II.

One soft noon in the middle of August the farmer came in from the
corn-field that an early frost had blighted, and told his wife that they
must give it up. He said, in his weak, hoarse voice, with the catarrhal
catching in it, that it was no use trying to make a living on the farm
any longer. The oats had hardly been worth cutting, and now the corn was
gone, and there was not hay enough without it to winter the stock; if
they got through themselves they would have to live on potatoes. Have a
vendue, and sell out everything before the snow flew, and let the State
take the farm and get what it could for it, and turn over the balance
that was left after the taxes; the interest of the savings-bank mortgage
would soon eat that up.

The long, loose cough took him, and another cough answered it like an
echo from the barn, where his son was giving the horses their feed. The
mild, wan-eyed young man came round the corner presently toward the porch
where his father and mother were sitting, and at the same moment a boy
came up the lane to the other corner; there were sixteen years between
the ages of the brothers, who alone were left of the children born into
and borne out of the house. The young man waited till they were within
whispering distance of each other, and then he gasped: "Where you been?"

The boy answered, promptly, "None your business," and went up the steps
before the young man, with a lop-eared, liver-colored mongrel at his
heels. He pulled off his ragged straw hat and flung it on the floor of
the porch. "Dinner over?" he demanded.