FullReads

"Need some help? I’m ready to take a hand. Got on my regimentals this morning. "

Grant looked at him a moment.

"You look like it. "

"Gimme a hold on that fork, and I’ll show you. I’m not so soft as I look, now you bet. "

He laid hold upon the fork in Grant’s hands, who released it sullenly and stood back sneering. Howard struck the fork into the pile in the old way, threw his left hand to the end of the polished handle, brought it down into the hollow of his thigh, and laid out his strength till the handle bent like a bow. "Oop she rises!" he called laughingly, as the whole pile began slowly to rise, and finally rolled upon the high load.

"Oh, I ain’t forgot how to do it," he laughed as he looked around at the boy, who was studying the jacket and hat with a devouring gaze.

Grant was studying him too, but not in admiration.

"I shouldn’t say you had," said the old man, tugging at the forkful.

‘Mighty funny to come out here and do a little of this. But if you had to come here and do it all the while, you wouldn’t look so white and soft in the hands," Grant said as they moved on to another pile. "Give me that fork. You’ll be spoiling your fine clothes. "

"Oh, these don’t matter. They’re made for this kind of thing. "

"Oh, are they? I guess I’ll dress in that kind of a rig. What did that shirt cost? I need one. "

"Six dollars a pair; but then it’s old. "

"And them pants," he pursued; "they cost six dollars, too, didn’t they?"

Howard’s face darkened. He saw his brother’s purpose. He resented it. "They cost fifteen dollars, if you want to know, and the shoes cost six-fifty. This ring on my cravat cost sixty dollars, and the suit I had on last night cost eighty-five. My suits are made by Breckstein, on Fifth Avenue and Twentieth Street, if you want to patronize him," he ended brutally, spurred on by the sneer in his brother’s eyes. "I’ll introduce you. "

"Good idea," said Grant with a forced, mocking smile. "I need just such a get up for haying and corn plowing. Singular I never thought of it. Now my pants cost eighty-five cents, s’penders fifteen, hat twenty, shoes one-fifty; stockin’s I don’t bother about. "

He had his brother at a disadvantage, and he grew fluent and caustic as he went on, almost changing places with Howard, who took the rake out of the boy’s hands and followed, raking up the scatterings.

"Singular we fellers here are discontented and mulish, am’t it? Singular we don’t believe your letters when you write, sayin’, ‘I just about make a live of it’? Singular we think the country’s goin’ to hell, we fellers, in a two dollar suit, wadin’ around in the mud or sweatin’ around in the hayfield, while you fellers lay around New York and smoke and wear good clothes and toady to millionaires?"

Howard threw down the rake and folded his arms.’My God! you’re enough to make a man forget the same mother bore us!"

"I guess it wouldn’t take much to make you forget that. You ain’t put much thought on me nor her for ten years. "

The old man cackled, the boy grinned, and Howard, sick and weak with anger and sorrow, turned away and walked down toward the brook. He had tried once more to get near his brother and had failed. O God! how miserably, pitiably! The hot blood gushed all over him as he thought of the shame and disgrace of it.