In the farmhouse ahead of him a light was shining as he peered
ahead, and his heart gave another painful movement. His brother
was awaiting him there, and his mother, whom he had not seen for
ten years and who had grown unable to write. And when Grant
wrote, which had been more and more seldom of late, his letters
had been cold and curt.
He began to feel that in the pleasure and excitement of his life he
had grown away from his mother and brother. Each summer he
had said, "Well, now I'll go home this year sure." But a new play to
be produced, or a yachting trip, or a tour of Europe, had put the
homecoming off; and now it was with a distinct consciousness of
neglect of duty that he walked up to the fence and looked into the
yard, where William had told him his brother lived.
It was humble enough-a small white house, story-and-a-half
structure, with a wing, set in the midst of a few locust trees; a
small drab-colored barn, with a sagging ridge pole; a barnyard full
of mud, in which a few cows were standing, fighting the flies and
waiting to be milked. An old man was pumping water at the well;
the pigs were squealing from a pen nearby; a child was crying.
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