Still Jim

generations of them fulfill their destinies an

of the E

ached New York. Mrs. Manning knew the city well and Jim, bo

red Brussels carpets and walnut furniture of crinkly design. It had crayon enlargements of Mrs. Dennis and the two small Dennises

Mrs. Manning solved the maid question by sending back to Exham for Annie Peyton. Annie was about forty. Her mother had been housekeeper for Mrs. Manning's moth

She herself never said anything, but Jim noticed that she made no friends. Mr. De

his faculty, combined with a certain mental obstinacy and independence, made him at once the pride and terror of his teachers. He was a very firm rock

boy's education. In his adult life he must meet and understand men and methods of every nationality. New York public schools are veritable congresses of nations and a boy who plans to go into business gets far more than

nd street and Jim asked the superintendent of construction for work. The superintendent looked at the l

rk, young fella?

h," replied Jim, "unti

errick No. 2 and get some muscle laid on you. A dollar

income. He nodded, pulled off his coat, leaving it in the

to build in sections. A steel frame nearly eighteen stories high was nearly finished at one edge, whi

med to feeling in school that New York was not in America, but in a foreign country. Down in the five-story hole in the ground, with the ear-shattering batter of the steam riveters above him, the groaning of the donkey engines, the tear and screech of the steam drills beside him, with t

ow he was going to stand this, summer after summer, until he had his education. They seemed to him so dirty, so

n he did the others. To Hank the othe

rill!" yelled Hank in Jim's ear one af

. "I talk English, anyhow," he

tty quick whites and colored folks can't get no jobs no more in this country. Just Bo

t the street edge of the gray pit. Black heads peered over the rail, staring idly at the workmen below. Jim felt half a thrill of pride

adwick again. As he stared wistfully upward, a girder on the 18th floor twisted suddenly and swept across a temporary floor, brushing men off like crumbs. Jim saw three men go hurtling and bo

t sticks 'em outside the board fence and a policeman sends fer a ambulance. The blood on these here New York buildings sure oughta hoo-doo 'em

library with the cigars, Dennis looked at the boy affectionately. Jim interested him.

etter cut this work you're doing and come to me office.

me. The gym teacher said I was growing t

r with you, then?

ate it here in New York. Seems as if I can't stand it. They don't care anything about human beings. I can't thin

just your age, Still Jim. I don't like to think of you as having so little

to put in the bank. I'm all right. It's just that since-since you know I saw Dad--" and to his utter shame Jim began to sob. He dropped his h

Hold on now, I'll tell you a funny story. No, I won't either. I'll tell you so

umped to his feet, forgetting even

he cried. "I wouldn't let h

k to you about it first. Much as I think of her, Jim, I wouldn't m

y. The Irishman was a pleas

te you if you tried to take my father's place. Anyway, I don't think mama would even l

he crayon enlargeme

know we gave and got the best in life, once, and it only comes once. Only it's this way, Still Jim, me boy. When people pass middle age and look forward to old age, they see it lonely, desperately lonely, and they want company to help them

m huskily. "I'm-I'm going out for a walk." And he rushed out of the h

, urged Jim up to the new skyscraper. The night watchman was for driving the lank boy away until

you up to the top floor and look out at the city. Take th

o one heeded Jim. He reached the 18th floor, where there was a narrow tem

r of the nights that followed the tragedy. She did not know that periodically, even now, he dreamed the August fields and the dying men and the bloody derrick over a

ry of steel waiting for its concrete sheathing was silhouetted below him. The night wind rushed past and he braced himself automatically, noting at the

's what I'll study, reinforced concrete building. I've got to find a profession that'll give

up at the sky. It was full of stars and scudding clouds. Jim missed the sky in New York

ple. I'm an engineer and I'm building a bridge across a canyon where no one but the birds have ever crossed before

or some time before, his mind had taken a bent suggested by Mr. Manning's melancholy. What was the matter with Exham and the Mannings? Why had his father failed? What could he do to make up for the failure?

ings and took its racial bent. Suddenly he was a maker of trails, a builder in the wilderness. He

beings, that of finding one's predilection in the work by which one earns one's daily bread. The sense of clean-cut aim to his life was like balm and tonic to the boy's nerves. Som

st into the house with a slam, utterly unlike his usual quiet, unboyish steadiness. He was dashing past the library door on his way upstairs to his mother, w

gineer and go out west and build railroads and

e. His gray eyes were brilliant. His thick hair was wind-tossed across his forehead. Mr. Dennis,

" he said, soberly. "You've the enginee

replied Jim lucidly. "Don't y

ishing Jim's father could see him now. "I don't understand, Jimmy.

hen looked at Mr. Denni