"
He lashed himself up and down in the room, in horrible disgust
and hate of his brother and of this home in his heart. He
remembered his tender anticipations of the homecoming with a
kind of self-pity and disgust. This was his greeting!
He went to bed, to toss about on the hard, straw-filled mattress in
the stuffy little best room. Tossing, writhing under the bludgeoning
of his brother's accusing inflections, a dozen times he said, with a
half-articulate snarl:
"He can go to hell! I'll not try to do anything more for him. I don't
care if he is my brother; he has no right to jump on me like that.
On the night of my return, too. My God! he is a brute, a savage!"
He thought of the presents in his trunk and valise which he couldn't
show to him that night, after what had been said. He had intended
to have such a happy evening of it, such a tender reunion! It was to
be so bright and cheery!
In the midst of his cursings, his hot indignation, would come
visions of himself in his own modest rooms. He seemed to be
yawning and stretching in his beautiful bed, the sun shining in, his
books, foils, pictures around him, to say good morning and tempt
him to rise, while the squat little clock on the mantel struck eleven
warningly.
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