I was hot, vexed, confused, yet still happy, but I hated the other boys for taking such an absorbing interest in the proceedings
. I wished they were in Jericho. I felt exquisitely mean when I said cheerfully: “This one does very well; it fits elegantly. I like a glove that fits. No, never mind, ma’am, never mind; I’ll put the other on in the street. It is warm here.” The excerpt from the story shows that the narrator
True, the speaker in the poem, a farmer, is concerned with loyalty: He is struggling to decide how much loyalty he owes a none-too-reliable former employee who has returned in his absence and whom his wife says is dying