“Because I don’t choose to do so.”
I expected this would bring out another storm of passion. But I was mistaken. Mr. Norton merely shut his mouth hard, and walked up and down the room.
“Reuben, you are smarter than I thought you were,” he said presently. “I thought you were a mere backwoods boy, but I find I am mistaken.”
“Do you want your breakfast, sir?”
“No; I’m not hungry. You sit down and eat.”
I did so, and he walked around and eyed me curiously.
“Reuben, your father died rather poor,” he continued. “He was a hard worker, but he didn’t know how to manage.”
“It was the hard times, and not the managing,” I put in, eager to defend the parent I had just lost.
“When your father fell over the ravine, he and I were just getting ready to make a pile of money,” went on Mr. Norton slowly. “If he had lived two months longer he would have been a rich man.”
In my wonder at this statement I stopped eating at once.