He was going to sow another twenty acres of alfalfa, and to do that he must cut down the size of his pasture--something that always went against the grain.

He had not been able to renew his lease of government land,--which also went against the grain.

And the Kid, like the last affliction which the Lord sent unto Job--I've forgotten whether that was boils or the butchery of his offspring--came loping down the length of the porch and kicked the Old Man's bunion with a stubby boot-toe.
Thus was born the psychological moment when the treachery of the Happy Family would cut deepest.
They came, bunched and talking low-voiced together with hatbrims hiding shamed eyes, a type-true group of workers bearing a grievance.

Not a man was absent--the Happy Family saw to that! Even Patsy, big and sloppy and bearing with him stale kitchen odors, limped stolidly in the rear beside Slim, who looked guilty as though he had been strangling somebody's favorite cat.
The Old Man, bent head-foremost over his growing paunch that he might caress his outraged bunion, glared at them with belligerent curiosity from under his graying eyebrows.

The group came on and stopped short at the steps--and I don't suppose the Happy Family will ever look such sneaks again whatever crime they may commit.