Howard knew the voice, though it was older and deeper and more sullen.
"Don't you know me, Grant? I am Howard."
The man approached him, gazing intently at his face. "You are?" after a
pause. "Well, I'm glad to see you, but I can't shake hands. That damned
cow had laid down in the mud."
They stood and looked at each other. Howard's cuffs, collar, and shirt,
alien in their elegance, showed through the dusk, and a glint of light
shot out from the jewel of his necktie, as the light from the house
caught it at the right angle. As they gazed in silence at each other,
Howard divined something of the hard, bitter feeling that came into
Grant's heart, as he stood there, ragged, ankle-deep in muck, his
sleeves rolled up, a shapeless old straw hat on his head.
The gleam of Howard's white hands angered him. When he spoke, it was in
a hard, gruff tone, full of rebellion.
"Well, go in the house and set down. I'll be in soon's I strain the milk
and wash the dirt off my hands."
"But mother--"
"She's 'round somewhere. Just knock on the door under the porch round
there."
Howard went slowly around the corner of the house, past a vilely
smelling rain-barrel, toward the west. A gray-haired woman was sitting
in a rocking-chair on the porch, her hands in her lap, her eyes fixed on
the faintly yellow sky, against which the hills stood, dim purple
silhouettes, and on which the locust trees were etched as fine as lace.
There was sorrow, resignation, and a sort of dumb despair in her
attitude.
Howard stood, his throat swelling till it seemed as if he would
suffocate. This was his mother--the woman who bore him, the being who
had taken her life in her hand for him; and he, in his excited and
pleasurable life, had neglected her!
He stepped into the faint light before her. She turned and looked at him
without fear. "Mother!" he said. She uttered one little, breathing,
gasping cry, called his name, rose, and stood still. He bounded up the
steps, and took her in his arms.
"Mother! Dear old mother!"
In the silence, almost painful, which followed, an angry woman's voice
could be heard inside: "I don't care! I ain't goin' to wear myself out
fer him. He c'n eat out here with us, or else--"
Mrs. McLane began speaking. "Oh, I've longed to see yeh, Howard. I was
afraid you wouldn't come till--too late."
"What do you mean, mother? Ain't you well?"
"I don't seem to be able to do much now 'cept sit around and knit a
little. I tried to pick some berries the other day, and I got so dizzy I
had to give it up."
"You mustn't work. You needn't work. Why didn't you write to me how you
were?" Howard asked, in an agony of remorse.
"Well, we felt as if you probably had all you could do to take care of
yourself. Are you married, Howard?" she broke off to ask.
"No, mother; and there ain't any excuse for me--not a bit," he said,
dropping back into her colloquialisms. "I'm ashamed when I think of how
long it's been since I saw you. I could have come."
"It don't matter now," she interrupted gently. "It's the way things go.
Our boys grow up and leave us."
"Well, come in to supper," said Grant's ungracious voice from the
doorway. "Come, mother."
Mrs. McLane moved with difficulty. Howard sprang to her aid, and,
leaning on his arm, she went through the little sitting room, which was
unlighted, out into the kitchen, where the supper table stood near the
cook-stove.
"How.--this is my wife," said Grant, in a cold, peculiar tone.
Howard bowed toward a remarkably handsome young woman, on whose forehead
was a scowl, which did not change as she looked at him and the old lady.
"Set down anywhere," was the young woman's cordial invitation.
Howard sat down next his mother, and facing the wife, who had a small,
fretful child in her arms. At Howard's left was the old man, Lewis. The
supper was spread upon a gay-colored oil-cloth, and consisted of a pan
of milk, set in the midst, with bowls at each plate. Beside the pan was
a dipper and a large plate of bread, and at one end of the table was a
dish of fine honey.
A boy of about fourteen leaned upon the table, his bent shoulders making
him look like an old man. His hickory shirt, like Grant's, was still wet
with sweat, and discolored here and there with grease, or green from
grass. His hair, freshly wet and combed, was smoothed away from his
face, and shone in the light of the kerosene lamp. As he ate, he stared
at Howard, as though he would make an inventory of each thread of the
visitor's clothing.
"Did I look like that at his age?" thought Howard.
"You see we live just about the same as ever," said Grant, as they began
eating, speaking with a grim, almost challenging, inflection.
The two brothers studied each other curiously, as they talked of
neighborhood scenes. Howard seemed incredibly elegant and handsome to
them all, with his rich, soft clothing, his spotless linen, and his
exquisite enunciation and ease of speech. He had always been
"smooth-spoken," and he had become "elegantly persuasive," as his
friends said of him, and it was a large factor in his success.
Every detail of the kitchen, the heat, the flies buzzing aloft, the poor
furniture, the dress of the people--all smote him like the lash of a
wire whip. His brother was a man of great character. He could see that
now. His deep-set, gray eyes and rugged face showed at thirty a man of
great natural ability. He had more of the Scotch in his face than
Howard, and he looked much older.
He was dressed, like the old man and the boy, in a checked shirt,
without vest. His suspenders, once gay-colored, had given most of their
color to his shirt, and had marked irregular broad bands of pink and
brown and green over his shoulders. His hair was uncombed, merely pushed
away from his face. He wore a mustache only, though his face was covered
with a week's growth of beard. His face was rather gaunt, and was brown
as leather.
Howard could not eat much. He was disturbed by his mother's strange
silence and oppression, and sickened by the long-drawn gasps with which
the old man ate his bread and milk, and by the way the boy ate. He had
his knife gripped tightly in his fist, knuckles up, and was scooping
honey upon his bread.
The baby, having ceased to be afraid, was curious, gazing silently at
the stranger.
"Hello, little one! Come and see your uncle. Eh? Course 'e will," cooed
Howard, in the attempt to escape the depressing atmosphere. The little
one listened to his inflections as a kitten does, and at last lifted its
arms in sign of surrender.
The mother's face cleared up a little. "I declare, she wants to go to
you."
"Course she does. Dogs and kittens always come to me when I call 'em.
Why shouldn't my own niece come?"
He took the little one and began walking up and down the kitchen with
her, while she pulled at his beard and nose. "I ought to have you, my
lady, in my new comedy. You'd bring down the house."
"You don't mean to say you put babies on the stage, Howard," said his
mother in surprise.
"Oh, yes. Domestic comedy must have a baby these days."
"Well, that's another way of makin' a livin', sure," said Grant. The
baby had cleared the atmosphere a little. "I s'pose you fellers make a
pile of money."
"Sometimes we make a thousand a week; oftener we don't."
"A thousand dollars!" They all stared.
"A thousand dollars sometimes, and then lose it all the next week in
another town. The dramatic business is a good deal like gambling--you
take your chances."
"I wish you weren't in it, Howard. I don't like to have my son--"
"I wish I was in somethin' that paid better than farmin'. Anything under
God's heavens is better 'n farmin'," said Grant.
"No, I ain't laid up much," Howard went on, as if explaining why he
hadn't helped them. "Costs me a good deal to live, and I need about ten
thousand dollars leeway to work on. I've made a good living, but I--I
ain't made any money."
Grant looked at him, darkly meditative.