When aunt and uncle left us alone, Martin said: “Priddy, do you think the world’s treated me--oh, right, just right?” “What do you mean, Martin?” I asked. “You’ve got fight in your tone. What’s wrong?” “Did you never ask that, too?” he retorted, hotly. “Did you ever kick against the goad? I think you did, once. Don’t forget it, Priddy, ever! You’re not the only chap that ever wanted to get ahead, don’t lose sight of that. If it comes to matching ambition, I’ve got enough and to spare. Here you are, not much over twenty, I take it, yet you’ve got polished by seven years of schooling. Seven years of it! Have you any more right to it than me? Here I am nearly thirty and what am I? Blest if I’m anything but a hod carrier! What have I ever been, Priddy? Did I ever have a chance? I went into the mill at eight and have been there till this winter set in. God knows it’s little I know in the way of schooling! I can write my name and read some; but I got it myself. You know what the mill can be to an ambitious chap. You never felt it pressing down and stifling you more than I did. I tell you that.” He actually spit on his hands and rubbed them, as if on the verge of striking me. “The beginning of this winter I said I wouldn’t stand it no longer, and I won’t! No mill will get me again; not if I have to starve. I nearly have starved, this winter, trying to keep out. I’ve peddled shoes, run a baker’s cart, been janitor of a club-room and now I’m carrying bricks! Maybe you don’t think it’s hard! I wish you had it to go through. Perhaps you have, only your hands arn’t spoiled like mine with the frost. Even my feet are lame, this very minute, through frost. I’m earning a dollar seventy-five a day: good pay, but I shouldn’t last more than a few years at it and then----. Besides, I want to get married. She’s waiting. I’ve just got fifty dollars in the bank. Do you wonder I feel so?” On Christmas Sunday a blackboard in front of the church announced that the “Rev. Albert Priddy, formerly of this church, will preach in the morning and evening. Everybody Welcome!” My uncle took me aside, in the morning, and said: “I’m coming out to hear you, Al. Do your best, lad. I’ll be with you. God knows I don’t deserve all this!” It was a very simply arranged church; plain, white-washed walls, and a cheaply carpeted platform. While the first hymn was being sung, my Uncle Stanwood crept into a rear pew and kept his eyes down. But while I preached, a half smile of pride stole into his face and to my excited imagination his head seemed to be nodding approval to all I said. The look in his eyes seemed to be saying, “Show them, Al!” I whispered to the minister, “Let me pronounce the benediction and while we are singing the last hymn, get down the aisle and meet my uncle. He may get out before you. He’s timid.” But Uncle Stanwood crept out before the benediction and I did not see him again until my arrival home for dinner.