," repeated Burr stolidly; then he returned to Nicholas. "I reckon you'll want to do somethin' for the family, now," he said, "seein' yo' ma is well wore out an' the brindle cow died calvin', an' Sairy Jane is a hard worker." Nicholas looked at him without speaking. "Yes?" he said inquiringly, and his voice was dull. "I was talkin' to Jerry Pollard," continued his father, letting his slow eyes rest upon his son's, "an' he said you war as likely a chap as thar was roun' here, and he reckoned you'd be pretty quick in business." "Yes?" said Nicholas again in the same tone. Amos Burr was silent for a moment, and his wife filled in the pause with a series of running interjections. When they were over her husband took up his words. "He wants a young fellow about his store, he says, as can look arter the books an' the business. He's gittin' too old to keep up with the city ways an' look peart at the ladies--he'll pay a nice little sum in cash every week." "Yes?" repeated Nicholas, still interrogatively. "An' he wants to know if you'll take the place--you're jest the sort of chap he wants, he says--somebody as will be bright at praisin' up the calicky to the gals when they come shoppin'. Thar's nothin' like a young man behind the counter to draw the gals, he says." Nicholas shook his head impatiently, clasping the books tightly beneath his arm. His gaze had grown harsh and repellent. "But I am going into the judge's office," he answered. "I am going--" Then he checked himself, baffled by the massive ignorance he confronted. Amos Burr drew one shoulder from the fire and offered the other. A slow steam rose from his smoking shirt, and the room was filled with the odour of scorching cotton. "Thar ain't much cash in that, I reckon," he said.