The story he had heard from his aunt, with its unexplained gaps, filled Mauney’s mind for days. He wondered most about what she had not told him. Her seemingly instinctive fear—or was it scorn?—of meeting his father roused torturing curiosity. Probably his mother’s letters had told her either plainly or in suggestive language of her great unhappiness.
The motor-car visit haunted him. It was so unnatural, as though, in a painful dream, he had beheld his own mother, whose features were to remain before him in waking hours. Spectre-like out of the unknown world she had come, to vanish immediately, leaving scant comfort, herself immune from his ardent desire to detain her.
The incident was characteristic of life, as he was learning to know it, for he gained cognizance of an enigmatical curse aimed at whatever promised happiness. One whom even a few moments had enshrined in his affections must tremble and disappear, as a delicate bird, hovering for an instant, is driven away by a sight or smell.
Every aspiration of his existence was leashed to his father’s stolid nature. He traced the deterring thongs, one by one, back to the paternal influence. Some hidden action or some unrevealed quality of his father’s had driven his aunt away in a dust-cloud. And the dust which rose up to obscure her loved face was symbolic, for dust of a kind was slowly settling upon the freshness of his own nature.
One evening his reverie of unhappiness was broken by a familiar voice when, turning about, he beheld David McBratney trudging along with a large, grey, telescope valise. In answer to his question, McBratney replied that he was starting on foot for Lockwood, where next morning he would take the train for Merlton to begin his ministerial studies. He was walking because his father, suffering from ill-humor, had refused him a horse. But evidently, there was no martyrdom about the situation.
“He’s an old man,” Dave said, putting down his burden and wiping his forehead with a big, red handkerchief, “and I didn’t like to start no row.”
“Are you going for good?” Mauney asked, rising from the grass and walking slowly to the edge of the road.
“Sure. I sold my three-year-old yesterday for a hundred, and that’ll keep me for a while up to Merlton. I guess Dad will come around after a while. But I reckon I’d just blow away, quiet like, without causin’ too much commotion.”
“You’re a cheerful cuss, Dave,” Mauney said.
“You bet,” he laughed, as he turned to look back toward his home. “I tell yuh, Maun, when a fellah gets sort o’ squared away with God Almighty, why, he can’t be no other way. Some o’ the neighbors says I’m makin’ a big mistake to leave the farm. But that farm ain’t nothin’ to me now. Maybe I won’t never have a bit o’ land to me name, but, I’m tellin’ yuh, I’ve got somethin’ as more’n makes up. Well, Maun, old boy,” he said, picking up his valise and sticking out his big, sun-burned hand. “I’ll be goin’ along. Good-bye. Best of luck to yuh!”