t.

"Now, see hyar," he went on with mounting autocracy, "I've done told ye
things I don't oftentimes discuss. I've done reasoned with ye an' now I
commands ye! Ye hain't of age yit and until ye do be, ye've got to do
as I bids ye. Atter that, ef ye aims to turn yore back on yore family
ye can do hit, an' I reckon we can go our two ways. That's all I got to
say to ye. Now pick up that sack of gryste an' be gone with hit."

The boy's face blackened and his muscles tautened under the arrogant
domineering of the edict. For a moment he neither spoke nor stirred
from his place, though his chest heaved with the fulness of his
breathing. The elder man moved ominously forward and his tone was
violently truculent.

"Air ye goin' ter obey me or do I hev ter _make_ ye? Thar's a sayin'
thet come acrost ther waters thet no man kin lick his own daddy. I
reckon hit still holds good."

Still the son remained as unmoving as bronze while his eyes sustained
unflinchingly the wrathful gaze of a patriarchal order. Then he spoke
in a voice carefully schooled to quietness.

"As to thet sayin'," he suggested evenly, "I reckon mebbe hit mought be
disproved, but I hain't aimin' to try hit. Ye've done said some
right-hard things to-day an' some thet wasn't hardly justified--but I
aims ter fergit 'em."

Suddenly, by virtue of a leaping light in his eyes, the boy in jeans
and hodden-gray stood forth strangely transfigured. Some spirit
revelation seemed to have converted him into a mystifying incarnation
of latent, if uncomprehended power. It was as startling as though a
road-side beggar had tossed aside a drab cloak and hood of rags and
revealed beneath it, the glitter of helmet and whole armor.

"I aims ter fergit hit all," he repeated. "But don't seek ter fo'ce me
ner ter drive me none--fer thet's a thing I kain't hardly suffer. As
fur as a man kin go outen loyalty I'll go fer _you_--but I've got ter
go in my own fashion--an' of my own free will. Ye've done said that I
went erbout seekin' trouble an' I hain't got no doubt ye believes what
ye says albeit most of hit's false. Ye says I lays drunk sometimes.
Thet's true an' hit's a shameful thing fer a man ter admit, but hit's a
thing I've got ter fight out fer myself. Hit don't profit neither of us
fer ye ter vilify me."

He broke off abruptly, his chest heaving, and to Lone Stacy it seemed
that the air was electrically charged, as with the still tensity that
goes, windless and breathless