ow! Fred never went over the top and out to back up the argument
you're making now!

FEJEVARY: (_stiffly_) Very well, I will discontinue the argument I'm
making now. I've been trying to save you from--pretty serious things.
The regret of having stood in the way of Morton College--(_his voice
falling_) the horror of having driven your father insane.

MADELINE: _What?_

FEJEVARY: One more thing would do it. Just the other day I was talking
with Professor Holden about your father. His idea of him relates back to
the pioneer life--another price paid for this country. The lives back of
him were too hard. Your great-grandmother Morton--the first white woman
in this region--she dared too much, was too lonely, feared and bore too
much. They did it, for the task gave them a courage for the task. But
it--left a scar.

MADELINE: And father is that--(_can hardly say it_)--scar. (_fighting
the idea_) But Grandfather Morton was not like that.

FEJEVARY: No; he had the vision of the future; he was robust with
feeling for others. (_gently_) But Holden feels your father is
the--dwarfed pioneer child. The way he concentrates on corn--excludes
all else--as if unable to free himself from their old battle with the
earth.

MADELINE: (_almost crying_) I think it's pretty terrible to--wish all
that on poor father.

FEJEVARY: Well, my dear child, it's life has 'wished it on him'. It's
just one other way of paying the price for his country. We needn't get
it for nothing. I feel that all our chivalry should go to your father in
his--heritage of loneliness.

MADELINE: Father couldn't always have been--dwarfed. Mother wouldn't
have cared for him if he had always been--like that.

FEJEVARY: No, if he could have had love to live in. But no endurance for
losing it. Too much had been endured just before life got to him.

MADELINE: Do you know, Uncle Felix--I'm afraid that's true? (_he nods_)
Sometimes when I'm with father I feel those things near--the--the too
much--the too hard,--feel them as you'd feel the cold. And now that it's
different--easier--he can't come into the world that's been earned. Oh,
I wish I could help him!

(_As they sit there together, now for the first time really together,
there is a shrill shout of derision from outside_.)

MADELINE: What's that? (_a whistled call_) Horace! That's Horace's call.
That's for his gang. Are they going to start something now that will get
Atma in jail?

FEJEVARY: More likely he's tr