Explore "A Gentleman of Courage" by James Oliver Curwood on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Under the ash tree, for a few moments Peter was the boy again; the boy of yesterday, of years ago, when the world had held nothing for him but his father; and there was no change in the touch of the hands that had always given him comfort and courage and a love that was almost like a woman's in its gentleness. Not until Donald McRae held his boy off, with a hand on each shoulder, did something besides the madness of joy at his father's homecoming begin to thrust itself upon Peter. Then he saw the change -- the naked breast, the half-bared arms, the mud and the rags, and the face and hair in which years had stamped their heels unpityingly. He tried to choke back his horror, to keep it out of his face, and to do this he laughed -- laughed through the tears and sobbing breath -- and pointed to a white birch tree in which a blue jay was screaming.
"The blue jay, dad! " he cried. "Remember that day -- behind the log -- with the blue jay in the tree-top, and the sapsucker pecking at our elbows, and the violets between my knees -- -- "