"The Sailor's Son" is a short story by William Carlos Williams, first published in The Knife of the Times and Other Stories (1932).Gish, 1989 p. 200: Selected Bibliography

Plot Manuel, a young laborer, is working as a summer seasonal on Mrs. Cuthbertson's farm. He is engaged to Marge, who works in the city. He writes a letter, imploring her to visit him more often. Manuel's only regular visitor is a motorcycle-driving youth, the carousing "Sailor's Son" of the title, who spends weekends with him. Though Mrs. Cuthbertson is fully satisfied with Manuel's performance and docile demeanor, she finds his companion disreputable and presumptuous. She particularly resents the influence "The Kid" has over her employee. The two young men eat their meals together in Manuel's room and sleep in the same bed during the weekend visits.

Mrs. Cuthbertson determines to confirm what she suspects is an unnatural relationship. When she discovers the youths in the hay loft engaging in sex, she orders The Kid off her property and gives Manuel one week's notice to depart. When Manuel's fiancée arrives to retrieve him, she confronts Mrs. Cuthbertson, demanding to know why Manuel has been discharged. When Marge is informed of the homosexual liaison, she attributes little importance to the fact, declaring she fully intends to marry the boy. The two women nearly come to blows over the matter, and Manuel is fired despite begging Mrs. Cuthbertson to relent.Koch, 1950: Plot summary

Theme

Literary critic Vivienne Koch comments on the climax and denouement of the story:

Koch provides the final paragraph to support her analysis:

Footnotes

Sources Gish, Robert F. 1989. William Carlos Williams: A Study of the Short Fiction. Twayne Publishers, Boston, Massassachusetts. G. K. Hall & Co. Gordon Weaver, General Editor. Koch Vivienne. 1950. "The Novels and Short Stories," in William Carlos Williams, New Directions Publishers, 1950, pp. 187–246. Williams, Willam Carlos. 1961 The Farmers' Daughters: The Collected Stories of William Carlos Williams. New Directions Publishing, New York. pp. 21–25