Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/138

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126
RESURRECTION ROCK

grandmother came out into the cold without wrap or shawl. She laid a slender, trembling hand upon Ethel, and her old eyes besought her granddaughter with piteous pleadings.

"Debsie," she said, calling Ethel again by her mother's name. "My little Deborah's daughter, don't set yourself against your father once more."

Ethel was familiar with the habit by which, under emotion, her grandmother might confuse in the same sentence herself and her mother. Her grandmother was begging her not to set herself against her grandfather as her mother had done. Ethel had not known that her mother had set herself against her grandfather; she had always believed that her father had undertaken the quarrel.

"It may not be too late yet," her grandmother continued to plead. "Come back into the house with me, and I will try what I can do with him."

"I don't want you to," Ethel said; then her voice broke. "Oh, grandmother!" She put her arms about the slight, straight little old lady and kissed her passionately. "Good-by, grandmother."

"There; there," the old lady said, patting her. Her own eyes were brimming, but she made no further effort to beg Ethel to remain. Instead she spoke only of her husband.

"Your grandfather was a great man, Ethel," she said proudly. "It is so easy for young folks, who know things only as they are, to judge hard what was done in the old days. You think of wood as valuable; but in my day, when I was a girl in the forest below here on the other side, the great, tall trees were just obstructions; my father and his neighbors would slash them, burn them or do anything to clear the ground of