The Second Generation

usly within a few days of its end, Adelaide suggested to Arthur, some

nough to have the inward

day as a temptation to

get an ally in his sis

deepened i

o see his point of view as to Arthur. That angry frown was discouraging, but she felt too strongly to be qui

s, and would probably have brought Hiram down before he could have reached home, had he not been so powerful of body and of will. And Arthur, easily reassured where he must be assured if he was to have peace of mind, now believed that his outburst had had no part whatever

inheritance from his father. "I've only made him more set by what I've said," t

ressed, and then after a wait in which he seemed to have cast about for the fewest pos

ss, still seeing him and being thus reminded of their difference could not but have a bad effect. That particular day, as luc

andem?" a

the last development of the strained re

asn't gone

u were taken sick, Hiram," said she, with gen

permit no help in the nursing, neither by day nor by night. He relapsed into his brooding over the problem which was

nd, she had a way of running on and on to everyone and anyone about the most intimate family affairs, and close-mouthed Ellen Ranger thought this the quintessence of indiscretion and vulgarity. But Hiram liked her, was amused by her always interesting and at times witty thrusts at the vario

ent as a Quaker meetinghouse. Mrs. Fred had defied this ancient and sacred tradition of the "settled" woman. She had kept her looks; she frankly delighted in the admiration of men. And the fact that the most captious old maid in Saint X could not find a flaw in her character as a faithful wife, aggravated the offending. For, did not her devotion to her husband make dangerous her example of frivolity retained and flaunted, as a pure private life in an infidel made his heresies plausible and insidious? At "almost" forty, Mrs. Hastings looked "about" thirty and ac

through the formula of sick-room conversation. "I've just come from old John Sk

simony, gathered under his roof from far and near, each group hoping to induce him to make a will in its favor. He lingered on, and so did they-watching each other, trying to outdo each other in complaisance to the humors of the old miser. And he got a

he?" ask

made them bring an anvil and hammer to his bedside, and whenever he happens to be sleeping badly-and that's pretty often-he bangs on the anvil unti

l?" asked Hiram. "The Th

the two Cantwe

ce to-morrow. I saw Dory Hargrave in the street a while ago. You know his mother was a first cousin of old John's

d Dory say?"

expecting inheritances. You know the creek that flows through the graveyard has just been stopped from seeping into the reservoir. Well, Dory spoke of that

gan to rub his hands, one over the other-a

ply been waiting for him to die and divide up his millions. Look at us! Bill and Tom drunkards, Dick a loafer without even the energy to be a drunkard; Ed dead because he was too lazy to keep alive. Alice and I married nice fellows; b

Wilmots, too," sa

me disease," Henrietta went on

fortune out of it. He got overbearing, and what he thought was proud, toward the

e they live in the big house, half-starved. Why, really, Mr. Ranger, they don't have enough to eat. And they dress in clothes that have been in the family for a generation. They make their underclothes out of old bed

," said Hiram

oughtn't to have lent t

of his grandfather's wa

s, just as our family

t stream Dory Hargrav

n Dumont," m

lain truth is he's a gambler and a thief, and he uses what his father left him to be gambler and thief on the big scale, and so keep out of the penitentiary-'f

od can be done with

downright bad hides the truth from people. Talk about the good money does! What does it amount to-the good that's good, and the good that's rotten bad? What does it all amount to beside the good that having to work does? People that have to work hard are usually honest and have sympathy and affection and try to amount to something. And if they are bad, why at least they ca

to slide his great, strong, usefu

in the right road, makes him race along if

ing a great deal to youn

shre

I'm not altogether parroting what he said. I do my own thin

en, with an admiring look, "It's a pity some of

rst-rate talker-and that's all the energy I've got-energy to

sin

la Wilmot in opening a lit

work!" excl

the commonness of work out of their blood for three generations, but it has burst in again. She made a declaration of independence last week. She told the family she was tired of being a p

looks well,"

ay present, and we're going to open up in a small way. She's to put her name out-my family won't let me put mine out, too. 'Wilmot & Hastings'

ed any-" b

in, with a laugh. "This

want to hold on to eve

ou ever do need to borrow

the old man by giving him a shy, darting kiss on the brow. "Now, don't you tell y

tings's harum-scarum gossiping and philosophizing happened to be just what his troubled mind needed to precipitate its clouds into a solid mass that could be clearly seen and carefully examined. Heretofore he had accepted the conventional explanations of all the ultimate problems, had regarded philosophers as time wasters, own br

he world to inflict discomfort, much less pain, upon anyone, unless the command to do it came unmistakably in the one voice he dared not disobey. Day after day he brooded; night after night he fought to escape. But, slowly, inexorably, his ir

Dory Hargr

odest, almost mean "halls," and two hundred acres of land. There were at that time just under four hundred students, all but about fifty working their way through. So poor was the college that it was kept

vice to his fellow-men, came into Hiram Ranger's presence, Hiram shrank and grew gray

should have come of my own accord within a day or two. Latterly God has been

his own convictions. He tried to force hi

fitness for the just use of God's treasure, has been demonstrated, and He has made you stewards of much of it. And now approaches the

n the tragedy of his mental and physical suffering soft and serene and sweet

n to vanity and selfishness, to lives of idleness and folly, to bring up their children to be even less useful to mankind than they, even more out of sympa

d his hands were clasped and wrenching each at the other, typical of

h generations! Industry has been slowly paralyzing. The young people, whose wealth gave them the best opportunities, are leading idle lives, are full of vanity of class and caste, are steeped in the sins that ever follow in the wake of idleness-the sins of selfishness and indulgence. Instead of being workers, leading in the march upward, instead of taking t

ng of these things

and through it man has been rising-but rising slowly and with many a backward slip, because he has tried to thwart the Divine plan with the system of inheritance. Fortunately, the great mass of mankind has had nothing to leave to heirs, has had no hope of inheritances. Thus, new leaders have ever been developed in place of those destroyed by inherited prosperity. But, unfortunately, the law of inheritance has been able to do its devil's work upon the best el

shoes," mu

ork, to labor cheerfully and equally, honestly and helpfully, with their brothers and sisters; but your wealth-If

rly, a duty she must not put upon others, had sent for the catalogues of all the famous colleges in the country. He could see her poring over the catalogues, balancing one offering of educational advantage against another, finally deciding for Harvard, the greatest of them all. He could hear her saying: "It'll cost a great deal, Hiram. As near as I can reckon it out it'll cost about a thousand dollars a year-twelve hundred if we want to b

lege I want to see that it can't ever be like them eastern inst

ave it so that any young man who get

? No boy, no matter what he has at home, can come to that there college without working

ng a paper from his pocket. "I've had it ready

big chair and closing his eyes and beginn

of rich and well-to-do and poor, would teach them how to live honestly and nobly, would give them not only useful knowledge to work with but also the light to work by. "You see, Hiram, I think a chi

ht was not for his plan probably about to be thwarted by the man's premature death, but of his own selfishness in wearying and imperiling him

ting out his trembling hand, but not

gly. "You'd better put it off

d Hiram. "Good

*

it came toward mid-afternoon of that same day. Li

ll. I feel I ain't got much time." With a far-away, listening look-"I must put my house in order-in order. Draw up a will and bring it to me before five o'clock. I want you to

t to-day. Too

Hiram. "I won't re

urse,

now, and give

ber this. It's in my partner's handwriting. Hargrave had Watson draw it u

iram. "Now I'll give you

book and pencil

d by heart, "to my wife, Ellen, this house and everything in it, and

y, looking up fro

that is what it cost her and me to live last year, and the child

is glance at Hiram no

her life-to be divided among her daughters equally, if s

said

n, five thousand

client as if he thought one or the other of them be

inued Hiram, in his same voice of repeating by rote, "and to my sister P

said

estate to be made int

e and Hampden Scarboroug

The trust to be adminis

ty under the plan

ng his inner contention of grief, alarm, and protest. But there was

to have it at the proper wages for the work he does. If at the end of fifteen years he wishes to buy them, he to have the right to buy, that is, my controlling interest in them, provided

he rack, who ceases to suffer either because the torture is ended or because his

to the lapel of his waistcoat, put them on, studied the paper, then said hesitatingly:

of manner which he always used to hide his softness, and which deceived eve

ering. "Very well, Hiram," he finally said. As he shook hands, he blurted out huskily, "The b

nstruct the phrases, he dictated: "I make this disposal of my estate through my love for my children, and because I have firm belief in the soundness of their character and in their capacity to do and to be.

when he had taken down Hiram's slowly enunciated words, "but

ch inherited wealth has been a benefit, a single case where a

ey finally said: "That

now, and so came

d one, I'd see, on looking at all the facts, that it only seemed to be so. And I recalled nearl

y. "But to bring children up in the expectation of wealth, and then to

leads to destruction. I must take the consequences. But God won't let me divide the punishme

hich had seemed vividly real to Hiram all his life; it seemed real and near to Torrey, looking into his old friend's face. "The power that'