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Laura advised him not to attempt to get to the barn; but as he persisted in going, she hunted up an old rubber coat for him. " You’ll mire down and spoil your shoes," she said, glancing at his neat calf gaiters.

"Darn the difference!" he laughed in his old way. "Besides, I’ve got rubbers. "

"Better go round by the fence," she advised as he stepped out into the pouring rain.

How wretchedly familiar it all was! The miry cow yard, with the hollow trampled out around the horse trough, the disconsolate hens standing under the wagons and sheds, a pig wallowing across its sty, and for atmosphere the desolate, falling rain. It was so familiar he felt a pang of the old rebellious despair which seized him on such days in his boyhood.

Catching up courage, he stepped out on the grass, opened the gate, and entered the barnyard. A narrow ribbon of turf ran around the fence, on which he could walk by clinging with one hand to the rough boards. In this way he slowly made his way around the periphery, and came at last to the open barn door without much harm.

It was a desolate interior. In the open floorway Grant, seated upon a half-bushel, was mending a harness. The old man was holding the trace in his hard brown hands; the boy was lying on a wisp of hay. It was a small barn, and poor at that. There was a bad smell, as of dead rats, about it, and the rain fell through the shingles here and there. To the right, and below, the horses stood, looking up with their calm and beautiful eyes, in which the whole scene was idealized.

Grant looked up an instant and then went on with his work.

"Did yeh wade through?" grinned Lewis, exposing his broken teeth.

"No, I kinder circumambiated the pond. " He sat down on the little toolbox near Grant. "Your barn is good deal like that in ‘The Arkansas Traveller.’ Needs a new roof, Grant. " His voice had a pleasant sound, full of the tenderness of the scene through which he had just been. "In fact, you need a new barn. "

"I need a good many things more’n I’ll ever get," Grant replied shortly.

"How long did you say you’d been on this farm?"

"Three years this fall. "

"I don’t s’pose you’ve been able to think of buying–Now hold on, Grant," he cried, as Grant threw his head back. "For God’s sake, don’t get mad again! Wait till you see what I’m driving at. "

"I don’t see what you’re drivin’ at, and I don’t care.

All I want you to do is to let us alone. That ought to be easy enough for you. "

"I tell you, I didn’t get your letter. I didn’t know you’d lost the old farm. " Howard was determined not to quarrel. "I didn’t suppose–"

"You might ‘a’ come to see. "

"Well, I’ll admit that. All I can say in excuse is that since I got to managing plays I’ve kept looking ahead to making a big hit and getting a barrel of money–just as the old miners used to hope and watch. Besides, you don’t understand how much pressure there is on me. A hundred different people pulling and hauling to have me go here or go there, or do this or do that. When it isn’t yachting, it’s canoeing, or

He stopped. His heart gave a painful throb, and a shiver ran through him. Again he saw his life, so rich, so bright, so free, set over against the routine life in the little low kitchen, the barren sitting room, and this still more horrible barn. Why should his brother sit there in wet and grimy clothing mending a broken trace, while he enjoyed all the light and civilization of the age?