The Masterwork of Nat Ross: Decoding The Slanderers

Two brothers, their mother and foster-sister live in a small town on a farm not far from a village. In dying, the husband and father made his brother executive of the estate and the crabbed uncle has the widow and her two boys subjected to his whims. Both boys are in love with their foster-sister, who is fond of them both and treats them with such impartiality as to cause each many jealous moments. The younger brother endures brutal treatment from his uncle on occasion, but restrains himself for the sake of the invalid mother. Comes the call to arms for the Great War and the younger enlists. The older tries to, but the recruiting officer will not permit him, saying he can best serve his country by running the farm. The night before the younger goes away he learns that the uncle plans to deprive them of the farm and goes to the uncle's home to remonstrate. As the result of the fight the uncle dies, but the boy does not know it, and not until after he returns from France a hero widely acclaimed by his home town does he learn of the tragedy that has beset his loved ones as the result of the discovery of the death of the uncle - then he takes rugged steps to right the wrongs, resultant in part from a small-town narrowness.