how you know you can swing such a man-sized contract."

"I know"--the lad's voice mounted into a positive crescendo of
conviction--"I know by somethin' that tells me, an' it's somethin' that
can't lie. The prophets knew that God had picked 'em out because He told
'em so in visions. I haven't just heard voices in dreams I've had the
voice in me and I know--_know_ I tell you--that, with a chance, I can be
as great a man as any man ever was. I'm not guessin' or deludin' myself.
I tell you, I _know_! I've always known."

"I reckon, Ham," said the father gravely, "I can tell you the name of
this thing that's been informin' you how great a man you can get to be.
It ain't nothin' under God's heaven but self-conceit."

But the boy swept on. "Napoleon's first friends were folks that ran a
laundry, but afterward kings couldn't talk to him unless he gave 'em
permission. John Hayes Hammond, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Frick, were all
poor boys. None of those men had any better blood in their veins than
I've got in mine, an' if you want to call it that, none of 'em had more
self-conceit."

"I reckon you've got good enough blood to have better sense," observed
the father shortly. Then with a very human inconsistency he added, "I
don't often brag about it, but my middle name is Standish and Miles
Standish was an ancestor of mine."

"And my name," retorted the boy, "is Hamilton, and Alexander Hamilton's
family were ancestors of my mother's. I reckon neither of those men
would feel very proud to see us settin' down here, wearin' our lives
away in a country where the ends won't meet."