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"Oh, yes. Domestic comedy must have a baby these days. "

"Well, that’s another way of makin’ a livin’, sure," said Grant. The baby had cleared the atmosphere a little. "I s’pose you fellers make a pile of money. "

"Sometimes we make a thousand a week; oftener we don’t. "

"A thousand dollars!" They all stared.

"A thousand dollars sometimes, and then lose it all the next week in another town. The dramatic business is a good deal like gambling–you take your chances. "

"I wish you weren’t in it, Howard. I don’t like to have my son–"

"I wish I was in somethin’ that paid better’n farmin’. Anything under God’s heavens is better’n farmin’," said Grant.

"No, I ain’t laid up much," Howard went on, as if explaining why he hadn’t helped them. "Costs me a good deal to live, and I need about ten thousand dollars lee-way to work on. I’ve made a good living, but I–I ain’t made any money. "

Grant looked at him, darkly meditative.

Howard went on:

"How’d ye come to sell the old farm? I was in hopes–"

"How’d we come to sell it?" said Grant with terrible bitterness. " We had something on it that didn’t leave anything to sell. You probably don’t remember anything about it, but there was a mortgage on it that eat us up in just four years by the almanac. ‘Most killed Mother to leave it. We wrote to you for money, but I don’t s’pose you remember that. "

"No, you didn’t. "

"Yes, I did. "

"When was it? I don’t–why, it’s–I never received it. It must have been that summer I went with Rob Mannmg to Europe. " Howard put the baby down and faced his brother. "Why, Grant, you didn’t think I refused to help?"

"Well, it locked that way. We never heard a word from yeh all summer, and when y’
did write, it was all about yerself ‘n plays ‘n things we didn’t know anything about. I swore to God I’d never write to you again, and I won’t. "

"But, good heavens! I never got it. "

"Suppose you didn’t. You might of known we were poor as Job’s off-ox. Everybody is that earns a living. We fellers on the farm have to earn a livin’ for ourselves and you fellers that don’t work. I don’t blame yeh. I’d do it if I could. "

"Grant, don’t talk so! Howard didn’t realize–"

"I tell yeh I don’t blame ‘im. Only I don’t want him to come the brotherly business over me, after livin’ as he has–that’s all. " There was a bitter accusation in the man’s voice.

Howard leaped to his feet, his face twitching. "By God, I’ll go back tomorrow morning!" he threatened.

"Go, an’ be damned! I don’t care what yeh do," Grant growled, rising and going out.

"Boys," called the mother, piteously, "it’s terrible to see you quarrel. "

"But I’m not to blame, Mother," cried Howard in a sickness that made him white as chalk. "The man is a savage. I came home to help you all, not to quarrel. "

"Grant’s got one o’ his fits on," said the young wife, speaking for the first time. "Don’t pay any attention to him. He’ll be all right in the morning. "

"If it wasn’t for you, Mother, I’d leave now and never see that savage again. "

He lashed himself up and down in the room, in horrible disgust and hate of his brother and of this home in his heart. He remembered his tender anticipations of the homecoming with a kind of self-pity and disgust. This was his greeting!

He went to bed, to toss about on the hard, straw-filled mattress in the stuffy little best room. Tossing, writhing under the bludgeoning of his brother’s accusing inflections, a dozen times he said, with a half-articulate snarl: