Cash would freeze first. But there was small chance of that,
because a small, silent rivalry had grown from the quarrel; a
rivalry to see which kept the best supply of wood, which swept
cleanest under his bunk and up to the black line, which washed
his dishes cleanest, and kept his shelf in the cupboard the
tidiest. Before the fireplace in an evening Cash would put on
wood, and when next it was needed, Bud would get up and put on
wood. Neither would stoop to stinting or to shirking, neither
would give the other an inch of ground for complaint. It was not
enlivening to live together that way, but it worked well toward
keeping the cabin ship shape.
So Bud, knowing that it was going to storm, and perhaps
dreading a little the long monotony of being housed with a man as
stubborn as himself, buttoned a coat over his gray, roughneck
sweater, pulled a pair of mail-order mittens over his mail-order
gloves, stamped his feet into heavy, three-buckled overshoes, and
set out to tramp fifteen miles through the snow, seeking the kind
of pleasure which turns to pain with the finding.
He knew that Cash, out by the woodpile, let the axe blade
linger in the cut while he stared after him. He knew that Cash
would be lonesome without him, whether Cash ever admitted it or
not.
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