At nine, though his fingers would become cramped and his wrists would pain him, Bill had three cows to account for twice a day. At five in the morning, he would be shaken by Martin and told to hurry up. It would be dark when he stepped out into the chill air, and he would draw back with a shiver. Somewhere on these six hundred acres was the herd and it was his chore to find it and bring it in. He would go struggling through the pasture, unable to see twenty-five feet ahead of him, the cold dew or snow soaking through his overalls, his shoes becoming wet. Often he would go a mile north only to have to wander to another end of the farm before he located them. Other times, when he was lucky, they would be waiting within a hundred yards of the barn. Oh, how precious the warm bed was, and how his growing body craved a few more hours of sleep! He had a trick of pulling the sheet up over his head, as if thus he could shut out the world, but always his father was there to rout him out from this nest and set him none too gently on his feet; always there was a herd to be brought in and udders to be emptied. It made no difference to Martin that the daily walk to and from the district school was long, and left no spare time; it made no difference that the long hours at his lessons left the boy longing for play—always there was the herd, twice a day, cows and cows without end.
At twelve, Bill was plowing behind four heavy horses. He could run a mower, and clean a pasture of weeds in a day. He could cultivate and handle the manure spreader. In the hot, blazing sun, he could shock wheat behind Martin, who sat on the binder and cut the beautiful swaying gold. There wasn't a thing he could not do, but there was not one that he did with a willing heart. His dreams were all of escape from this grinding, harsh farm. It seemed to him that it was as ruthless as his father; that everything it demanded of him was, at best, just a little beyond his strength. If there was a lever to be pulled on the disk, very likely it was rusted and refused to give unless he yanked until he was short of breath and his heart beat fast; four horses were so unruly and hard to keep in place; the gates were all so heavy—they were not easy to lift and then drag open. It was such a bitter struggle every step of the way. It was so hard to plow as deeply as he was commanded. It was so wearing to make the seed bed smooth enough to measure up to his father's standard. Never was there a person who saw less to love about a farm than this son of Martin's. He even ceased to take any interest in the little colts.
“You used to be foolish about them,” Martin taunted, “cried whenever I broke one.”
“If I don't get to liking 'em, I don't care what happens to em,” Bill answered with his father's own laconicism.
This chicken-heartedness, as he dubbed it, disgusted Martin, who consequently took a satisfaction in compelling the boy to assist him actively whenever there were cattle to be dehorned, wire rings to be pushed through bunches of pigs' snouts, calves to be delivered by force, young stuff to be castrated or butchering to be done. Often the sensitive lad's nerves were strained to the breaking point by the inhuman torture he was constantly forced to inflict upon creatures that had learned to trust him. There was a period when it seemed to him every hour brought new horrors; with each one, his determination strengthened to free himself as soon as possible from this life that was one round of toil and brutality.
Rose gave him all the sympathy and help her great heart knew. His rebellion had been her own, but she had allowed it to be ground out of her, with her soul now in complete surrender. And here was her boy going through it all over again, for himself, learning the dull religion of toil from one of its most fanatical priests. What if Bill, too, should finally have acquiescence to Martin rubbed into his very marrow, should absorb his father's point of view, grow up and run, with mechanical obedience, the farm he abhorred? The very possibility made her shudder. If only she could rescue him in some manner, help him to break free from this bondage. College—that would be the open avenue. Martin would insist upon an agricultural course, but she would use all her tact and rally all her powers that Billy might be given the opportunity to fit himself for some congenial occupation. Martin might even die, and if she were to have the farm to sell and the interest from the investments to live on, how happy she could be with this son of hers, so like her in temperament. She caught herself up sharply. Well, it was Martin himself who was driving her to such thoughts.
“You are like old Dorcas,” she once told her husband, driven desperate by the exhausted, harrowed look that was becoming habitual in Bill's face. “You're trampling down your own flesh and blood, that's what you're doing—eating the heart out of your own boy.”
“Go right on,” retorted Martin, all his loneliness finding vent in his bitter sneer, “tell that to Bill. You've turned him against me from the day he was born. A fine chance I've ever had with my son!”