He watched his son following up his work with dogged energy as if it were an enemy, and his mind seemed to turn stupid in the face of speculation, like a boy's over a problem in arithmetic.
There was no human being so strange and mysterious, such an unknown quantity, to Caleb Thayer as his own son.

He had not one trait of character in common with him--at least, not one so translated into his own vernacular that he could comprehend it.

It was to Caleb as if he looked in a glass expecting to see his own face, and saw therein the face of a stranger.
The wind was quite cool, and blew full on Caleb as he sat there.
Barney kept glancing at him.

At length he spoke.

"You'll get cold if you sit there in that wind, father," he sang out, and there was a rude kindliness in his tone.
Caleb jumped up with alacrity.