's distrust, and honestly as he tried
not to let it affect his feeling for his son, Martin found himself as
much repelled by it as he had once been drawn to little Rose by her
sweet faith and affection. Yet, in spite of the only too slightly
veiled enmity between them, he was rather proud of the handsome lad
and determined to give him a thorough stockman's and agriculturist's
training. Some day he would run this farm, and Martin had put too much
of his very blood into it not to make sure that the hands into which it
would fall became competent. With almost impersonal approval he noticed
the perfect co-ordination of the boy's muscles, his insatiable curiosity
about machinery and his fondness for animals; all of which only made his
pronounced distaste for work just that much more aggravating. He was,
his father decided contemptuously, a dreamer.

Martin reached this conclusion early in his son's life--Bill was
nine--and he determined to grind the objectionable tendency out of him.
The youngster had a way of stopping for no reason whatever and just
standing there. For all his iron self-control, it nearly drove the
energetic man to violence. He would leave Bill in the barn to shovel
the manure into the litter-carrier--a good fifteen-minute job; he would
return in half an hour to find him sitting in the alleyway, staring down
into his idle scoop.

"God Almighty!" Martin would explode. "How many times must I tell you to
do a thing?"

The boy would look up slowly, like a frightened colt, expecting a blow,
his non-resistance as angering as his indolence. Gazing at the enormous,
imposing person who was his father, he would simply wait with wide open
eyes--eyes that reminded Martin of a calf begging for a bucket of milk.

"I'm asking you! Answer when I speak. Have you lost the use of your
tongue? What are you, anyway--a lump of jelly? Didn't I tell you to
clean this barn? It's fly time and no wonder the cows suffer and slack
up on their milk when there is a lazy bones like you around who won't
even help haul away the manure."

"I was just a-goin' to."

"You should have been through long ago. What are you good for, is what
I'd like to find out. You eat a big bellyful and what do you give in
return? Do you expect to go through the world like this--having other
people do your work for you? If this job isn't finished in fifteen
minutes, I'll whip you."

Bill would work swiftly and painfully, for the carrier was high and
hard