He flung off his hat and plunged into the wash-basin. His shirt was wet with sweat and covered with dust of the hay and fragments of leaves. He splashed his burning face with the water, paying no further attention to his mother. She spoke again, very gently, in reproof:
"Grant, why do you stand out against Howard so?"
"I don't stand out against him," he replied harshly, pausing with the towel in his hands. His eyes were hard and piercing. "But if he expects me to gush over his coming back, he's fooled, that's all. He's left us to paddle our own canoe all this while, and, so far as I'm concerned, he can leave us alone hereafter. He looked out for his precious hide mighty well, and now he comes back here to play big gun and pat us on the head. I don't propose to let him come that over me."
Mrs. McLane knew too well the temper of her son to say any more, but she inquired about Howard of the old hired man.
"He went off down the valley. He 'n' Grant had s'm words, and he pulled out down toward the old farm. That's the last I see of 'im."
Laura took Howard's part at the table. "Pity you can't be decent," she said, brutally direct as usual. "You treat Howard as if he was a—a—I do' know what."
"Will you let me alone?"
"No, I won't. If you think I'm going to set by an' agree to your bullyraggin' him, you're mistaken. It's a shame! You're mad 'cause he's succeeded and you hain't. He ain't to blame for his brains. If you and I'd had any, we'd 'a' succeeded too. It ain't our fault, and it ain't his; so what's the use?"
A look came into Grant's face which the wife knew meant bitter and terrible silence. He ate his dinner without another word.
It was beginning to cloud up. A thin, whitish, all-pervasive vapor which meant rain was dimming the sky, and Grant forced his hands to their utmost during the afternoon, in order to get most of the down hay in before the rain came. He was pitching from the load into the barn when Howard came by, just before one o'clock.