Dyke, however, was a strictly temperate man.
His life on the engine had trained him well.

Alcohol he never touched, drinking instead ginger ale, sarsaparilla-and-iron--soft drinks.
At the drug store, which also kept a stock of miscellaneous stationery, his eye was caught by a "transparent slate," a child's toy, where upon a little pane of frosted glass one could trace with considerable elaboration outline figures of cows, ploughs, bunches of fruit and even rural water mills that were printed on slips of paper underneath.
"Now, there's an idea, Jim," he observed to the boy behind the soda-water fountain; "I know a little tad that would just about jump out of her skin for that.

Think I'll have to take it with me." "How's Sidney getting along ?" the other asked, while wrapping up the package.
Dyke's enthusiasm had made of his little girl a celebrity throughout Bonneville.
The ex-engineer promptly became voluble, assertive, doggedly emphatic.
"Smartest little tad in all Tulare County, and more fun! A regular whole show in herself." "And the hops ?" inquired the other.
"Bully," declared Dyke, with the good-natured man's readiness to talk of his private affairs to any one who would listen.

"Bully.

I'm dead sure of a bonanza crop by now.