h that which is ours
and not ours? either we own a thing or we do not, and, whichever way it
goes, there is some end to it; but certain enigmas are illegitimate and
are so hounded from decent cogitation.

She could do nothing but dismiss him, and she could not even do that,
for there he was at the required periods, always primed with the wrong
reply to any question, the wrong aspiration, the wrong conjecture; a
perpetual trampler on mental corns, a person for whom one could do
nothing but apologise.

They lived on a small farm and almost the entire work of the place was
done by him. His younger brother assisted, but that assistance could
have easily been done without. If the cattle were sick he cured them
almost by instinct. If the horse was lame or wanted a new shoe he knew
precisely what to do in both events. When the time came for ploughing
he gripped the handles and drove a furrow which was as straight and as
economical as any furrow in the world. He could dig all day long and
be happy; he gathered in the harvest as another would gather in a
bride; and, in the intervals between these occupations, he fled to the
nearest publichouse and wallowed among his kind.

He did not fly away to drink; he fled to be among men.--Then he
awakened. His tongue worked with the best of them, and adequately too.
He could speak weightily on many things--boxing, wrestling, hunting,
fishing, the seasons, the weather, and the chances of this and the
other man's crops. He had deep knowledge about brands of tobacco and
the peculiar virtues of many different liquors. He knew birds and
beetles and worms; how a weazel would behave in extraordinary
circumstances; how to train every breed of horse and dog. He recited
goats from the cradle to the grave, could tell the name of any tree
from its leaf; knew how a bull could be coerced, a cow cut up, and what
plasters were good for a broken head. Sometimes, and often enough, the
talk would chance on women, and then he laughed as heartily as any one
else, but he was always relieved when the conversation trailed to more
interesting things.

His mother died and left the farm to the younger instead of the elder
son; an unusual thing to do, but she did detest him. She knew her
younger son very well. He was foreign to her in nothing. His temper
ran parallel with her own, his tastes were hers, his ideas had been
largely derived from her, she could track them at any time and make or
demolish him. He woul