"No jokes, no lies doin' there! I opened right up to her. I told her I'd done well, but that I didn't want father to know it just yet, and we sit there holdin' hands when the old man hove round the corner.
"'Stephen,' says mother, kind o' solemn, 'here's our son Edward.'
"Did the old man wilt, or climb the line fence and offer to shake hands? Nitsky! He just shoved one hip onto the edge of the porch and remarked:
"'Does this dry spell reach as fur as where you've been?'"
He broke into silent laughter again, and I joined him. This was all so deeply characteristic of the life I had known in my youth that I writhed with delight. I understood the duel of wits and wills. I could see it proceed as my companion chuckled.
"Well, sir, we played that game all the evening. I told of all the bad leases I'd tackled—and how I'd been thrown from a horse and laid up for six months. I brought out every set-back and bruise I'd ever had—all to see if the old man would weaken and feel sorry for me."
"Did he?"
"Not for a minute! And sometimes, as I looked at him, I was sorry I'd come home; but when I was with mother I was glad. She 'phoned to sis, who lived in Jackson, and sis came on the lope, and we had a nice family party. Sis touched on Nancy McRae.
"'You remember her?' she asked.
"'I seem to,' I says, kind of slow, as if I was dredgin' my mind to find something.