Inheriting a splendid physique from both parents, at six little
Bill was as tall as the average child of eight, well set up and
sturdy, afraid of nothing on the place except Martin, who,
resenting his attitude, not unreasonably put the blame for it on
his wife. "It's not what I do to him," he told her, "it's what
you teach him to think I might do that makes him dislike me." To
which Rose looked volumes, but made no reply.
Whatever the reason for the child's distrust, and honestly as he
tried not to let it affect his feeling for his son, Martin found
himself as much repelled by it as he had once been drawn to
little Rose by her sweet faith and affection. Yet, in spite of
the only too slightly veiled enmity between them, he was rather
proud of the handsome lad and determined to give him a thorough
stockman's and agriculturist's training. Some day he would run
this farm, and Martin had put too much of his very blood into it
not to make sure that the hands into which it would fall became
competent. With almost impersonal approval he noticed the perfect
co-ordination of the boy's muscles, his insatiable curiosity
about machinery and his fondness for animals; all of which only
made his pronounced distaste for work just that much more
aggravating. He was, his father decided contemptuously, a
dreamer.
Martin reached this conclusion early in his son's life--Bill was
nine--and he determined to grind the objectionable tendency out
of him.
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