“Good-night, boy,” said his father, holding him by the hand for a moment or so. “We do not know what is before us, defeat, loss, suffering. That part is not in our hands altogether, but the shame of the quitter never need, and never shall be ours.”
The little man stepped into his bedroom with his shoulders squared and his head erect.
“By Jove! He's no quitter,” said his son to himself, as his eyes followed him. “When he quits he'll be dead. God keep me from shaming him!”
CHAPTER IV
REJECTED
The hour for the church service had not quite arrived, but already a number of wagons, buckboards and buggies had driven up and deposited their loads at the church door. The women had passed into the church, where the Sunday School was already in session; the men waited outside, driven by the heat of the July sun and the hotter July wind into the shade of the church building.
Through the church windows came the droning of voices, with now and then a staccato rapping out of commands heard above the droning.
“That's Hayes,” said a sturdy young chap, brown as an Indian, lolling upon the grass. “He likes to be bossing something.”
“That's so, Ewen,” replied a smaller man, with a fish-like face, his mouth and nose running into a single feature.