He was dimly roused by Allen's departure in the beginning brightness of
the following morning. The road over which the stage ran drew by the
rim of the farm; and later David saw the rigid three-seated surrey, the
leather mail bags strapped in the rear, trotted by under the swinging
whip of his brother. He heard the faint sharp bark of Rocket, Allen's
dog, braced at his side.
David spent the day with his father, repairing the fencing of the middle
field, swinging a mall and digging post holes; and at evening his arms
ached. But he assured himself he was not tired; any brother of Allen's
couldn't give in before such insignificant effort. When Hunter Kinemon
turned back toward house and supper David made a wide circle, ostensibly
to see whether there was rock salt enough out for the cattle, but
in reality to express his superabundant youth, staying qualities and
unquenchable vivid interest in every foot of the valley.
He saw the meanest kind of old fox, and marked what he thought might be
its hole; his flashing gaze caught the obscure distant retreat of ground
hogs; he threw a contemptuous clod at the woolly-brained sheep; and with
a bent willow shoot neatly looped a trout out upon the grassy bank. As
a consequence of all this he was late for supper, and sat at the table
with his mother, who never took her place until the men--yes, and boys
of her family--had satisfied their appetites. The dark came on and she
lighted a lamp swinging under a tin reflector from the ceiling. The
kitchen was an addition, and had a sloping shed roof, board sides, a
polished stove, and a long table with a red cloth.
His father, David learned, attacking a plateful of brown chicken
swimming with greens and gravy, was having another bad spell. He had the
familiar sharp pain through his back and his arms hurt him.
“He can't be drove to a doctor,” the woman told David, speaking, in her
concern, as if to an equal in age and comprehension.
David had grown accustomed to the elder's periods of suffering; they
came, twisted his father's face into deep lines, departed, and things
were exactly as before--or very nearly the same. The boy saw that Hunter
Kinemon couldn't support labor that only two or three years before he
would have finished without conscious effort. David resolutely ignored
this; he felt that it must be a cause of shame, unhappiness, to his
father; and he never mentioned it to Allen. Kinemon lay very still on
the couch; his pipe, beside him on the floor, had spilled its live core,
burning into a length of rag carpet. His face, hung with shadows like
the marks of a sooty finger, was glistening with fine sweat. Not a
whisper of complaint passed his dry lips. When his wife approached
he attempted to smooth out his corrugated countenance. His eyes, as
tenderly blue as flowers, gazed at her with a faint masking of humor.
“This is worse'n usual,” she said sharply. “And I ain't going to have
you fill yourself with any more of that patent trash. You don't spare
me by not letting on. I can tell as soon as you're miserable. David can
fetch the doctor from Crabapple to-night if you don't look better.”
“But I am,” he assured her. “It's just a comeback of an old ache. There
was a power of heavy work to that fence.”
“You'll have to get more to help you,” she continued. “That Galt'll let
you kill yourself and not turn a hand. He can afford a dozen. I don't
mind housing and cooking for them. David's only tol'able for lifting,
too, while he's growing.”
“Why,” David protested, “it ain't just nothing what I do. I could do
twice as much. I don't believe Allen could helt more'n me when he was
sixteen. It ain't just nothing at all.”
He was disturbed by this assault upon his manhood; if his muscles were
still a little stringy it was surprising what he could accomplish with
them. He would show her to-morrow.
“And,” he added impetuously, “I can shoot better than Allen right
now. You ask him if I can't. You ask him what I did with that cranky
twenty-two last Sunday up on the mountain.”
His clear gaze sought her, his lean face quivered with anxiety to
impress, convince her of his virility, skill. His jaw was as sharp as
the blade of a hatchet. She studied him with a new surprised concern.
“David!” she exclaimed. “For a minute you had the look of a man. A real
steady look, like your father. Don't you grow up too fast, David,”
she directed him, in an irrepressible maternal solicitude. “I want a
boy--something young--round a while yet.”
Hunter Kinemon sat erect and reached for his pipe. The visible strain
of his countenance had been largely relaxed. When his wife had left the
room for a moment he admitted to David:
“That was a hard one. I thought she had me that time.”
The elder's voice was light, steady. The boy gazed at him with intense
admiration. He felt instinctively that nothing mortal could shake the
other's courage. And, on top of his mother's complimentary surprise, his
father had confided in him, made an admission that, David realized, must
be kept from fretting women. He couldn't have revealed more to Allen
himself.
He pictured the latter swinging magnificently into Beaulings, cracking
the whip over the horses' ears, putting on the grinding brake before the
post-office. No one, even in that town of reckless drinking, ever
tried to down Allen; he was as ready as he was strong. He had charge of
Government mail and of passengers; he carried a burnished revolver in
a holster under the seat at his hand. Allen would kill anybody who
interfered with him. So would he--David--if a man edged up on him or on
his family; if any one hurt even a dog of his, his own dog, he'd shoot
him.
An inextinguishable hot pride, a deep sullen intolerance, rose in him at
the thought of an assault on his personal liberty, his rights, or on
his connections and belongings. A deeper red burned in his fresh young
cheeks; his smiling lips were steady; his candid blue eyes, ineffably
gentle, gazed widely against the candlelit gloom where he was making his
simple preparations for bed. The last feeling of which he was conscious
was a wave of sharp admiration, of love, for everything and everybody
that constituted his home.