Old Crow

In Old Crow, by Alice Brown, John Raven sits in the library of his "shabby, yet dignified Boston house", waiting for Richard Powell, "his nephew, whom he had summoned for an intimate talk". The man waiting is "sitting by the fire making a pretense of reading the evening paper" while "prefiguring the coming interview, dreading it a good deal". Raven says bitterly of a woman "She's tied me up, hand and foot. It's got to be done in her way, the way she'd been doing it herself since 1914."

Nan, who asked "The acutely sentimental?", says "It was a cruel thing to do. Well, it was like her", and Raven puts in heavily "She never meant to be cruel." Nan throws back "Was she right about the War?" and Raven feels obliged to own "No". The text says "it had to be Old Crow", and "in the morning it did not need the mottled book at his bedside to remind him. Still it was Old Crow." Of Tira there is "no sign", but "her hat was lying on one of the stepping stones", and Raven runs "down the path and into the shallow water near the bank".