I TRUST you have noted, by this time, that my yarn is not a mere
chronicle of disconnected incidents. Linked circumstances seemed to be
tying me up. One happening had pushed me on to another and I had
allowed myself to be pushed. It might be urged, of course, that I had no
business in inciting a mob to play hob with Mr. Bird--but I had my own
interests to consider, and I had been listening to my uncle’s teachings
on the subject of looking out for number one.
“You know what happened to your father when he went to running his legs
off on somebody else’s business,” he told me. “If it hadn’t been for me
helping him in his other scrapes, your mother would have been playing
hungryman’s ratty-too on the bottom of the flour-barrel oftener than
she did. I hope you’ve got an ambition to be somebody and to have
something.”
I did have, but you may be sure I did not tell my uncle that my
principal hankering to get money was so that I might lay it at the feet
of Zebulon Kingsley’s daughter.
Now, by the expressed wish of that daughter, I started out to control
happenings and to set myself in new ways.