of a younger, interested and excited by the brief screaming insanity of his temper when, goaded and taunted from some deep dream, he would seize a carving knife and pursue them, or batter his head against the walls.
They felt that he was “queer”—the other boys preached the smug cowardice of the child-herd, defending themselves, when their persecutions were discovered, by saying they would make a “real boy” of him. But there grew up in him a deep affection for Ben who stalked occasionally and softly through the house, guarding even then with scowling eyes, and surly speech, the secret life. Ben was a stranger: some deep instinct drew him to his child-brother, a portion of his small earnings as a paper-carrier he spent in gifts and amusement for Eugene, admonishing him sullenly, cuffing him occasionally, but defending him before the others.
Gant, as he watched his brooding face set for hours before a firelit book of pictures, concluded that the boy liked books, more vaguely, that he would make a lawyer of him, send him into politics, see him elected to the governorship, the Senate, the presidency. And he unfolded to him time after time all the rude American legendry of the country boys who became great men because they were country boys, poor boys, and hard-working farm boys. But Eliza thought of him as a scholar, a learned man, a professor, and with that convenient afterthought that annoyed Gant so deeply, but by which she firmly convinced herself, she saw in this book-brooder the fruit of her own deliberate design.
“I read every moment I could get the chance the summer before he was born,” she said. And then, with a complacent and confidential smile which, Gant knew, always preceded some reference to her family, she said: “I tell you what: it may all come out in the Third Generation.”
“The Third Generation be Goddamned!” answered Gant furiously.
“Now, I want to tell you,” she went on thoughtfully, speaking with her forefinger, “folks have always said that his grandfather would have made a fine scholar if—”
“Merciful God!” said Gant, getting up suddenly and striding about
