The breaking of the Boom. Page 119.
"What became of the family on the bridge?"
"The barn, being so big, and taking so much wind, went ahead of the bridge, that was low in the water, and when they got down where the river was narrower, some men went off in a canoe and took them ashore."
"Rich, I am going to hazard a supposition. Will you tell me if I am correct in it?"
"I'll tell you anything I know."
"You belong to a strong, resolute breed of men. Any person looking at your father as he stands at the anvil, and your uncle, can see where you came from. It is not in accordance with the make-up of persons having such blood in their veins to live without effort or object. It causes them to despise themselves—the meanest of all feelings, because the rugged nature craves hardship. When you exerted yourself to the utmost in college studies, chopped wood and hewed timber, although there was no necessity for it; when in that tremendous race at Brunswick, through gullies, thorns, coal kilns, dogs, and mires, you gave me, who had the advantage of years of training, all I could do, and distanced all the rest, that was the true nature asserting itself. I can understand why it was that, after crossing the Alps, settling down in Capua, and becoming effeminate, you lost your own self-respect, and were unhappy, and also how these feelings were all intensified when you found that while ruin was impending, your father's mind racked with agony, you were writing verses to school girls, wasting time and talents, and throwing away opportunities that would never come again. I can understand, likewise, why, when you took your portion of the load and felt that your father was encouraged by your aid and sympathy, you regained self-respect, and experienced relief and comparative happiness. But there is much more I cannot fathom."
"What is that, Mort?"
"Well, there is a light in your eye, and an expression of quiet, trustful happiness in your face, that were never there before, and that are not to be accounted for by anything you have yet told me, or that I have observed here. It seems to me that while summoning all your own resources to meet this exigency, you have gone out of yourself for aid; and that, to my mind, accounts perfectly for all the results, and renders happiness in untoward circumstances no mystery."