His play crowding out some other poor
fellow's hope. The hawk eats the partridge, the partridge eats the
flies and bugs, the bugs eat each other, and the hawk, when he in
his turn is shot by man. So, in the world of business, the life of one
man seemed to him to be drawn from the life of another man, each
success to spring from other failures.
He was like a man from whom all motives had been withdrawn.
He was sick, sick to the heart. Oh, to be a boy again! An ignorant
baby, pleased with a block and string, with no knowledge and no
care of the great un-known! To lay his head again on his mother's
bosom and rest! To watch the flames on the hearth!
Why not? Was not that the very thing to do? To buy back the old
farm? It would cripple him a little for the next season, but he could
do it. Think of it! To see his mother back in the old home, with the
fireplace restored, the old furniture in the sitting room around her,
and fine new things in the parlor!
His spirits rose again. Grant couldn't stand out when he brought to
him a deed of the farm. Surely his debt would be canceled when he
had seen them all back in the wide old kitchen. He began to plan
and to dream.
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