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Updated: May 31, 2025
The symmetry of his whole form was very striking. He had a free, powerful gait. But his beardless face seemed, by contrast with the brown tint of his father's, almost like the face of a tender, lovely woman. He was neatly dressed in some light color, and since, like Fausch, he wore no hat, his blond hair shimmered in the sunlight.
The stable boy was accustomed to take hold and help, but Fausch did not seem to notice his well meant offers, and managed the horse alone, every motion he made being peculiarly quick and sure. Simmen and the stable boy exchanged glances, and then laughed. "He knows his job," said the latter. Then he turned to leave.
The boy bore this frequent change in his father's bearing, to which he had soon become accustomed, with singular ease. He never cried, but looked at Stephen sometimes, when he blustered, with big astonished eyes, and sometimes he twitched crossly away from Stephen's grasp, when the smith started to push him aside. Meanwhile the time came when little Cain Fausch must be sent to school.
He put his clothes in order and sat down at his own place. His big strong father meant to take his part! In spite of himself, this thought did him good. He began to eat. Up to this time Katharine had stood at the door. She now left the room. Fausch finished his supper, got up and sat down by the window, where it was dark.
"The other boys have been telling me why I am named Cain," he gasped out. He took hold of the back of a chair and looked Stephen in the face. It was not hard to see that something had stirred him to the depths. "They say it is because my mother was a bad woman," he went on. "But then I I cannot help what my mother did " "Eat your supper now," said Stephen Fausch. Cain did not hear.
They stepped out quietly onto the bank, looked at the smith, to see if he was coming with them, then all three started on the homeward road. The night had almost descended upon them before they reached the hospice. During the whole walk they hardly spoke ten words; only Fausch grumbled once, turning to the side where Cain was walking: "Pretty soon we shall not see you all day long."
"Anyway, it will be good for him, to go out into the world, your boy," he went on, trying to persuade Fausch. "It is always useful for young people." "True," muttered the smith; he seemed to be waking up. "I will see," he added, and as Simmen began to advise him as to where he might send his boy, and offered to do something for him, he said "Yes, yes," in answer.
At supper, he sat with Cain and Katharine, more silent than ever. Only when the boy began to talk very earnestly once more about going away, he spoke harshly to him: "Can't you keep still till you're spoken to?" Cain was not afraid of him. He fixed his clear eyes on his father's face. "I will depend upon myself as much as I can," he went on, speaking of his plans. Fausch did not answer him again.
Whereupon Katharine answered, after thinking a little: "It seems to me that he wouldn't let you go alone now." After a little while longer she added: "He wants to have you with him." And so in very few words they exchanged their ideas, until Fausch called out from the living room that he wanted his supper. This evening Cain sang as he went to bed.
"You must have forgotten to put it in the contract, that a man must be handsome if he wants your blacksmith shop," said Fausch; but he laughed too an odd, contented laugh and stepped outside to Simmen. In some way the two men liked each other, perhaps because each one saw in the other that he had been accustomed to hard work and that his life depended upon it.
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