aine of Virginia you
are no longer my son. Family ties, family honor, respect for your
forefathers forbid it."

He rose without more words, and went into the house.

Then came the mother's part.

"Sit down, Asher," she said, and Asher dropped to his place on the step.

"We don't seem to see life through the same spectacles," he said calmly.
"Am I wrong, mother? Nobody can choose my life for me, nor my wife,
either. Didn't old grandfather, Jean Aydelot, leave his home in France,
and didn't grandmother, Mercy Pennington, marry to suit her own choice?"

Even in the shadow, his mother noted the patient expression of the gray
eyes looking up at her.

"Asher, it is Aydelot tradition to be determined and self-willed, and the
bitterness against Jerome Thaine and his descendants has never left the
blood--till now."

She stroked his hair lovingwise, as mothers will ever do.

"Do you suppose father will ever change?"

"I don't believe he will. We have talked of this many times, and he will
listen to nothing else. He grows more set in his notions as we all do with
years, unless--"

"Well, you don't, mother. Unless what?" Asher asked.

"Unless we think broadly as the years broaden out toward old age. But,
Asher, what are your plans?"

"I'm afraid I have none yet. You know I was a farmer boy until I was
fifteen, a soldier boy till I was nineteen, a college student for two
years, and a Plains scout for two years more. Tell me, mother, what does
all this fit me for? Not for a tavern in a town of less than a thousand
people."

He sat waiting, his elbow resting on his knee, his chin supported by his
closed hand.

"Asher, when you left school and went out West, I foresaw what has
happened tonight," Mrs. Aydelot began. "I tried to prepare your father for
it, but he would not listen, would not understand. He doesn't yet. He
never will. But I do. You will not stay in Ohio always, because you do not
fit in here now. Newer states keep calling you westward, westward. This
was frontier when we came here in the thirties; we belong here. But,
sooner or later, you will put your life into the building of the West.
Something--the War or the Plains, or may be this Virginia Thaine, has left
you too big for prejudice. You will go sometime where there is room to
think and live as you believe."

"Mother, may I go? I dream of it night and day. I'm so cramped here. The
woods are in my way. I can't see a mile. I want to see to the edge of