Every detail of the kitchen, the heat, the flies buzzing aloft, the poor furniture, the dress of the people--all smote him like the lash of a wire whip. His brother was a man of great character. He could see that now. His deep-set, gray eyes and rugged face showed at thirty a man of great natural ability. He had more of the Scotch in his face than Howard, and he looked much older. He was dressed, like the old man and the boy, in a checked shirt, without vest. His suspenders, once gay-colored, had given most of their color to his shirt, and had marked irregular broad bands of pink and brown and green over his shoulders. His hair was uncombed, merely pushed away from his face. He wore a mustache only, though his face was covered with a week's growth of beard. His face was rather gaunt, and was brown as leather. Howard could not eat much. He was disturbed by his mother's strange silence and oppression, and sickened by the long-drawn gasps with which the old man ate his bread and milk, and by the way the boy ate. He had his knife gripped tightly in his fist, knuckles up, and was scooping honey upon his bread. The baby, having ceased to be afraid, was curious, gazing silently at the stranger. "Hello, little one! Come and see your uncle. Eh? Course 'e will," cooed Howard, in the attempt to escape the depressing atmosphere. The little one listened to his inflections as a kitten does, and at last lifted its arms in sign of surrender. The mother's face cleared up a little. "I declare, she wants to go to you." "Course she does. Dogs and kittens always come to me when I call 'em. Why shouldn't my own niece come?" He took the little one and began walking up and down the kitchen with her, while she pulled at his beard and nose. "I ought to have you, my lady, in my new comedy. You'd bring down the house." "You don't mean to say you put babies on the stage, Howard," said his mother in surprise. "Oh, yes. Domestic comedy must have a baby these days." "Well, that's another way of makin' a livin', sure," said Grant. The baby had cleared the atmosphere a little. "I s'pose you fellers make a pile of money." "Sometimes we make a thousand a week; oftener we don't." "A thousand dollars!" They all stared. "A thousand dollars sometimes, and then lose it all the next week in another town. The dramatic business is a good deal like gambling--you take your chances." "I wish you weren't in it, Howard. I don't like to have my son--" "I wish I was in somethin' that paid better than farmin'. Anything under God's heavens is better 'n farmin'," said Grant. "No, I ain't laid up much," Howard went on, as if explaining why he hadn't helped them. "Costs me a good deal to live, and I need about ten thousand dollars leeway to work on. I've made a good living, but I--I ain't made any money." Grant looked at him, darkly meditative. Howard went on: "How'd ye come to sell the old farm? I was in hopes--"