ow it. If his labors were uncertain
and sporadic, and his address that of a nomad, it all sufficed, at least
for himself.

If at times Luke felt a stirring doubt that Nat was not acquitting
himself of his family duty, he quenched it fiercely. Nat was different.
He was born free; you could tell it in his talk, in his way of thinking.
He was like an eagle and hated to be bound by earthly ties. He cared for
them all in his own way. Times when he was back he helped Maw all he
could. If he brought money he gave of it freely; if he had none, just
the look of his eye or the ready jest on his lip helped.

Upstairs in a drawer of the old pine bureau lay some of Nat's discarded
clothing--incredible garments to Luke. The lame boy, going to them
sometimes, fingered them, pondering, reconstructing for himself the
fabric of Nat's adventures, his life. The ice-cream pants of a bygone
day; the pointed, shriveled yellow Oxfords! the silk-front shirt; the
odd cuff link or stud--they were like a genie-in-a-bottle, these poor
clothes! You rubbed them and a whole Arabian Night's dream unfurled from
them.

And Nat lived it all! But people--dull stodgy people like Uncle Clem and
Aunt Mollie, and old Beckonridge down at the store, and a dozen
others--these criticized him for not "workin' reg'lar" and giving a full
account of himself.

Luke, thinking of all this, would flush with impotent anger.

"Oh, let 'em talk, though! He'll show 'em some day! They dunno Nat.
He'll do somethin' big fur us all some day."

III

Midsummer came to trim the old farm with her wreaths. It was the time
Luke loved best of all--the long, sweet, loam-scented evenings with Maw
and Tom on the old porch; and sometimes--when there was no fog--Paw's
cot, wheeled out in the stillness. But Maw was not herself this summer.
Something had fretted and eaten into her heart like an acid ever since
Aunt Mollie's visit and the news of Matty Bisbee's funeral.

When, one by one, the early summer festivities of the neighborhood had
slipped by, with no inclusion of the Hayneses, she had fallen to
brooding deeply,--to feeling more bitterly than ever the ignominy and
wretchedness of their position.

Luke tried to comfort her; to point out that this summer was like any
other; that they "never had mattered much to folks." But Maw continued
to brood; to allude vaguely and insistently to "the straw that broke the
camel's back." It was bitter hard to have Maw like that--home was b