The Road to Bear Creek

Excerpt

When Pap gets rheumatism, he gets remorseful. I remember one time particular. He says to me--him laying on his ba'r-skin with a jug of corn licker at his elbow--he says: "Breckinridge, the sins of my youth is ridin' my conscience heavy. When I was a young man I was free and keerless in my habits, as numerous tombstones on the boundless prairies testifies. I sometimes wonders if I warn't a trifle hasty in shootin' some of the men which disagreed with my principles. Maybe I should of controlled my temper and just chawed their ears off.