“No, you ain't, Al,” she said.
“I'm not? Indeed I am! Why, what do you mean?”
“I mean just what I say. You ain't goin'. You're goin' to stay right here. At least I hope you are, and I THINK you are. . . . Oh, I know,” she added, quickly, “what you are goin' to say. You're goin' to tell me that your grandpa is down on you on account of your father, and that you don't like bookkeepin', and that you want to write poetry and—and such. You'll say all that, and maybe it's all true, but whether 'tis or not ain't the point at all just now. The real point is that you're Janie Snow's son and your grandpa's Cap'n Lote Snow and your grandma's Olive Snow and there ain't goin' to be another smash-up in this family if I can help it. I've been through one and one's enough. Albert, didn't you promise me that Sunday forenoon three years ago when I came into the settin'-room and we got talkin' about books and Robert Penfold and everything—didn't you promise me then that when things between you and your grandpa got kind of—of snarled up and full of knots you'd come to me with 'em and we'd see if we couldn't straighten 'em out together? Didn't you promise me that, Albert?”
Albert remembered the conversation to which she referred. As he remembered it, however, he had not made any definite promise.
“You asked me to talk them over with you, Rachel,” he admitted. “I think that's about as far as it went.”
“Well, maybe so, but now I ask you again. Will you talk this over with me, Albert? Will you tell me every bit all about it, for my sake? And for your grandma's sake. . . . Yes, more'n that, for your mother's sake, Albert; she was pretty nigh like my own sister, Jane Snow was. Different as night from day of course, she was pretty and educated and all that and I was just the same then as I am now, but we did think a lot of each other, Albert. Tell me the whole story, won't you, please. Just what Cap'n Lote said and what you said and what you plan to do—and all? Please, Albert.”
There were tears in her eyes. He had always liked her, but it was a liking with a trace of condescension in it. She was peculiar, her “sympathetic attacks” were funny, and she and Laban together were an odd pair. Now he saw her in a new light and he felt a sudden rush of real affection for her. And with this feeling, and inspired also by his loneliness, came the impulse to comply with her request, to tell her all his troubles.
He began slowly at first, but as he went on the words came quicker. She listened eagerly, nodding occasionally, but saying nothing. When he had finished she nodded again.
“I see,” she said. “'Twas almost what Laban said and about what he and I expected. Well, Albert, I ain't goin' to be the one to blame you, not very much anyhow. I don't see as you are to blame; you can't help the way you're made. But your grandfather can't help bein' made his way, either. He can't see with your spectacles and you can't see with his.”
He stirred rebelliously. “Then we had better go our own ways, I should say,” he muttered.