“Yes,” Harlan said, smiling faintly; “I remember. He was always like that.”
“Yes, and always will be. So he’ll think this child of his is perfect, and it’ll never get any discipline. I’d like to live twenty years just to see the wrack and ruin that’s going to be made by these children born nowadays. Their parents got hardly any discipline at all, and _they_ won’t get _any_, so they’ll never know how to respect anything at all. It only takes a little common sense to see from the start how this child’ll turn out. With no discipline or respect for anything, and with such a mother from a petered-out stock, and a father that hasn’t got a practical thought in his head, you can just as well as not expect the child to be in the penitentiary by the time he’s twenty years old!” Then, as Harlan laughed, the old lady uttered a faint sound of laughter herself, not as if admitting that she exaggerated anything, however, but grimly. “You’ll see!”
“You’re right about it this far,” Harlan said. “Dan already thinks the baby’s perfect.”
“The usual triumphant young father. More triumphant than the usual one, I should say. He went whooping over the house till mother had to stop him and send him outdoors to keep him from disturbing Lena.”
“Yes; that’s like him,” the old lady said. “How queer it is; there are people who can always find something to whoop about, no matter what happens. Your grandfather was like that when he was a young man. Even when we were poor as Job’s turkey he’d burst out cackling and laughing over anything at all. I used to just look at him and wonder. Dan’s desperate for money, isn’t he?”
Harlan coughed, frowned, and then looked faintly amused. “Yes, I should just about use the word ‘desperate.’ I think he is.”
“He’ll not get any of mine!” Mrs. Savage said. “I’d not be very apt to help him anyhow, after the way his wife’s treated me. He wouldn’t listen to me; he _would_ marry her, and he _would_ throw all he had away on that miserable old farm! Now I guess he’s got nothing more to throw away.”
“He’s got rather less than nothing now, grandma. The place wouldn’t sell for enough to pay the mortgages, and he hasn’t been able to meet the interest. Father managed to let him have a thousand dollars two months ago, but it didn’t go very far. The truth is, I think Dan’s begun to be a little out of his head over the thing;—he had twenty teams hauling dirt while poor father’s thousand lasted. Now he’s going to lose the place, and I’d think it a fortunate misfortune if I believed he’d learn anything by it; but he won’t.”