winter's store had been miraculously preserved, and Minna saw the way
to a few pennies thereby. He could quite openly say that he had been
to the barber-shop to-day, having seen Amidon there, therefore he was
quite easy in his mind, and leaned back in his chair with perfect
content. One of the children at home cried all the time. A yawning
mouth of wrath at existence was about all he ever saw of that
particular baby, and Minna almost always scolded, and this was a
haven of peace to little Willy Eddy.

Here he felt like a man among men; at home he felt like nothing at
all among women. The children were all girls. Sometimes he wondered
if a boy-baby might not have been a refuge. He was not very clean;
his hands were still stained with picking over potatoes the day
before; his shoulders in their rusty coat had a distinct hunch; but
he was radiantly happy talking of the rich Captain Carroll. He seemed
to taste the honey of the other man's riches and importance in his
own mouth. Willy Eddy did not know the meaning of envy. He had such a
fund of sympathetic imagination that he possessed the fair
possessions of others like a child with fairy tales.

"Is he president of all of them?" asked little Willy Eddy, with
gusto, and looked as if he himself held them all in his meagre
potato-stained hands.

"No," replied the barber, with importance--"no, he's more than a
president. A president is nothin' except a figger-head. I don't care
what he's president of, whether it is of this great country or of
railroads or what not. They could git along without the president,
but they can't without this gentleman. He's the promoter."