“Put ‘Mayne & Son’ on the judge’s shingle and walk around the block forty times a day to look at it!” said I, promptly.

“Of course,” said he.  “That first.  But a legal shingle can be turned into as handy a weapon as one could wish for, Padre, and I’m going to take that shingle and spank this sleepy-headed old town wide awake with it!” He spoke with the conviction of youth, so sure of itself that there is no room for doubt.  There was in him, too, a hint of latent power which was impressive.  One did not laugh at Laurence.

“It’s my town,” with his chin out.  “It could be a mighty good town.  It’s going to become one.  I expect to live all my life right here, among my own people, and they’ve got to make it worth my while.  I don’t propose to cut myself down to fit any little hole:  I intend to make that hole big enough to fit my possible measure.”

“May an old friend wish more power to your shovel?”

“It’ll be a steam shovel!” said he, gaily.  Then his face clouded.

“Padre!  I’m sick of the way things are run in Appleboro!  I’ve talked with other boys and they’re sick of it, too.  You know why they want to get away?  Because they think they haven’t got even a fighting chance here.  Because towns like this are like billion-ton old wagons sunk so deep in mudruts that nothing but dynamite can blow them out—­and they are not dealers in dynamite.  If they want to do anything that even looks new they’ve got to fight the stand-patters to a finish, and they’re blockaded by a lot of reactionaries that don’t know the earth’s moving.  There are a lot of folks in the South, Padre, who’ve been dead since the civil war, and haven’t found it out themselves, and won’t take live people’s word for it.  Well, now, I mean to do things.  I mean to do them right here.  And I certainly shan’t allow myself to be blockaded by anybody, living or dead.  You’ve got to fight the devil with fire;—­I’m going to blockade those blockaders, and see that the dead ones are decently buried.”

“You have tackled a big job, my son.”

“I like big jobs, Padre.  They’re worth while.  Maybe I’ll be able to keep some of the boys home—­the town needs them.  Maybe I can keep some of those poor kids out of the mills, too.  Oh, yes, I expect a right lively time!”

I was silent.  I knew how supinely Appleboro lay in the hollow of a hard hand.  I had learned, too, how such a hand can close into a strangling fist.

“Of course I can’t clean up the whole state, and I can’t reorganize the world,” said the boy sturdily.  “I’m not such a fool as to try.  But I can do my level best to disinfect my own particular corner, and make it fit for men and safe for women and kids to live and breathe in.  Padre, for years there hasn’t been a rotten deal nor a brazen steal in this state that the man who practically owns and runs this town hadn’t a finger in, knuckle-deep. He’s got to go.”