Page:Czechoslovak stories.pdf/261

 ﻿soil supported us and before us our grandfather and before him all our forefathers. From time out of mind the Nešněras have occupied this land and have provided dowers for their daughters and portions for the sons, as well as has anyone else and yet there was always bread enough remaining for all. And you are not able to make a living here when you had no debts to pay and are the only child?”

“Make a living or not—that isn’t the question! I don’t want to. I’ve had enough of plodding over these clods. And why shouldn’t I sell when he wants it and will pay well for it?”

“Dear Christ Jesus!” sighed the old man. “When you talk this way and only chatter of money, we never will get to an agreement.”

“So you see, father, it’s best not to talk at all. You know I’ve inherited a head as stubborn as yours and what gets sown in it, you can’t thresh out with a club,” the son reminded him almost gently.

But that gentleness which was forced and artificial was like oil poured on a fire. The old man leaped up, and swinging his heavy cane over his head, screamed, “If I knew it would help, if it’s to be a question of your head or my stick, I’d—,”

The door creaked and the son’s wife with their two boys entered. The old man, seeing his daughter-in-law with the children, quickly laid his stick on the table. He honored in his son the father of a family and did not wish to cause unpleasantness for the children.