"Well, I'd just hate to be you. Sometimes a song, or somebody humming a tune, sets me gloomin', or something I read, or sometimes it ain't nothing at all that I could tell. It just comes and sticks around till I don't know whether I'd sooner be a gloomer or a merry-ha-ha feller, with a smile for everybody and everything. I uster get that way in school sometimes, and I hated school bad enough, except the play time, but I sometimes wish I was back again." "Why?" "How the dickens do I know? Don't you?" "No--I've made up my mind to a business career, and----" William broke in again. "Well, you cert'nly have your mind well trained. If I had a mind like that, I'd take it out and dump it into the Bay every once in a while." "How could I do that? I'd have to commit suicide." "Well, you're a living suicide anyway, with a mind like yours," said William. "It's too regular, that's what it is." They sat silent for a long time. Lucien was afraid to speak, and William was just "glooming." He turned to his comrade at last, and began, "Say, whenever I get the gloom on me, sooner or later I get to thinkin' about the first day Pete went to school. That was two years ago--and he's nine now, and maybe he don't like school. Say, he'd go without a meal rather'n be late. He's got that medal bug in his brain pan; you know the game, never late and good conduct for about seventeen years, and you get a medal that's pretty to look at and no darn good to help you get a job. There's one good thing about Pete though, even if he is a kid." He paused. "What is it?" "He can fight. Say, Lucien, you'd oughter see him at it. Why, last week he had three fights with one feller." "What for?" "Well, the guy licked him the first two times, and didn't know any better than to go around and beef about it. So Pete tackled him again and licked him good and plenty, and every day since then Pete asks him does he wanter fight again, and he says, 'No.' That's the way with some folks, they know when they've had enough, but Pete never does; he just stays with it till he wins out, then he looks for another fight. But he's cunning, Pete is, he don't fight around the school none--Pete wants that medal. "But I was going to tell you about the first day he went to school. One morning Pa says to Ma, 'Well, what about Pete starting school?' he says. "And Ma gets kinder white and her lips is trembly, and she says, 'I guess he'll have to go,' and she says to Pete, 'Do you wanter go to school, Pete?' and Pete says he's crazy to go. "So Pa says to me, 'You'd better take him along, Willyum, I guess there's no need for me to go tottin' up there.' "But Ma says to Pa, 'I'd kinder like you to take him, Joe, the first day,' she says, 'and I'll go and meet him at noon,' she says.