toil alone, but of youth still growing to manhood, of
absolute health. Whether he felt any mortification at his mother's
indifference is doubtful. Assuredly life-long experience had taught him
that nothing better was to be expected from her. How far he had
unconsciously grown callous to things as they were at home, there is no
telling. Ordinarily we become in such matters what we must; but it is
likewise true that the first and last proof of high personal
superiority is the native, irrepressible power of the mind to create
standards which rise above all experience and surroundings; to carry
everywhere with itself, whether it will or not, a blazing, scorching
censorship of the facts that offend it. Regarding the household
management of his mother, David at least never murmured; what he
secretly felt he alone knew, perhaps not even he, since he was no
self-examiner. As to those shortcomings of hers which he could not fail
to see, for them he unconsciously showed tenderest compassion.

She had indulged so long her sloth even in the operation of thinking,
that few ideas now rose from the inner void to disturb the apathetic
surface; and she did not hesitate to recur to any one of these any
number of times in a conversation with the same person.

"What makes you so late?"

"I wanted to finish a shock. Then there was the feeding, and the wood
to cut. And I had to warm my room up a little before I could wash."

"Is it going to snow?"

"It's hard to say. The weather looks very unsettled and threatening.
That's one reason why I wanted to finish my shock."

There was silence for a while. David was too ravenous to talk; and his
mother's habit was to utter one sentence at a time.

"I got three fresh eggs to-day; one had dropped from the roost and
frozen; it was cracked, but it will do for the coffee in the morning."

"Winter must be nearly over if the hens are beginning to lay: THEY
know. They must have some fresh nests."

"The cook wants to kill one of the old ones for soup to-morrow."

"What an evil-minded cook!"

It was with his mother only that David showed the new cheerfulness that
had begun to manifest itself in him since his return from college. She,
however, did not understand the reasons of this and viewed it
unfavorably.

"We opened a hole in the last hill of turnips to-day."

She spoke with uneasiness.

"There'll be enough to last, I reckon, mother."

"You needn't pack any more chips to the smoke-house: