ROUGH-HEWN
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE SQUIRREL-CAGE
A MONTESSORI MOTHER
MOTHERS AND CHILDREN
THE BENT TWIG
THE REAL MOTIVE
FELLOW CAPTAINS
(With Sarah N. Cleghorn)
UNDERSTOOD BETSY
HOME FIRES IN FRANCE
THE DAY OF GLORY
THE BRIMMING CUP
ROUGH-HEWN
BY
DOROTHY CANFIELD
NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
CONTENTS
ANY LITTLE BOY
CHAPTER I
In the spring of 1893 Strindberg had just published "AFool's Confession," D'Annunzio was employing all the multicoloredglory of his style to prove "The Triumph of Death";Hardy was somberly mixing on his palette the twilight graysand blacks and mourning purples of "Jude the Obscure"; Nordau,gnashing his teeth, was bellowing "Decadent" at his contemporarieswho smirked a complacent acceptance of the epithet ...and, all unconscious of the futility and sordidness ofthe world, Neale Crittenden swaggered along Central Avenue,brandishing his shinny stick.
It was a new yellow shinny stick, broad and heavy and almostas long as the boy who carried it. Ever since he had seenit in the window of Schwartz's Bazar, his soul had yearnedfor it. For days he had hoarded his pennies, foregoing ice-creamsodas, shutting his ears to the seductive ding-dongof the waffle-man's cart, and this very afternoon the immensesum of twenty-five cents had been completed and now heowned a genuine boughten stick, varnished and shiny. Whatcouldn't he do with such a cl