snowed, he told his mother. But he went because
he couldn't sit there any longer, because he was about to explode with
rage and grief and fear and bitterness.

He did not go toward the woodpile--what difference did dry kindling make
now? At the side of the house he stooped down and softly called Buck.
The hound came to him, wriggling along under the beams, and he leaned
against the house and lovingly pulled the briar-torn ears. A long time
he stayed there, feeling on his face already the fine mist of snow.
To-morrow the ground would be white; it didn't snow often in that
country; day after to-morrow everybody would hunt rabbits--everybody but
him and Buck.

It was snowing hard when at last he went back into the warm room, so
warm that he pulled off his coat. Once more he tried to sit still in the
split-bottom chair. But there is no rage that consumes like the rage of
a boy. In its presence he is so helpless! If he were a man, thought
Davy, he would go to Old Man Thornycroft's house that night, call him
out, and thrash him in the road. If he were a man, he would curse, he
would do something. He looked wildly about the room, the hopelessness of
it all coming over him in a wave. Then suddenly, because he wasn't a
man, because he couldn't do what he wanted to do, he began to cry, not
as a boy cries, but more as a man cries, in shame and bitterness, his
shoulders shaken by great convulsive sobs, his head buried in his hands,
his fingers running through his tangled mop of hair.

"Davy, Davy!" The sewing and the scissors slipped to the floor. His
mother was down on her knees beside him, one arm about his shoulders,
trying to pry his face from his hands, trying to look into his eyes.
"You're my man, Davy! You're the only man, the only help I've got.
You're my life, Davy. Poor boy! Poor child!"

He caught hold of her convulsively, and she pressed his head against her
breast. Then he saw that she was crying, and he grew quiet, and wiped
his eyes with his ragged coat sleeve.

"I'm all right now, Ma," he said; but he looked at her wildly.

She did not follow him into his little unceiled bedroom. She must have
known that he had reached that age where no woman could help him. It
must be a man now to whom he could pin his faith. And while he lay
awake, tumbling and tossing, along with bitter thoughts of Old Man
Thornycroft came other bitter thoughts of Mr. Kirby, whom, deep down in
his boy's heart he had worshipped--Mr. Kirby, w