"Nothing much; he'd law them, or something like that. The Simmonses are
right spindling; they don't belong in Greenstream either." David
commented: "I wouldn't have et a thing till I'd got them!" In the ruddy
reflection of the lamp his pink-and-blue charm, his shy lips, resembled
a pastoral divinity of boyhood. Allen laughed.
"That family, the Hatburns----" He paused. "Why, they'd just mow you
down with the field daisies."
David flushed with annoyance. He saw his mother studying him with the
attentive concern she had first shown the day before yesterday.
"You have no call to mix in with them," Kinemon told his elder son.
"Drive stage and mind your business. I'd even step aside a little from
folks like that."
A sense of surprised disappointment invaded David at his father's
statement. It seemed to him out of keeping with the elder's courage and
determination. It, too, appeared almost spindling. Perhaps he had said
it because his wife, a mere woman, was there. He was certain that Allen
would not agree with such mildness. The latter, lounging back from the
table, narrowed his eyes; his fingers played with the ears of his dog,
Rocket. Allen gave his father a cigar and lit one himself, a present
from a passenger on the stage. David could see a third in Allen's shirt
pocket, and he longed passionately for the day when he would be old
enough to have a cigar offered him. He longed for the time when he,
like Allen, would be swinging a whip over the horses of a stage,
rambling down a steep mountain, or walking up at the team's head to
take off some weight.
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