you've got a country that's worth fighting for. Any rate,
you better go out and give it a chance.' Well, sir, I went.
I knew she meant business. It might kill her to have
me go, but it would kill her sure if I stayed.
She was one of that kind. I went. Her last words was,
'I'll look after the paint, Si.' We hadn't but just one
little girl then,--boy'd died,--and Mis' Lapham's mother
was livin' with us; and I knew if times DID anyways come
up again, m'wife'd know just what to do. So I went.
I got through; and you can call me Colonel, if you want to.
Feel there!" Lapham took Bartley's thumb and forefinger
and put them on a bunch in his leg, just above the knee.
"Anything hard?"

"Ball?"

Lapham nodded. "Gettysburg. That's my thermometer.
If it wa'n't for that, I shouldn't know enough to come
in when it rains."

Bartley laughed at a joke which betrayed some evidences
of wear. "And when you came back, you took hold
of the paint and rushed it."

"I took hold of the paint and rushed it--all I could,"
said Lapham, with less satisfaction than he had hitherto
shown in his autobiography. "But I found that I had got
back to another world. The day of small things was past,
and I don't suppose it will ever come again in this country.
My wife was at me all the time to take a partner--somebody