SEEING WITH DIFFERENT EYES

It was on the boy’s account that they had their first and last serious quarrel a few hours later.  This was by no means the first time that they had openly disagreed, and had come to rather sharp words.  Their views of many things were too far apart for that to have been the case, but there had never before been any great or lasting trouble by reason of their difference of opinion.  Ruth, gentle and yielding, was ever most timidly fearful of being at fault; William, hard and unyielding, was always perfectly certain of being in the right.  It was therefore to be expected that his opinions should generally rule, and that he should construe her readiness to yield and her self-distrust, as proofs that he was not mistaken.  Rock-ribbed infallibility could hardly be expected to comprehend the doubts that assail a sensitive soul.

William, naturally enough, had never noted that in giving way, Ruth had not turned far or long from anything involving a principle.  The truth was that she had merely evaded his intolerance of any and all difference of opinion—­as a deep stream quietly flows round an immovable rock—­only to turn gently back into its own course as soon as might be.  And even in doing this, she had put aside only her own opinions and feelings and rights, never those of any one else.  But this present dispute over David was wholly unlike any that had gone before.  This concerned the boy’s feelings and rights, so that she suddenly found herself forced to take a firm stand—­affection, justice, and even mercy, now forbidding her to yield.  Yet it was, nevertheless, just as clear to her in this as in everything else, that William sincerely thought he was right.  That was the trouble.  That is always the trouble with people like William Pressley, who are often harder to deal with and sometimes harder to live with, than those who knowingly do wrong.

The three had scarcely entered the great room of Cedar House that evening, when the judge asked the boy to go on an errand to a neighbor’s.  This was to take some seed wheat which the judge had promised to send for the fall sowing.  The growing of wheat was still an interesting and important experiment which was exciting the whole country.  There had been good corn in abundance from the first; on those deep, rich, river-bottom lands the grains had but to reach the fertile earth to produce an hundred bushels to the acre.  But the settlers were tired of eating corn-bread; their wives and children were pining for the delicate white loaves made from the sweet fine wheat which they had eaten in their old Virginia homes.  So that the culture of the best wheat had lately become a vital question, and this new seed was making a stir of eager interest throughout the region.  Philip Alston had given it to the judge, and he, in turn, was dividing it among the neighbors.  Each grain was accordingly treasured and valued like a grain of gold, and the judge cautioned the boy to be careful in tying the bag; wheat in the grain is a slippery thing to handle, and he wished none of this to be lost.