"Oh, I done caught him out behind the barn again smoking cigarettes. Bill, he told me yesterday that he seen Lafe taking a drink out of a bottle with the horse wrangler. I'll can that feller if he don't leave Lafe alone."
"Oh, goodness, let the boy be, Lafe. You told me yourself you smoked when you were nine. All the boys out here learn to do that mighty young, and some of them know how to drink right well, too."
"That's all right," said Johnson stubbornly, "but I don't expect our son to be a no-account feller. We've got the money to educate him fine. But I'm scared to send him away until I'm sure he's worth it."
"Well, anyhow, don't be too hard on him. Don't go jumping on the boy all the time, Lafe. If you do you'll make a sneak out of him."
"He's mighty nigh that now," said Lafe, and walked out of the room before Hetty could start an argument on the point.
He had not spoken to his wife of the worry that rankled deepest. This was nothing less than a doubt of his son's courage. To a man who had lived as Johnson had lived, who had calmly braved danger every month in his life, absence of pluck is the most despicable of human traits. Little incidents he had noted in the behavior of Lafe, Jr., filled the boss with a dread that his son might not only be lacking in aggressive courage, but might be the victim of positive cowardice. However, he reflected that happenings previous to his birth may have been responsible, which gave him a patience with the boy he might not otherwise have had. Yet Lafe, Jr.'s, shrinking fear of the ordinary risks of range life was wholly at variance with the reckless spirit he had shown as a child.
"He's even scared of his horse," said Lafe to me on a night. "Don't tell anybody, Dan. I'd be 'shamed. But I've seen that boy's knees near knock together before he crawled up on ol' Waspnest."
"He's at a bad age," I said, trying to console him. "In the first place, he has grown too fast, and in the second place, you haven't handled him properly. Lafe is a mighty sensitive boy and you ought to be more companionable with him. As long as you hold him off and never give him anything but a stern order, he's going to do things which you think are sneaky."
The boss looked astounded. It was a new experience for him to be told that he did not know how to manage a fellow creature, and the fact that that fellow creature was his son sharpened the sting. He stared at me a long time very thoughtfully.
"Maybe you're right," he said. "I'll give it a trial, anyhow."