Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/14

6 then, young man, that I'm not only tryin' to give you hell but to include your whole generation, if you're a sample of it. Listen to me!" wriggling erect again. "I come up on a Pennsylvania farm with never enough to wear, an' sometimes not enough to eat. I worked from th' time I can remember. When I went to school it was because there was no work to do. You come up in a house that when it was built was th' finest in all Detroit. You had more clothes in your first ten years than I'd had before you were born. What was spent on your grub in one month would've kept my brothers an' sisters a year, an' I've lost track how many of us there was. You never did a tap for yourself from th' time your mother turned you over to a nurse girl until you went to college, an' then you lived in a club with a nigger to look after you. You've gone through all the schools there are, an' what I spent on you would've educated my school district."

He tapped the arm of his chair with a trembling hand. "When you got out of college, I sort of thought maybe you'd start in an' help th' old man out, you bein' th' only child," a mild disappointment in the tone. "Anyhow, I thought—But you didn't. I had to have somebody, so I hired Rowe. He knows how to work; not like I did, not with an axe of course, but with his head. Work's all pretty much the same. He's a good boy, but sometimes it grinds me to think I have to turn my affairs over to some other man's son to run. You're as strong as I ever was; you know about things that I never heard of," voice rising—"But I'm through! I'm goin' on th' back trail again. Now—you talk!" and from his tone it was certain that he added in his own thoughts, "If you dare!"