The Man From The Bitter Roots

"Pride or no pride, he'll do as I say," Burt answered, with an obstinacy of tone which made the farmer's wife comment mentally that it was not difficult to see from whom the boy had inherited that trait.

But it was the only one, since, save in coloring and features, they were totally dissimilar, and Burt seemed to have no understanding of his passionate, warm-hearted, imaginative son. Perhaps, unknown to himself, he harbored a secret resentment that Bruce had not been the little girl whose picture had been as fixed and clear in his mind before Bruce came as though she were already an actuality. She was to have had flaxen hair, with blue ribbons in it, and teeth like tiny, sharp pearls. She was to have come dancing to meet him on her toes, and to have snuggled contentedly on his lap when he returned from long rides on the range. Boys were all right, but he had a vague notion that they belonged to their mothers. Bruce was distinctly "his mother's boy," and this was tacitly understood. It was to her he went with his hurts for caresses, and with his confidences for sympathy and understanding.

Now there was nothing in Bruce's mind but to get to his mother. While his breath lasted and he burned with outraged pride and humiliation, the boy ran, his thought a confused jumble of mortification that Mrs. Mosher should know that he got "lickings," of regret for the gizzard and mashed potatoes and lemon pie, of wonder as to what his mother would say when he came home in the middle of the night and told her that he had walked all the way alone.

He dropped to a trot, and then to a walk, for it was hot, and even a hurt and angry boy cannot run forever. The tears dried to grimy streaks on his cheeks, and the sun blistered his face and neck, while he discovered that stretches of stony road were mighty hard on the soles of the feet. But he walked on purposefully, with no thought of going back, thinking of the comforting arms and shoulder that awaited him at the other end. After all, nobody took any interest in rocks, except mother; nobody cared about the things he really liked, except mother.

Toward the end of the afternoon his footsteps lagged, and sunset found him resting by the roadside. He was so hungry! He felt so little, so alone, and the coming darkness brought disturbing thoughts of coyotes and prairie wolves, of robbers and ghosts that the hired man said he had seen when he had stayed out too late o' nights.