But his failures were faults in his son's eyes. To the desperate
determination of the boy, weakness became as contemptible as crime. What
was a man worth who worked from morning until night and yet achieved
nothing? Of what account was the farmer whom the crows outwitted and the
weather made a mockery? Did not the very crops cry out as they rotted
that his father was a fool, and the unploughed land proclaim him a
coward? Had he ever dared a venture in his life or risked a season? And
yet what had ever returned at his bidding or brought forth at his
planting?

"You've been mighty little use of late," repeated Amos Burr stubbornly
when his wife placed the earthenware bowl on the shelf and came to the
table--her arm outstretched.

"Now, you jes' take yourself right off, Amos Burr," she said. "If you
can't behave decently to my dead sister's child you shan't hang round
them as was her own flesh and blood kin. Sairy Jane, you bring that
plate of hot corn pones from the stove. Here, Nick, set right down an'
eat your supper! There's some canned cherries if you want 'em."

Nicholas sat down, but the cornbread stuck in his throat and the coffee
was without aroma. He looked at the figured oilcloth on the table and
thought of the shining glass and silver at Juliet Burwell's. The flavour
of the cake she had given him seemed to intensify his distaste for the
food before him. He felt that he cared for nobody--that he wanted
nothing. He looked at his stepmother and thought that she was dried and
brown like a hickory nut; he looked at Sairy Jane and wondered why she
didn't have any eyelashes, and he looked at Jubal and saw that he was
all gums.