There was a little silence. Then Howard went on, his voice
trembling, the tears on his face.
"I want you to let me help you, old man. That's the way to forgive
me. Will you?"
"Yes, if you can help me."
Howard squeezed his hand. "That's right, old man. Now you make
me a boy again. Course I can help you. I've got ten-"
"I don't mean that, How." Grant's voice was very grave. "Money
can't give me a chance now."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean life ain't worth very much to me. I'm too old to take a new
start. I'm a dead failure. I've come to the conclusion that life's a
failure for ninety-nine per cent of us. You can't help me now. It's
too late."
The two men stood there, face to face, hands clasped, the one
fair-skinned, full-lipped, handsome in his neat sult; the other
tragic, somber in his softened mood, his large, long, rugged Scotch
face bronzed with sun and scarred with wrinkles that had histories,
like saber cuts on a veteran, the record of his battles.
AMONG THE CORN ROWS
I
"But the road sometimes passes a rich meadow, where the songs o/
larks and bobolinks and blackbirds are tangled."
ROB held up his hands, from which the dough depended in ragged
strings.
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