Jim Dawson had always been able to settle his
disputes without difficulty or delay. There was something to be done
now. The muscles swelled in his arms. Surely something could be
done!...
Then the wanton cruelty, the utter brutality of the printed page came
home to him--there was no way, no answer.
Strange to say, he felt no resentment for himself; even the paragraph
about the old lover, with its hidden and sinister meaning, angered him
only in its relation to her. Why shouldn't the man admire her if he was
an old lover?--Kate must have had dozens of men in love with her--why
shouldn't any man admire her?
So he talked and reasoned with himself, trying to keep the cruel hurt
of the words out of his heart.
Everyone in his household was asleep when he reached home. He stabled
his team with the help of his lantern, and then, going into the
comfortable kitchen, he found the lunch the housekeeper had left for
him. He thought of the many merry meals he and Kate had had on this
same kitchen table, but now it seemed a poor, cold thing to sit down
and eat alone and in silence.
With his customary thoughtfulness he cleared away the lunch before
going to his room. Then, lamp in hand, he went, as he and Kate had
always done, to the children's room, and looked long and lovingly at
his boy and girl asleep in their cots--the boy so like himself, with
his broad forehead and brown curls. He bent over him and kissed him
tenderly--Kate's boy.
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