That’s on a level with every other effort you’ve ever made to know me.”
“Oh,” said Luke ironically, “you don’t think we understand you?”
“No,” Eugene said quietly. “I don’t think you do. You know nothing whatever about me. I know nothing about you—or any of you. I have lived here with you for seventeen years and I’m a stranger. In all that time have you ever talked to me like a brother? Have you ever told me anything of yourself? Have you ever tried to be a friend or a companion to me?”
“I don’t know what you want,” Luke answered, “but I thought I was acting for the best. As to telling you about myself, what do you want to know?”
“Well,” said Eugene slowly, “you’re six years older than I am: you’ve been away to school, you’ve worked in big cities, and you are now enlisted in the United States Navy. Why do you always act like God Almighty,” he continued with rankling bitterness. “I know what sailors do! You’re no better than I am! What about liquor? What about women?”
“That’s no way to talk before your mother,” said Luke sternly.
“No, son,” said Eliza in a troubled voice. “I don’t like that way of talking.”
“Then I won’t talk like that,” Eugene said. “But I had expected you to say that. We do not want to be told what we know. We do not want to call things by their names, although we’re willing to call one another bad ones. We call meanness nobility and hatred honor. The way to make yourself a hero is to make me out a scoundrel. You won’t admit that either, but it’s true. Well, then, Luke, we won’t talk of the ladies, black or white, you may or may not know, because it would make you uncomfortable. Instead, you can keep on being God and I’ll listen to your advice, like a little boy in Sunday School. But I’d rather read the Ten Commandments where it’s written down shorter and better.”
“Son,” said Eliza again with her ancient look of trouble and frustration, “we must try to get on together.”
“No,” he said. “Alone. I have done an apprenticeship here with you for seventeen years, but it is coming to an end. I know now
