"Singular we fellers here are discontented and mulish, am't it?
Singular we don't believe your letters when you write, sayin', 'I just
about make a live of it'? Singular we think the country's goin' to
hell, we fellers, in a two dollar suit, wadin' around in the mud or
sweatin' around in the hayfield, while you fellers lay around New
York and smoke and wear good clothes and toady to millionaires?"
Howard threw down the rake and folded his arms. 'My God! you're
enough to make a man forget the same mother bore us!"
"I guess it wouldn't take much to make you forget that. You ain't
put much thought on me nor her for ten years."
The old man cackled, the boy grinned, and Howard, sick and weak
with anger and sorrow, turned away and walked down toward the
brook. He had tried once more to get near his brother and had
failed. O God! how miserably, pitiably! The hot blood gushed all
over him as he thought of the shame and disgrace of it.
He, a man associating with poets, artists, sought after by brilliant
women, accustomed to deference even from such people, to be
sneered at, outfaced, shamed, shoved aside, by a man in a stained
hickory shirt and patched overalls, and that man his brother! He
lay down on the bright grass, with the sheep all around him, and
writhed and groaned with the agony and despair of it.
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