"An' that up there's my mother," he said, after their gazes had clung a moment.
"Whistler's 'Mother'!"
"Yes, he painted it; but she's th' one I'd like to have for my mother, if I could picked her out. She looks like a good mother, don't she? I thought so when I got that ... with a San Francisco newspaper."
Ann did not trust herself to speak or to look at him.
"Your father?" she asked after a moment.
"Oh, I had one. Tim. He was my daddy. He did all any father could for me. No, ma'am, I wouldn't pick out nobody to take Tim's place. He brought me up. But if I was to have uncles, I'd like them."
He moved across the room to where prints of Lincoln and Lee were tacked to the wall.
"But, they were enemies!" Ann objected.
"Sure, I know it. But they both thought somethin' an' stuck by it an' fought it out. Lincoln believed one way, Lee another; they both stood by their principles an' that's all that counts. Out here we have cattlemen an' sheepmen. I'm in cattle an' lots of times I've felt like gunnin' for th' fellers who were tryin' to sheep me, but then I'd stop an' think that maybe there was somethin' to be said on their side.
"I'd sure liked to have men for uncles who could believe in a thing as hard as they believed!"