"I tell yeh I don't blame him! Only I don't want him to come the brotherly business over me, after livin' as he has—that's all." There was a bitter accusation in the man's voice.
Howard leaped to his feet, his face twitching.
"By God, I'll go back to-morrow morning!" he threatened.
"Go, an' be damned! I don't care what yeh do," Grant growled, rising and going out.
"Boys," called the mother, piteously, "it's terrible to see you quarrel."
"But I'm not to blame, mother," cried Howard, in a sickness that made him white as chalk. "The man is a savage. I came home to help you all, not to quarrel."
"Grant's got one o' his fits on," said the young wife, speaking for the first time. "Don't pay any attention to him. He'll be all right in the morning."
"If it wasn't for you, mother, I'd leave now, and never see that savage again."
He lashed himself up and down in the room, in horrible disgust and hate of his brother and of this home in his heart. He remembered his tender anticipations of the home-coming with a kind of self-pity and disgust. This was his greeting!
He went to bed, to toss about on the hard, straw-filled mattress in the stuffy little best room. Tossing, writhing under the bludgeoning of his brother's accusing inflections, a dozen times he said, with a half-articulate snarl: