he's our friend!"

"Aye, and I see more," boomed the father. "He fetched his lass up here to make eyes at my son. I saw her—the sly wench!… Boy, you'll not marry her!"

Kurt choked back his mounting rage.

"Certainly I never will," he said, bitterly. "But I would if she'd have me."

"What!" thundered Dorn, his white locks standing up and shaking like the mane of a lion.         "That wheat banker's daughter! Never! I forbid it. You shall not marry any American girl."

"Father, this is idle, foolish rant,"         cried Kurt, with a high warning note in his voice. "I've no idea of marrying.… But if I had one—whom else could I marry except an American girl?"

"I'll sell the wheat—the land. We'll go back to Germany!"

That was maddening to Kurt. He sprang up, sending dishes to the floor with a crash. He bent over to pound the table with a fist. Violent speech choked him and he felt a cold, tight blanching of his face.

"Listen!" he rang out. "If I go to Germany it'll be as a soldier—to kill Germans!…         I'm done—I'm through with the very name.…         Listen to the last words I'll ever speak to you in German—the last! To hell with Germany!"

Then Kurt plunged, blind in his passion, out of the door into the night. And as he went he heard his father cry out, brokenly:

"My son! Oh, my son!"

The night was dark and cool. A faint wind blew across the hills, and it was dry, redolent, sweet. The sky seemed an endless curving canopy of dark blue blazing with myriads of stars.

Kurt staggered out of the yard, down along the edge of a wheat-field, to one of the straw-stacks, and there he flung himself down in an agony.

"Oh, I'm ruined—ruined!" he moaned. "The break—has come!… Poor old dad!"

He leaned there against the straw, shaking and throbbing, with a cold perspiration bathing face and body. Even the palms of his hands were wet. A terrible fit of anger was beginning to loose its hold upon       

 Prev. P 30/319 next