The rain beat down upon
him and, as he went around the house with his burden, the wind, shaking
loose a dead branch from a small apple tree in the yard, blew it against
his face, leaving a long smarting scratch. At the fence before the house
he stopped and threw his burden down a short grassy bank into the road.
Then turning he went, bareheaded, through the gate and up the street.
"I will go for Mary Underwood," he thought, his mind returning to the
friend who years before had walked with him on country roads and whose
friendship he had dropped because of John Telfer's tirades against all
women. He stumbled along the sidewalk, the rain beating down upon his bare
head.
"We need a woman in our house," he kept saying over and over to himself.
"We need a woman in our house."
CHAPTER VII
Leaning against the wall under the veranda of Mary Underwood's house, Sam
tried to get in his mind a remembrance of what had brought him there. He
had walked bareheaded through Main Street and out along a country road.
Twice he had fallen, covering his clothes with mud. He had forgotten the
purpose of his walk and had tramped on and on. The unexpected and terrible
hatred of his father that had come upon him in the tense silence of the
kitchen had so paralysed his brain that he now felt light-headed and
wonderfully happy and carefree.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133