Mabelle, a chatelaine now, wanted to shine among
them, and wantedSidney to shine.
What areyou going to do with yourself,
anyway?
And that was all the conversationof Uncle
Rob.
And attend a little one-room school with aboob for
a teacher? There was, forfurniture, only a camp cot, with a kitchen chair, a
washstand and abureau.
Five minutes after he had entered the house, his
father laughed. Heneeded mothering, she said, and he got it and was convinced that
heliked it. The hill people, anywhere in the world, do not intrude or
encourageintrusion. Well, you will care so much for those things, or Ill care you,
myfine young man! I wonder if the nightbreeze slips through the mowing?
Sidney entered his uncles room for the first time
in his life.
He could not seeclear to the back wall, and he
imagined abominable monsters lurkingthere. Already thesepastures were doomed and
abandoned.
Then, at sixteen, he came to life suddenly, on an
early Junemorning, on his grandfathers farm. He could endure wet dawns, wildwinds,
all-day drenching.
Better gooff some place and get hold of yourself.
Say, how dothe hicks learn anything if they dont go to the movies?
Shame we were fooled aboutthat McGee
fellow.
For his son, Sidney, William Dow had even larger
ambitions.
I have a hunch Im going to get double
pinochle.
What areyou going to do with yourself, anyway?