Poppa was putting through a big land deal and the telegram nearly jolted him out of his wits. He would not wait to extend his option. He ran down to the station and swung on a train just pulling out. He did not even stop for the collar, toothbrush, and nightgown that constituted his usual going-away equipment. He spent a horrible night in the smoking car, sleeping among his distorted limbs like a wrecked grasshopper. At Terre Haute he took a taxicab to Hattie’s house, and was in such a mental and facial disarray when he rang the bell that the maid who answered it slammed the door on him and ran to tell her mistress that there was a crazy man on the porch. Hattie peeked through the little side window and recognized her father, and flung open the door and her arms to him. He expected to find Momma on her deathbed, but she was at breakfast, crying into her rolled oats. “What on earth is the matter of you, Momma?” he gasped. “Nothing’s the matter of me,” she snapped. “What on earth’s the matter of you? Had your breakfast? Sed-down! And--Hattie, could you ask your girl to fry him a negg--turned over, you remember; and if the coffee’s out, here you can have the rest of mine.” Poppa sank into a chair and consented to break his fast while the news was broken to him. The word “pancreas” dazed him. It sounded like something for breakfast till Hattie explained. Then he was convinced. There is something about a new word that solves all mysteries for most people, and Poppa was very much like most people. When Hattie had explained that Dr. Appleyard himself had settled upon the pancreas and its malfunctioning, or something like that, as the secret of Momma’s indomitable obscurities, Poppa set his jaw. “When’s first train to N’York?” he asked. “I’m not goin’, I tell you,” Momma pealed. “I’m not goin’ one step.” “You are goin’!” Poppa stormed. “Why ain’t you goin’?” “Because it costs too much money.” That is a thing a man likes to say for himself. He cannot endure to hear anyone else tell it to him. It is insulting. When the children were young, Momma had always said it first when she wanted to make sure of his consenting to an expenditure. Things she would never have browbeaten or wept out of him into permitting, she could always force him to force her to accept by that approach--using the word “force” as card tricksters do when they deftly permit you to drag from them the one card that will work the trick. But now Momma was not stacking the cards. She had economized for so many decades that money had become a thing sacrosanct. Unwittingly she had dealt Poppa the deadliest humiliation in her power, for he was what Carthage people called “rich”; he had lands and lands in his own and Momma’s name, and big sums out on mortgages. A standard of living that had been forced on him by his early poverty had sufficed him in his gradual wealth.