loudly--some old forgotten grievance coming back to his mind, he talked of
the cost of school books.

"They change the books in the school too often," he declared in a loud
voice, turning and facing the kitchen stove, as though addressing an
audience. "It is a scheme to graft on old soldiers who have children. I
will not stand it."

Sam, enraged beyond speech, tore a leaf from a notebook and scrawled a
message upon it.

"Be silent," he wrote. "If you say another word or make another sound to
disturb mother I will choke you and throw you like a dead dog into the
street."

Reaching across the table and touching his father on the hand with a fork
taken from among the dishes, he laid the note upon the table under the
lamp before his eyes. He was fighting with himself to control a desire to
spring across the room and kill the man who he believed had brought his
mother to her death and who now sat bellowing and talking at her very
death bed. The desire distorted his mind so that he stared about the
kitchen like one seized with an insane nightmare.

Windy, taking the note in his hand, read it slowly and then, not
understanding its import and but half getting its sense, put it in his
pocket.

"A dog is dead, eh?" he shouted. "Well you're getting too big and smart,
lad. What do I care for a dead dog?"