Page:Gilbert Parker--The Lane that had No Turning.djvu/210

194 sniff at the brown sugar—she had always had white at the hotel; and he noted that she let Rodney’s mother clear away and wash the dinner things herself. He felt the little crack of doom before it came.

It came about three o’clock. He did not return to the rye-field after dinner, but stayed and waited to hear what Rodney had to say. Rodney did not tell his little story well, for he foresaw trouble in the old home; but he had to face this and all coming dilemmas as best he might. With a kind of shame-facedness, yet with an attempt to carry the thing off lightly, he told Uncle Jim, while, inside, his wife told the old mother, that the business of the hotel had gone to pot (he did not say who was the cause of that), and they were selling out to his partner and coming to live on the farm.

"I’m tired anyway of the hotel job," said Rodney. "Farming’s a better life. Don’t you think so, dad?"

"It’s better for me, Rod," answered Uncle Jim, "it’s better for me."

Rodney was a little uneasy. "But won’t it be better for me?" he asked.

"Mebbe," was the slow answer, "mebbe, mebbe so."

"And then there’s mother, she’s getting too old for the work, ain’t she?"

"She’s done it straight along," answered the old man, "straight along till now."

"But Millie can help her, and we’ll have a hired girl, eh?"

"I dunno, I dunno," was the brooding answer; "the place ain’t going to stand it."

"We’ll get more out of it," answered Rodney. "I’ll stock it up, I’ll put more under barley. All the thing wants is working, dad. Put more in, get more out. Now ain’t that right?"