XLIIThe road that had been so long twisted seemed to him to run plain and straight before him. He even felt no great need of hurry. Benjamin would wait for him. There would of course be time for thinking on the way, but some things had best be decided now. He who had lived a formless life would make plans at last. He could not gather all the loose and tangled threads together to make a pattern, for the last one lay, as it had always lain, in his brother’s hands. The farm. In his need, Ben might already have disposed of it, the Rabaskis might well, at this moment, be shelterless.
In the years that he and Nellie had had the rural telephone, “Nat’s ’phone,” Nellie called it, her life-saver for communication, he had seldom used it. Only toward noon it occurred to him that he need not drive to
