Allegheny rose with an exclamation of anger. "Well, I won't meet 'em.
He'd better mind his own business."
"Why, Allie!" the mother exclaimed, in mild reproach.
"I won't! I hate 'em. I hate everybody. Him, with his high an' fancy ways—" the girl choked. "He looks down on us the same as other folks does, an' I don't blame him. He acts like we was cattle, an' we are." Her own scorn appeared to whip the speaker into a higher frenzy. "Now he's gone off to spoil Buddy's doin's. Buttin' in, that's what it is. If I knew where Buddy is, I'd warn him. I'd tell him to look out. I'd tell him to grab his chance when it comes along, if it takes all the Briskow money, all the Briskow wells. He's lucky, Buddy is. It don't make any difference who he took up with, if he loves her."
Never but once before had the Briskows seen their daughter in a mood like this, and that was on the occasion of their first visit to Dallas. Now they sat numb and speechless as she raved on:
"Playin' with us to amuse himself! It's a game with him. He 'ain't got anything better to do. Why, he even shows us how to dress! 'With a touch,' he says, 'I work miracles. I transfer—transform you from something dark an'—an' common into a thing of passion.' Passion! What the hell does he know about passion? He's a doctor, he is, cuttin' up a live dog to see what ails it. A live dog that's tied down! Cuttin' it up—Oh, my God, I wish I was Buddy!" It was several moments after the door of Allie's room had slammed behind her before Gus Briskow spoke, and then it was with a deep sigh.
"I been afraid of something like this, Ma. I reckon we're goin' to pay dear for our money before we get through."
"An' him with a princess in Wichita Falls!" the mother quavered.
CHAPTER XVIII
There are many arguments against industry; much is to be said against its wholesale practice. For one thing, habitual diligence, of whatever sort, begets other habits hard to break, habits that persist in plaguing a man during his periods of indolence and perhaps during his whole life. Early rising is one of the most annoying of these habits. While it cannot be said that Tom Parker had ever labored arduously at anything, nevertheless he had followed his calling faithfully, and the peculiar exigencies of that calling had made of him a light and fitful sleeper. He had so often used the earth as a mattress and his saddle as a pillow, that sunup invariably roused him, and as a consequence he liked to tell people that he could do with less sleep than any man in Texas. That was, in fact, one of his pet complaints.
It was true that Old Tom never slept long, but it was also true that he slept oftener than any man in Texas. He was up and dressed by daylight, and until breakfast time he engaged himself in purposeless and noisy pursuits. This futile energy, however, diminished steadily until about nine-thirty, after which his day was punctuated by a series of cat naps, as a broken sentence is punctuated by dots and dashes.