The youth climbed up with clumsy foot.

"You might know of a job," suggested Uncle William. "He looks strong and
willin'."

The man nodded back. "I'll keep an eye on him, sir." The van rumbled
away and Uncle William faced the crowed once more.

He made friends as he moved among the throngs of hurrying men and women.
Men who never saw him again recalled his face sometimes at night, as
they wakened for a minute from sleep. The big smile reached to them
across time and gave them a sense of the goodness of life before they
turned again and slept.

If he had been a little man, Uncle William would still have run hither
and thither through the crowd, a kind of gnome of usefulness. But his
great frame gave him advantage. He was like a mountain among them--with
the breath of winds about it--or some huge, quiet engine at sea, making
its way with throbbing power.

If the thought of the artist crossed Uncle William's mind, it did not
disturb him. He was accustomed to do what he called his duty; and it had
for him the simplicity, common to big men, of being the thing next at
hand. Like a force of nature he laid hold on it, and out of the ground
and the sky and the thrill of life, he wrought beauty upon it. If this
were philosophy or religion, Uncle William did not know it. He called it
"jest livin' along."

It was ten o'clock before he reached the artist's rooms, and his rap at