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Brand, Max, 1892-1944

"The Seventh Man"

"To the cabin?"
"Where else?"
"It ain't happy there." He started. "You come up here with us, Kate."
"And raise Joan like a young animal in a cave?"
He looked at her with wonder, and then at the child.
"Ain't you happy, Joan, up here?"
"Oh, Daddy Dan, Joan's so happy!"
"You see," he said to Kate, "she's terribly happy."
It was his utter simplicity which convinced her that arguments and pleas
would be perfectly useless. Just behind the cool command which she kept
over herself now was hysteria. She knew that if she relaxed her
purposefulness for an instant the love for him would rush over her, weaken
her. She kept her mind clear and steady with a great effort which was like
divorcing herself from herself. When she spoke, there was another being
which stood aside listening in wonder to the words.
"You've chosen this life, Dan, I won't blame you for leaving me this time
any more than I blamed you the other times. I suppose it isn't you. It's
the same impulse, after all, that took you south after--after the wild
geese." She stopped, almost broken down by the memory, and then recalled
herself sternly.


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