Page:Post - Uncle Abner (Appleton, 1918).djvu/127

 eyes glance down. The glance did not escape Abner and he went on.

"I saw the crowbar in the grass there some time ago," he said; "but what has the crowbar to do with your two trips?"

I, too, saw now the iron bar. It was the thing that had glittered in the sun.

The man threw back his shoulders; he lifted his face and stood up. There came upon him the pose and expression of one who steps out at last desperately into the open.

"Yes," he said, "I was here last night. It was my horse that made those tracks in the road and it is my horse that is hidden in the woods now. And that is my crowbar in the grass. . . . And do you want to know why I made those two trips, and why I brought that crowbar, and why I hid my horse? . . . Well, I'll tell you, since there is no shame in you and no decent feeling, and you are determined to have it. . . . You can't understand, Abner, because you have a heart of stone; but I tell you I wanted to see my father's grave before I left the country forever. I was ashamed to meet the people over here and so I came in the night. When I got here I saw that the heavy slab over my father's grave had settled down and was wedged in against the coping. I tried to straighten it up, but I could not. . . . Well, what would you have done, Abner—gone away and left your father's tomb a ruin? . . . No matter what you would have done! I 114