"The story's got around that the kid's yours, anyway," he announced. "I don't care who started it, but if it's true, you'll make a bee-line for the widow's and marry the girl. D'you hear?"
Thad dropped his eyes sullenly and made a feint of examining the crosscut saw.
"I don't go much on family," continued old Farnham, "and I never 'lowed you'd set anything on fire excepting maybe yourself, but I'm not raising sneaks and liars, and what little I've got hain't been scraped together to fatten that kind of stock!"
"Nobody. But I'm going to take you over to face that girl and see what she says. If you don't foller peaceable, I'll coax you along with a hatful of cartridges. I hear you've been whining around the revival meetings. I never suspected you till I heard that!"
"I don't see why you suspect a feller for lookin' after the salvation"—
"Oh, damn your salvation!" broke in the old man.
"Well, I dunno"—
"Well, I do!" roared the father; "I know you can't make an angel without a man to start with, and I'll do what I can to furnish the man, seein' I'm responsible for you bein' born in the shape of one, and the preachers may put in the wing and the tail feathers if they can! Now start that saw!"