Page:O Henry Prize Stories of 1924.djvu/175

Rh It seems a little funny. His mother came of one of the very finest families around here—the Millards. But his father was straight-out Yankee. The old man came down here from Illinois after the Civil War—Springfield, Illinois, I think they say.”

“Oh, indeed?” I murmured. “Good God, you don’t say so!”

So, the mystery about Agard evaporated. At last I had located his Ethical Background. It was not my background, in any vital sense—I should have had wit enough to know that. His was rather palpably connected with the lowly Abraham Lincoln’s. Background. . . . Of course, we are all free to choose our lives to a certain extent; but, on the other hand, there always remains the question of why we choose it.