Page:Frank Owen - Rare Earth, 1931.djvu/33

 year our crops will be heavier than ever. I wonder how one measures the capacity which man must reach to be satisfied."

Long after Jethro had gone Roma sat buried in thought before the open-fire. There had been a suggestion of tragedy in her husband's voice. She sensed that at last he was aware that his boy was blind. She loved Jethro so intensely that it was almost worship. Grim, gaunt, silent, never showing love or sentiment, there was still something grand about him. The way he went about his fields, the way the soil responded to his efforts. There was something big about Jethro. His splendor lay not in a thin veneer, a worthless polish, but in his very being. He was like a gnarled oak tree. That night she knew that he was suffering more acutely than he had ever suffered in his life. All the love which he had for his boy, long dormant, had been awakened by that dim realization of blindness. Roma longed to go to him, to take his head in her arms, to comfort him. But men like Jethro must be left alone in their sorrow. They must suffer in silence.