He saw the meanest kind of old fox, and marked what he thought might be
its hole; his flashing gaze caught the obscure distant retreat of
ground hogs; he threw a contemptuous clod at the woolly-brained sheep;
and with a bent willow shoot neatly looped a trout out upon the grassy
bank. As a consequence of all this he was late for supper, and sat at
the table with his mother, who never took her place until the men--yes,
and boys of her family--had satisfied their appetites. The dark came on
and she lighted a lamp swinging under a tin reflector from the ceiling.
The kitchen was an addition, and had a sloping shed roof, board sides,
a polished stove, and a long table with a red cloth.
His father, David learned, attacking a plateful of brown chicken
swimming with greens and gravy, was having another bad spell. He had
the familiar sharp pain through his back and his arms hurt him.
"He can't be drove to a doctor," the woman told David, speaking, in her
concern, as if to an equal in age and comprehension.
David had grown accustomed to the elder's periods of suffering; they
came, twisted his father's face into deep lines, departed, and things
were exactly as before--or very nearly the same. The boy saw that
Hunter Kinemon couldn't support labor that only two or three years
before he would have finished without conscious effort. David
resolutely ignored this; he felt that it must be a cause of shame,
unhappiness, to his father; and he never mentioned it to Allen.
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