"How'd we come to sell it?" said Grant with terrible bitterness. "We had
something on it that didn't leave anything to sell. You probably don't
remember anything about it, but there was a mortgage on it that eat us
up in just four years by the almanac. 'Most killed mother to leave it.
We wrote to you for money, but I don't suppose you remember that."
"No, you didn't."
"Yes, I did."
"When was it? I don't--why, it's--I never received it. It must have been
that summer I went with Bob Manning to Europe." Howard put the baby down
and faced his brother. "Why, Grant, you didn't think I refused to help?"
"Well, it looked that way. We never heard a word from yeh, all summer,
and when y' did write, it was all about yerself 'n plays 'n things we
didn't know anything about. I swore to God I'd never write to you again,
and I won't."
"But, good heavens! I never got it."
"Suppose you didn't. You might have known we were poor as Job's off-ox.
Everybody is that earns a living. We fellers on the farm have to earn a
livin' for ourselves and you fellers that don't work. I don't blame you.
I'd do it if I could."
"Grant, don't talk so! Howard didn't realize--"
"I tell yeh I don't blame him! Only I don't want him to come the
brotherly business over me, after livin' as he has--that's all." There
was a bitter accusation in the man's voice.
Howard leaped to his feet, his face twitching.
"By God, I'll go back to-morrow morning!" he threatened.
"Go, an' be damned! I don't care what yeh do," Grant growled, rising and
going out.
"Boys," called the mother, piteously, "it's terrible to see you
quarrel."
"But I'm not to blame, mother," cried Howard, in a sickness that made
him white as chalk. "The man is a savage. I came home to help you all,
not to quarrel."
"Grant's got one o' his fits on," said the young wife, speaking for the
first time. "Don't pay any attention to him. He'll be all right in the
morning."
"If it wasn't for you, mother, I'd leave now, and never see that savage
again."
He lashed himself up and down in the room, in horrible disgust and hate
of his brother and of this home in his heart. He remembered his tender
anticipations of the home-coming with a kind of self-pity and disgust.
This was his greeting!
He went to bed, to toss about on the hard, straw-filled mattress in the
stuffy little best room. Tossing, writhing under the bludgeoning of his
brother's accusing inflections, a dozen times he said, with a
half-articulate snarl:
"He can go to hell! I'll not try to do anything more for him. I don't
care if he is my brother; he has no right to jump on me like that. On
the night of my return, too. My God! he is a brute, a fool!"
He thought of the presents in his trunk and valise, which he couldn't
show to him that night after what had been said. He had intended to have
such a happy evening of it, such a tender reunion! It was to be so
bright and cheery!
In the midst of his cursings--his hot indignation--would come visions of
himself in his own modest rooms. He seemed to be yawning and stretching
in his beautiful bed, the sun shining in, his books, foils, pictures,
around him to say good-morning and tempt him to rise, while the squat
little clock on the mantel struck eleven warningly.
He could see the olive walls, the unique copper-and-crimson arabesque
frieze (his own selection), and the delicate draperies; an open grate
full of glowing coals, to temper the sea-winds; and in the midst of it,
between a landscape by Enneking and an Indian in a canoe in a cañon, by
Brush, he saw a sombre landscape by a master greater than Millet, a
melancholy subject, treated with pitiless fidelity.
A farm in the valley! Over the mountains swept jagged, gray, angry,
sprawling clouds, sending a freezing, thin drizzle of rain, as they
passed, upon a man following a plough. The horses had a sullen and weary
look, and their manes and tails streamed sidewise in the blast. The
ploughman, clad in a ragged gray coat, with uncouth, muddy boots upon
his feet, walked with his head inclined toward the sleet, to shield his
face from the cold and sting of it. The soil rolled away black and
sticky and with a dull sheen upon it. Near by, a boy with tears on his
cheeks was watching cattle; a dog seated near, his back to the gale.
As he looked at this picture, his heart softened. He looked down at the
sleeve of his soft and fleecy nightshirt, at his white, rounded arm,
muscular, yet fine as a woman's, and when he looked for the picture it
was gone. Then came again the assertive odor of stagnant air, laden with
camphor; he felt the springless bed under him, and caught dimly a few
soap-advertising lithographs on the walls. He thought of his brother, in
his still more inhospitable bedroom, disturbed by the child, condemned
to rise at five o'clock and begin another day's pitiless labor. His
heart shrank and quivered, and the tears started to his eyes.
"I forgive him, poor fellow! He's not to blame."