“Is Dannie well?”
“So far as I know.”
Charlie started on, but before he had gone a dozen yards, he turned and came back to his father.
“Father,” he said, “let’s end it.”
“End what?”
“This awkwardness, this uncertainty, this everlasting disagreement about the farm. I can’t do farm work, father, I’m not fitted for it—I hate it.”
Charlie should have been less impulsive, more considerate. To declare farm work hateful was, in the mind of Abner Pickett, rank treason. But Charlie was too much like his father to gloss things over. He said what he felt, whether wise or unwise.
Abner Pickett changed his rake from one hand to the other, and still looked at the bulky load of hay making its slow way to the dark and gaping entrance to the barn.
“Yes,” he said slowly and coldly; “that’s been apparent for some time. There’s dogs that’ll bite the hand that feeds ’em.”
Charlie’s face flushed.