And so it came about that one day he rose and went to his father. And he
said: "Dad, will you kill the fatted calf?"
His father lived in a great Tudor house which gave the effect of age but
was not old. It had a minstrels' gallery, a big hall and a little hall,
mullioned windows and all the rest of it. It had been built because of a
whim of his wife's. But O-liver's father in the ten years he had lived
in it had learned to love it. But more than he loved the house he loved
the hills that sloped away from it, the mountains that towered above it,
the sea that lay at the foot of the cliff.
"It is God's country," he would say with long-drawn breath. He had been
born and bred in this golden West. All the passion he might have given
to his alien wife and alien son was lavished on this land which was
bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.
And now his son had ridden up to him over those low hills at the foot of
the mountain and had said: "Father, I have sinned."
O-liver had not put it scripturally. He had said: "I'm sorry, dad. You
said I needn't come back until I admitted the husks and swine."
There was a light on the fine face of the older man. "Oliver, I never
hoped to hear you say it." His hand dropped lightly on the boy's
shoulders. "My son which was dead is alive again?"
"Yes, dad."
"What brought you to life?"
"A woman."