PAGE 24
Up the Coulee
by
He looked at Grant’s fine figure, his great strong face; recalled his deep, stern, masterful voice. "Am I so much superior to him? Have not circumstances made me and destroyed him?"
"Grant, for God’s sake, don’t sit there like that! I’ll admit I’ve been negligent and careless. I can’t understand it all myself. But let me do something for you now. I’ve sent to New York for five thousand dollars. I’ve got terms on the old farm. Let me see you all back there once more before I return. "
"I don’t want any of your charity. "
"It ain’t charity. It’s only justice to you. " He rose. "Come now, let’s get at an understanding, Grant. I can’t go on this way. I can’t go back to New York and leave you here like this. "
Grant rose, too. "I tell you, I don’t ask your help. You can’t fix this thing up with money. If you’ve got more brains ‘n I have, why it’s all right. I ain’t got any right to take anything that I don’t earn. "
"But you don’t get what you do earn. It ain’t your fault. I begin te see it now. Being the oldest, I had the best chance. I was going to town to school while you were plowing and husking corn. Of course I thought you’d be going soon, yourself. I had three years the start of you. If you’d been in my place, you might have met a man like Cooke, you might have gone to New York and have been where I am’.
"Well, it can’t be helped now. So drop it. "
"But it must be!" Howard said, pacing about, his hands in his coat pockets. Grant had stopped work, and was gloomily looking out of the door at a pig nosing in the mud for stray grains of wheat at the granary door:
"Good God! I see it all now," Howard burst out in an impassioned tone. "I went ahead with my education, got my start in life, then Father died, and you took up his burdens. Circumstances made me and crushed you. That’s all there is about that. Luck made me and cheated you. It ain’t right. "
His voice faltered. Both men were now oblivious of their companions and of the scene. Both were thinking of the days when they both planned great things in the way of an education, two ambitious, dreamful boys.
"I used to think of you, Grant, when I pulled out Monday morning in my best suit–cost fifteen dollars in those days. " He smiled a little at the recollection. "While you in overalls and an old ‘wammus’ was going out into the field to plow, or husk corn in the mud. It made me feel uneasy, but, as I said, I kept saying to myself, ‘His turn’ll come in a year or two.’ But it didn’t. "
His voice choked. He walked to the door, stood a moment, came back. His eyes were full of tears.
"I tell you, old man, many a time in my boardinghouse down to the city, when I thought of the jolly times I was having, my heart hurt me. But I said: ‘It’s no use to cry. Better go on and do the best you can, and then help them afterward. There’ll only be one more miserable member of the family if you stay at home.’ Besides, it seemed right to me to have first chance. But I never thought you’d be shut off, Grant. If I had, I never would have gone on. Come, old man, I want you to believe that. " His voice was very tender now and almost humble.