The Little Doctor had taken his pipe away from
him that morning, and had badgered him into taking a certain
decoction whose taste lingered bitterly. The paper he was
reading was four days old and he disagreed with its political
policy, and there was no telling when anyone would have time
to go in after the mail and his favorite paper. Ranch work
was growing heavier each year in proportion to the lightening
of range work. He was going to sow another twenty acres of
alfalfa, and to do that he must cut down the size of his
pasture--something that always went against the grain. He had
not been able to renew his lease of government land,--which
also went against the grain. And the Kid, like the last
affliction which the Lord sent unto Job--I've forgotten
whether that was boils or the butchery of his offspring--came
loping down the length of the porch and kicked the Old Man's
bunion with a stubby boot-toe.
Thus was born the psychological moment when the treachery of
the Happy Family would cut deepest.
They came, bunched and talking low-voiced together with
hatbrims hiding shamed eyes, a type-true group of workers
bearing a grievance. Not a man was absent--the Happy Family
saw to that! Even Patsy, big and sloppy and bearing with him
stale kitchen odors, limped stolidly in the rear beside Slim,
who looked guilty as though he had been strangling somebody's
favorite cat.
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