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“Cap, I want to tell you, I didn’t play no circus tricks on her. Her head had grown white as snow and she looked kind o’ sad and feeble. I began to understand a little of the worry I’d been to her. I said good evening, and she turned and looked at me. Then she opened her arms and called out my name.”

His voice choked unmistakably this time, and it was a minute or two before he resumed.

“No jokes, no lies doin’ there! I opened right up to her. I told her I’d done well, but that I didn’t want father to know it just yet, and we sit there holdin’ hands when the old man hove round the corner.

“‘Stephen,’ says mother, kind o’ solemn, ‘here’s our son Edward.’

“Did the old man wilt, or climb the line fence and offer to shake hands? Nitsky! He just shoved one hip onto the edge of the porch and remarked:

“‘Does this dry spell reach as fur as where you’ve been?'”

He broke into silent laughter again, and I joined him. This was all so deeply characteristic of the life I had known in my youth that I writhed with delight. I understood the duel of wits and wills. I could see it proceed as my companion chuckled.

“Well, sir, we played that game all the evening. I told of all the bad leases I’d tackled–and how I’d been thrown from a horse and laid up for six months. I brought out every set-back and bruise I’d ever had–all to see if the old man would weaken and feel sorry for me.”

“Did he?”

“Not for a minute! And sometimes, as I looked at him, I was sorry I’d come home; but when I was with mother I was glad. She ‘phoned to sis, who lived in Jackson, and sis came on the lope, and we had a nice family party. Sis touched on Nancy McRae.

“‘You remember her?’ she asked.

“‘I seem to,’ I says, kind of slow, as if I was dredgin’ my mind to find something.

“‘Well, she’s on the farm, just the same as ever–takin’ care of the old man. Her mother’s dead.’

“I didn’t push that matter any farther, but just planned to ride over the next morning and see how she looked.

“All that evening sis and I deviled the old man. Mother had told sis about my mine–and so she’d bring out every little while how uncertain the gold-seekin’ business was and how if I’d stayed on the farm I could ‘a’ been well off–and she’d push me hard when I started in on one of my hard-luck stories. I had to own up that I had walked out to save money, and that I was travelin’ on an excursion ticket ’cause it was cheap–and so on.

“The old man’s mouth got straighter and straighter and his eyes colder–but I told mother not to say anything till next day, and she didn’t, although he tossed and turned and grunted half the night. He really took it hard; but he finally agreed to harbor me and give me a chance–so mother told me next morning–which was Sunday. I had planned to get home Saturday night.

“Next morning after breakfast–and it was a breakfast–I strolled out to the barn and, the carriage-shed door being open, I pulled the old buggy out–‘peared like it was the very same one, and I was a-dustin’ the cushions and fussin’ around when the old man came up.

“‘What you doin’ with that buggy?’ he asks.

“‘I jest thought I’d ride over and see Nance McRae,’ I says, just as I did eleven years before.

“‘I reckon you better think again,’ he says, and rolls the buggy back into the shed, just the way he did before. ‘If you want to see Nance McRae you can walk,’ he says, and I could see he meant it.

“‘All right,’ I says, and out I stepped without so much as saying good-by, intendin’ to go for good this time.