ut being "glad to
spare somethin' from my great plenty."

She and Senorita were presently packed into the car and Tom had gone out
to goggle at Uncle Clem cranking up, the cold cigar still between his
lips. Now they were off--choking and snorting their way out of the
wood-yard and down the lane. Aunt Mollie's pink feather streamed into
the breeze like a pennon of triumph.

* * *

Maw was standing by the stove, a queer look in her eyes; so queer that
Luke didn't speak at once. He limped over to finger the spilled
treasures on the table.

"Gee! Lookit, Maw! More o' them prunes we liked so; an' a bag o' early
peaches; an' fresh soup meat fur a week--"

A queer trembling had seized his mother. She was so white he was
frightened.

"Did you sense what it meant, Luke--what Aunt Molly told us about Matty
Bisbee? We was left out deliberate--that's what it meant. Her an' me
that was raised together an' went to school and picnics all our girlhood
together! Never could see one 'thout the other when we was growin'
up--Jim Bisbee knew that too! But"--her voice wavered miserably--"I
didn't get no invite to her funeral. I don't count no more, Lukey. None
of us, anywheres.... We're jest them poor Gawd-forsaken Hayneses."

She slipped down suddenly into a chair and covered her face, her thin
shoulders shaking. Luke went and touched her awkwardly. Times he would
have liked to put his arms round Maw--now more than ever; but he didn't
dare.

"Don't take on, Maw! Don't!"

"Who's takin' on?" She lifted a fierce, sallow, tear-wet face. "Hain't
no use makin' a fuss. All's left's to work--to work, an' die after a
while."

"I hate 'em! Uncle Clem an' her, I mean."

"They mean kindness--their way." But her tears started afresh.

"I hate 'em!" Luke's voice grew shriller. "I'd like--I'd like--Oh, damn
'em!"

"Don't swear, boy!"

It was Tom who broke in on them. "It's a letter from Rural Free
Delivery. He jest dropped it."

He came up, grinning, with the missive. The mother's fingers closed on
it nervously.

"From Nat, mebbe--he ain't wrote in months."

But it wasn't from Nat. It was a bill for a last payment on the "new
harrow," bought three years before.

II

One of the earliest memories Luke could recall was the big blurred
impression of Nat's face bending over his crib of an evening. At first
flat, indefinite, remote as the moon, it grew with time to more human,
intimate proportions. It became the face of "brother,"