And the big-hearted kindness of him, thrashing the runaway into sense.

Irish temper there! Kenny felt a passionate thrill of pride in his offspring.

Yes, Brian was like his father, thank God, even to the Celtic curse of homesickness.
"But to think of him," he marveled in a wave of tenderness, "living in a corncrib on seven cents a day!" Again and again he read between the lines, finding sanity and sense, compassion and humor.

The inherited charm of Brian's personality filled him with intense delight.
"Always," Kenny remembered, "he must be taking care of someone." It gave him a sharp pang of jealousy that that someone was a stranger.
But the thrill of penance was in his blood.

If Brian was big enough to see himself in the wrong, no less was Kennicott O'Neill, his unsuccessful father.