ps stiffened. "A long time ago a couple of people lived
in the Garden of Eden," he said shortly. "And I reckon what Eve said
wasn't much diff'rent from that. Well, they moved away all right."

There was a long silence in the room, and the father at last broke it
with his eyes fixed on his eldest son.

"Those great men you talk about, Ham--" he spoke with deliberate
gravity--"them fellers you seem to think are sort of brothers of
yours--most of them came to times when they saw things topplin' down all
round 'em. They sent your Napoleon to St. Helena an' a lot of others
didn't do much better in the long run. Julius Caesar was pretty great an'
pretty ambitious. He fell. There's a heap to be said fer livin' straight
an' simple. We're self-respectin' men an' women with clean blood in our
veins that don't have to bow down to no man. We've lived honest an'
worked hard, but sometimes when spring comes on an' I'm followin' the
plow an' the blackbirds are followin' me along the furrow, I feel like
God ain't so far away. When they buries me out there amongst those I've
loved an' been true to, I reckon I'll rest."

"Your father," the son reminded him, "wasn't a young feller when Lincoln
called for volunteers, but he didn't stay here because he wanted to
rest. He went, an' now he's restin' down there at Shiloh. I want to
answer my call. I'm willin' to take my chance of restin' where death
finds me."

Outside, across the ice-locked lake and through the snow-burdened forest
swept the wolf-like howl of the wind.

Inside, there was the silence of a deeply troubled indecision. At last,
Tom Burton said:

"It's a right-hard thing to stake the welfare of a family on a boy's
notion of his own greatness--a notion that ain't never been tried out.
There's just one thing you've convinced me of, and it's this: You may
not be able to do anything worth-while in the world outside. You may be
a failure there, but I'm pretty sure, in your frame of mind, you'll be a
failure here. The man that makes a fight here has got to have his heart
in it an' he's got to love the soil. That don't fit your case! I ain't
ready to admit yet that I ain't the head of my own family. I ain't made
up my mind yet what we'll do. Maybe we'll stay right here an' maybe
we'll go away." The father ran one hand wearily through the thick hair
on his forehead and shook his head. "I've heard you out, an' we'll all
think on it an' dream on it. I've found right often when a felle