Honesty and Pride Theme Analysis

I never really knew Father very well till we moved to the ranch on Fort Logan-Morrison road, not far from Denver.

“I might give you a hard thrashing; if I did, you would possibly remember the thrashing longer than you would remember the injury you have done yourself. I am not going to do it. There were eighteen crossties in the gulch yesterday, and the section foreman told me they were going to replace twenty more. Until you have dragged every one of those ties home, you will wear your Buster Brown suit to school, and I will not take you anywhere with me.”

Grandfather used to be deaf, and, before he died, he and I used to play sign language. I thought maybe I could talk to Two Dog in sign language, so I raised my eyebrows, put both palms together and laid my face down against them; then I looked far off along the mountains. Two Dog knew I was asking him where he slept—where his home was—just as well as Grandfather would have known.

I don’t remember Father ever kissing me any other time, but after he put me back in bed he leaned over and kissed me right on the forehead.

I knew Mother would say I had done just the right thing, but I tried not even to think about what Father might say. I couldn’t help it though. And I wasn’t a bit sure he wouldn’t say it was running away from the law and tearing boards off my character house. We had just turned into the Morrison wagon road when I got a big lump in my throat. Then I pulled Fanny around and galloped her back to the hitching rail in front of the Last Chance Saloon.

I couldn’t help crying some more when he told me that; not because my bottom was still burning, but just because I loved him. I told him I’d never be sneaky again, and I’d always ask him before I did things. We walked to the house together. At the bunkhouse door he shook hands with me, and said: “Good night, partner.”

“You know, a man’s life is a lot like a boat. If he keeps his sail set right it doesn’t make too much difference which way the wind blows or which way the current flows. If he knows where he wants to go and keeps his sail trimmed carefully he’ll come into the right port. But if he forgets to watch his sail till the current catches him broadside he’s pretty apt to smash up on the rocks.” After a little while he said, “I have an idea you’ll find the current’s a bit strong up at the mountain ranch.”

“Damn bull-headed Yankee,” he was saying, “God and everybody knows we’d never got a dime for our crops if he hadn’t rigged that water gauge at the ditch head. And there he stands with a hundred and twenty dollars in his hand for a year’s work and too damned proud to take a bale of hay from a neighbor. What the hell are you goin’ to do with a man like that?”

“You’re getting to be quite a man now, Son. You’re well past eleven years old, and you can do quite a few things better than a good many men. I’m going to treat you like a man from now on. I’m never going to spank you again, or scold you for little things, and some day it’s going to be ‘Moody and Sons, Building Contractors.’”

Father had always said grace before meals; always the same twenty-five words, and the ritual was always the same. Mother would look around the table to see that everything was in readiness; then she would nod to Father. That night she nodded to me and I became a man.