476
PARTISAN REVIEW
No one was particularly glad that Mary Fortune looked like
her grandfather except the old man himself. He thought it added
greatly to her attractiveness. He thought she was the smartest and
the prettiest child he had ever seen and he let the rest of them know
that if, IF that was, he left anything to anybody, it would be Mary
Fortune he left it to. She was now nine, short and broad like
him–
self, with his very light blue eyes, his wide prominent forehead, his
steady penetrating scowl and his rich florid complexion; but she was
like him on the inside too. She had, to a singular degree, his intelli–
gence, his strong will, and his push and drive. Though there was
seventy years' difference in their ages, the spiritual distance between
them was slight. She was the only member of the family he had any
respect for.
He didn't have any use for her mother, his third or fourth
daughter (he could never remember which), though she considered
that she took care of him. She considered-being careful not to say
it, only to look it-that she was the one putting up with him in his
old age and that she was the one he should leave the place to. She
had married an idiot named Pitts and had had seven children, all
likewise idiots except the youngest, Mary Fortune, who was a throw–
back to him. Pitts was the kind who couldn't keep his hands on a
nickel and Mr. Fortune had allowed them, ten years ago, to move
onto his place and farm it. What Pitts made went to Pitts but the
land belonged to Fortune and he was careful to keep the fact before
them. When the well had gone dry, he had not allowed Pitts to
have a deep well drilled but had insisted that they pipe their water
from the spring. He did not intend to pay for a drilled well himself
and he knew that if he let Pitts pay for it, whenever he had occasion
to say to Pitts, "It's my land you're sitting on," Pitts would be able
to say to him, "Well, it's my pump that's pumping the water you're
drinking."
Being there ten years, the Pittses had got to feel as if they owned
the place. The daughter had been born and raised on it but the old
man considered that when she married Pitts she showed that she
preferred Pitts to home; and when she came back, she came back
like any other tenant, though he would not allow them to pay rent
for the same reason he would not allow them to drill a well. Anyone
over sixty years of age is in an uneasy position unless he controls
