s came slowly to the Old Man's face while he waited, his
seamed hands gripping the padded arms of his chair. A tightness pulled
at his lips behind the grizzled whiskers. It never occurred to him now
that the Happy Family might be perpetrating one of their jokes. He had
looked at their faces, you see. They meant to quit him--quit him cold
just as spring work was beginning. They were ashamed of themselves,
of course; they had a right to be ashamed, he thought bitterly. It
hurt--hurt so that he would have died before he would ask for excuse,
reason, grievance, explanation--for whatever motive impelled them. So he
waited, and he gripped the arms of his chair, and he clamped his mouth
shut and did not speak a word.

The Happy Family had expected him to swear at them stormily; to accuse
them of vile things; to call them such names as his memory could seize
upon or his ingenuity invent. They had been careful to prepare a list of
plausible reasons for leaving then. They had first invented a gold
rumor that they hoped would sound convincing, but Andy had insisted upon
telling him straightforwardly that they did not favor fence-building and
ditch-digging and such back-breaking toil; that they were range men
and they demanded range work or none; that if they must dig ditches and
build fences and perform like menial tasks, they preferred doing it
for themselves. "That," said Andy, "makes us out such dirty, low-down
sons-of-guns we'd have to climb a tree to look a snake in the eye, but
it's got the grain of truth that'll make it go down. We DON'T love this
farming graft, and the Old Man knows it. He's heard us kicking often
enough. That's where it'll git him. He'll believe this last stretch of
fence is what made us throw him down, and he'll be so mad he'll cuss us
out till the neighbors'll think the smoke's a prairie fire. We'll get
our time, all right' and the things he'll say will likely make us so
hot we can all talk convincing when we hit town. Keep a stiff upper lip,
boys. We got to do it, and he'll make us mad, so it won't be as hard as
you imagine."

The theory was good, and revealed a knowledge of human nature that
made one cease to wonder why Andy was a prince of convincing liars. The
theory was good--nothing in the world was the matter with it, except
that in this particular instance it did not work. The Old Man did not
ask for their reasons, excuses or explanations. Neither did he say
anything or do anything to make them