Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/138

 rate explanation of a very simple problem. "I suppose you can imagine the case of mother, for instance, getting into a difference of opinion with a neighbor, and your admitting that he was as much in the right as she. But if he were to lift his hand against her, I reckon you wouldn't think twice before you knocked him down."

The trouble in Ben's face deepened. The allusion to his mother only made things worse. The old lady had "plenty of grit," but her eyes were so much brighter than usual when he called to see her that morning that he had felt anxious. She was an old woman and ought not to be called upon for the exercise of heroism.

William himself was too preoccupied to be very much alive to other people's feelings. Among all the confused experiences of that time of preparation and departure there was only one moment that stood out clearly in his mind, that dwelt with him in the weeks that followed, when he lay awake under the stars in the home camp, and later when he came into close quarters with the realities of war.

The apologetic embarrassment of his discomfited accusers made very little impression upon him, while even as to his wife herself, he seemed to have forgotten just what she did and said at the last. He could recall hardly anything about his parting with his brothers and sisters. He remembered the grip of the dry and wrinkled hand of age, when he kissed his mother, and that her