road the wind ran furiously, tearing leaves off trees, carrying great volumes of dust before it. The hurry- ing black clouds in the sky were, he fancied, like clouds of smoke pouring out of the chimneys of fac- tories owned by himself. In fancy also he saw his town become a city, bathed in the smoke of his enter- prises. As he looked abroad over the fields swept by the storm of wind, he realized that the road along which he walked would in time become a city street. " Pretty soon I'll get an option on this land," he said meditatively. An exalted mood took possession of him and when he got to Pickleville he did not go into the shop where Hugh and Allie Mulberry were at work, but turning, walked back toward town in the mud and the driving rain. It was a time when Steve wanted to be by himself, to feel himself the one great man of the community. He had intended to go into the old pickle factory and escape the rain, but when he got to the railroad tracks, had turned back because he realized suddenly that in the presence of the silent, intent inventor he had never been able to feel big. He wanted to feel big on that evening and so, unmindful of the rain and of his hat, that was caught up by the wind and blown away into a field, he went along the deserted road thinking great thoughts. At a place where there were no houses he stopped for a moment and lifted his tiny hands to the skies. “I'm a man. I tell you what, I'm a man. Whatever any one says, I tell you what, I'm a man,” he shouted into the void.
