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Show «23V it, I insisted on my share. O.K. then, get it, said Dad, and I went out there and missed and missed, I could not get that loop over head, foot or tail. Dad got impatient and dropped his loop around the calf's neck, threw it down and tied it. Henry ran up with the dehorning shears and I stood back by the fire, coiling my rope, mad as hell. I'd been cheated, swindled, treated as less than human, and when Dad called for one of the running irons, which r,e called a straight iron, I contemplated not -.ovin& an inch. Let Henry do it, he's the favorite anyhow. But Dad looked around at me and his face said plainly that it was late and ne wanted this over wi.cn, and I pulled out an iron and walked toward him, as slowly as I dared. As I came up, he turned and bent again to brush the calf's hide, and then, without looking around, reached hisfhand back for the iron. 43 I expected him to turn. I had the iron right there, his glove touched the tip and, thinking I had proffered the handle, he grasped it. As soon as I saw his gloved r.and close over that redhot tip I froze. I could not jerk back the iron or yell or anything, I was paralyzed. I was surprised for one thing, and I thought r.e would drop it immediately and that his glove would protect aim. All those things were in my mind, but black spite was in my heart. What happened was cnat the glove momentarily protected him and he brought that iron completely around in position to use the wrong end, smoke rising from his glo"e, before ae understooc. He moved then as fast as I iiave ever seen a man move, rearing cp and back like a norse from a snake, in_i stantly. He did not just drop that iron, he flung it down, not uttering a sound but wildly, frantically clawing at t.iat j[|ove to eet it off because the glove was still burning not and ne was pulling it off to fling it aside, still not uttering a sonnd as he clasped his earned hand with the other, stuck both hands oetween his knees and rocked with pain. I waited for it. When r.e turned, straightening up and holding his burned hand out like ne didn't want it near him, his eyes were wide, his voice still on tue e d e of disbelief: "W..at were you doing. What t.,e hell were you thinking |