It was evident at breakfast that Hawker's sisters had achieved information. "What's the matter with you this morning?" asked one. "You look as if you hadn't slep' well."  
"There is nothing the matter with me," he rejoined, looking at his plate.
 
"Well, you look kind of broke up."
 
"How I look is of no consequence. I tell you there is nothing the matter with me."
 
"Oh!" said his sister. She exchanged meaning glances with the other feminine members of the family. Presently the other sister observed, "I heard she was going home to-day."
 
"Who?" said Hawker, with a challenge in his tone.
 
"Why, that New York girl—Miss What's-her-name," replied the sister, with an undaunted smile.
 
"Did you, indeed? Well, perhaps she is."
 
"Oh, you don't know for sure, I s'pose."
 
Hawker arose from the table, and, taking his hat, went away.
 
"Mary!" said the mother, in the tone of belated but .
 
"Well, I don't care. He needn't be so grand. I didn't go to tease him. I don't care."
 
"Well, you ought to care," said the old man suddenly. "There's no sense in you wimen folks the boy all the time. Let him alone with his own business, can't you?"
 
"Well, ain't we leaving him alone?"
 
"No, you ain't—'cept when he ain't here. I don't wonder the boy grabs his hat and skips out when you git to going."
 
"Well, what did we say to him now? Tell us what we said to him that was so dreadful."
 
"Aw, thunder an' lightnin'!" cried the old man with a sudden great . They seemed to know by this ejaculation that he had emerged in an instant from that place where man endures, and they ended the discussion. The old man continued his breakfast.
 
During his walk that morning Hawker visited a certain , a certain lake, and some roads, paths, , nooks. Later in the day he made a , choosing an hour when the atmosphere was of a dark blue, like powder smoke in the shade of trees, and the western sky was burning in strips of red. He painted with a wild face, like a man who is .
 
After supper he and his father strolled under the apple in the and smoked. Once he gestured wearily. "Oh, I guess I'll go back to New York in a few days."
 
"Um," replied his father calmly. "All right, William."
 
Several days later Hawker his father in the barnyard. "I suppose you think sometimes I don't care so much about you and the folks and the old place any more; but I do."
 
"Um," said the old man............