lamp was lighted and his father would open the evening newspaper, he would bring his books to the same table. Together they would sit there, and often the paper would be laid aside so that the man could help him through his problems—mostly problems in arithmetic.
That winter some miracle of transformation worked its spell upon him. Suddenly his shoulders broadened, and he shot up a good two inches and graduated into long trousers. Yet, for the most part, he was unmindful of his growth; nor was he aware that the little town of Springham was spreading out and stretching its limbs. The weekly newspaper was sold by its aged proprietor to younger men, and blossomed as a four-page daily. The trolley line, long promised, at last came through from the big city twenty miles to the west. A power plant lifted a high, sooty smokestack over by the swift rush of the Springham River. The feeble street lamps at the corners gave place to electric lights. The railroad established a junction point and a roundhouse on the Camel-back Hill plateau. A contractor bought a block of ground on Washington Avenue and began to build brick stores.
And then came a time when the stretching growth of the town reached out and touched the boy's own hearthstone. No longer now did his father relax and scan the evening newspaper. The evenings were given over to letter writing, and
