“Kenelm! My own brother! Cursin' and swearin'!”
“I ain't, and—and I don't care if I be! What's the matter with you, Hannah Parker? One minute you're sailin' into me tellin' me to heave up my job and not demean myself doin' odd jobs in a boardin'-house barn. And the next minute you're tellin' me I ought to stay to home and—and help out that very boardin'-house. I won't! By—by thunder-mighty, I won't! I'm goin' to that Cattle Show tomorrow if it takes my last cent.”
Hannah smiled. “How many last cents have you got, Kenelm?” she asked. “You was doin' your best to borrer a quarter of me this mornin'.”
“I've got more'n you have. I—I—everything there is here—yes, and every cent there is here—belongs to me by rights. You ain't got nothin' of your own.”
Miss Parker turned upon him. “To think,” she wailed, brokenly, “to think that my own brother—all the brother I've got—can stand afore me and heave my—my poverty in my face. I may be dependent on him. I am, I suppose. But Oh, the disgrace of it! the—Oh! Oh! Oh!”
Captain Obed hurried upstairs to his room. Long after he had shut the door he heard the sounds of Hannah's sobs and Kenelm's pleadings that he “never meant nothin'.” Then came silence and, at last, the sounds of footsteps on the stairs. They halted in the upper hall.
“I don't know, Kenelm,” said Hannah, sadly. “I'll try to forgive you. I presume likely I must. But when I think of how I've been a mother to you—”
“Now, Hannah, there you go again. How could you be my mother when you ain't but four year older'n I be? You just give me a few dollars and let me go to that Cattle Show and—”
“No, Kenelm, that I can't do. You are goin' to leave Mrs. Barnes' place; I want you to do that, for the sake of your self-respect. But you must stay there and help her tomorrow. It's your duty.”
“Darn my duty! I'll LEAVE tomorrow, that's what I'll do.”