set here and talk about 'poems and essays' and such-like fooleries.
And you must understand, too, what it meant to start one o' my boys
and have him come back on me the way you did, and have to be sent
to a sanitarium because he couldn't stand work. Now, let's get right
down to it, Bibbs. I've had a whole lot o' talk with ole Doc Gurney
about you, one time another, and I reckon I understand your case just
about as well as he does, anyway! Now here, I'll be frank with you.
I started you in harder than what I did the other boys, and that was
for your own good, because I saw you needed to be shook up more'n
they did. You were always kind of moody and mopish--and you needed
work that'd keep you on the jump. Now, why did it make you sick
instead of brace you up and make a man of you the way it ought of
done? I pinned ole Gurney down to it. I says, 'Look here, ain't it
really because he just plain hated it?' 'Yes,' he says, 'that's it.
If he'd enjoyed it, it wouldn't 'a' hurt him. He loathes it, and
that affects his nervous system. The more he tries it, the more he
hates it; and the more he hates it, the more injury it does him.'
That ain't quite his words, but it's what he meant. And that's about
the way it is."

"Yes," said Bibbs, "that's about the way it is."

"Well, then, I reckon it's up to me not only to make you do it, but
to make you like it!"

Bibbs shivered. And he turned upon his father a look that was almost
ghostly. "I can't," he said, in a low voice. "I can't."

"Can't go back to the shop?"