He meant to be like him, if he was not,
and he remembered all that his mother had told him of his gentleness,
his high courtesy, his faithfulness, his devotion to duty, his unselfishness.
So it was all natural enough to Floyd to be as he was. But a man can
no more tell whether or not he is a crank than he can tell how old he looks.
He was, however, without doubt, different in certain ways from most people.
This his friends admitted. Some said he was old-fashioned;
some that he was "old-timey"; some that he was unpractical,
the shades of criticism ranging up to those saying he was a fool.
This did not mean intellectually, for none denied his intellect. He drove
a virile pen, and had an epigrammatic tongue. He had had a hard time.
He had borne the yoke in his youth. This, we have strong authority
for saying, is good for a man; but it leaves its mark upon him. He had been
desperately poor. He had not minded that except for his mother, and he had
approved of her giving up every cent to meet the old security debts.
It had cut him off from his college education; but he had worked
till he was a better scholar than he might have been had he gone to college.
He had kept his mother comfortable as long as she lived, and then had put up
a monument over her in the old churchyard, as he had done before
to his father's memory.
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