“Oh, I didn't say nothing to your father when he started out—he was too old to change; but I hoped you would be different. I hoped you would forget your own feeling, and see Allen there on his back, and me ... getting along. You're all we got, David. It's no use, I reckon; you'll go like Allen and Hunter, full up with your own pride and never——” She broke off, gazing bitterly at her hands folded in her calico lap.
A new trouble filled David's heart. Through the open doorway he could see Allen, twisting on the couch; his mother was older, more worn, than he had realized. She had failed a great deal in the past few days. She was suddenly stripped of her aspect of authority, force; suddenly she appeared negative, dependent. A sharp pity for her arose through his other contending emotions.
“I don't know how you figure you will be helping Allen by stepping off to be shot instead of putting food in his mouth,” she spoke again. “He's got nobody at all but you, David.”
That was so; and yet—
“How can I let those skunks set their hell on us?” he demanded passionately. “Why, all Greenstream will think I'm afraid, that I let the Hatburns bust Allen and kill my father. I couldn't stand up in Priest's store; I couldn't bear to look at anybody. Don't you understand how men are about those things?”
She nodded.
“I can see, right enough—with Hunter in the graveyard and Allen with both hips broke. What I can't see is what we'll do next winter; how we'll keep Allen warm and fed. I suppose we can go to the County Home.”
But that, David knew, was as disgraceful as the other—his own mother, Allen, objects of public charity! His face was clouded, his hands clenched. It was only a chance that he would be killed; there were four Hatburns though. His heart, he thought, would burst with misery; every instinct fought for the expression, the upholding of the family prestige, honor. A hatred for the Hatburns was like a strangling hand at his throat.
“I got to!” he said; but his voice was wavering; the dull conviction seized him that his mother was right.
All the mountains would think of him as a coward—that Kinemon who wouldn't stand up to the men who had destroyed Allen and his father!