"Looks like it!" Bibbs agreed, gaily.

"Well, I'd like to know any place I been wrong, first and last!
Instead o' hurting you, it's been the makin' of you--physically.
You're a good inch taller'n what I am, and you'd be a bigger man than
what I am if you'd get some flesh on your bones; and you ARE gettin'
a little. Physically, it's started you out to be the huskiest one o'
the whole family. Now, then, mentally--that's different. I don't say
it unkindly, Bibbs, but you got to do something for yourself mentally,
just like what's begun physically. And I'm goin' to help you."

Sheridan decided to sit down again. He brought his chair close to his
son's, and, leaning over, tapped Bibbs's knee confidentially. "I got
plans for you, Bibbs," he said.

Bibbs instantly looked thoroughly alarmed. He drew back. "I--I'm all
right now, father."

"Listen." Sheridan settled himself in his chair, and spoke in the
tone of a reasonable man reasoning. "Listen here, Bibbs. I had
another blow to-day, and it was a hard one and right in the face,
though I HAVE been expectin' it some little time back. Well, it's
got to be met. Now I'll be frank with you. As I said a minute ago,
mentally I couldn't ever called you exactly strong. You been a little
weak both ways, most of your life. Not but what I think you GOT a
mentality, if you'd learn to use it. You got will-power, I'll say that
for you. I never knew boy or man that could be stubborner--never one
in my life! Now, then, you've showed you could learn to run that
machine best of any man in the shop, in no time at all. That looks
to me like you could learn to do other things. I don't deny but what