"
Then Grandma, who knew just how much this sort of bluster was worth,
let herself go.
"Will Sears, if you honestly have an idea that you are a decent,
respectable, hard-working man, hold on to it for the love of heaven,
for you're the only human in this town that has any such notion."
"I work," Sears began defiantly.
"Oh, yes, Will, you work in a sort of a way; though I can remember the
time when Green Valley folks thought you were going to be a big
contractor. You promised well but somehow you never worked hard
enough. You work at things now to keep your own miserable self alive,
I guess, because when you get through using your week's wages there's
hardly enough left to keep bare life and decency in your family."
"I'm not a drunkard," Sears muttered, "and you know it."
"No, you're not a drunkard, Will Sears, more's the pity. When it comes
to choosing between a man who gets openly drunk and staggers down Main
Street in drunken penitence to his wife and children and the man who
drinks just enough to be a surly, selfish brute and yet look half-way
respectable on the outside, why, give me the drunk every time.
"You don't get drunk, only just full enough to have your family afraid
and ashamed of you. You have made life a hateful, shameful, miserable
existence for your wife and children.
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