In this instance, while the Elder's understanding had been decidedly enlarged, it had been in but one direction, and the effect had not been to his spiritual benefit, for he had seen only the suffering of his own side, and, being deficient in power to imagine what might be, he had taken no charitable thought for the other side. Instead, a feeling of hatred had been stirred within him,—a feeling he felt himself justified in and therefore indulged and named: "Righteous Indignation."

The Elder's face was stern and hard as he directed the men who bore his boy on the litter where to turn, and how to lift it above the banister in going up the stair so as not to jar the young man, who was too weak after the long journey to do more than turn his eyes on his mother's face.

But that mother's face! It seemed to him he had never seen it so radiant and charming, for all that her hair had grown silvery white in the three years since he had last kissed her. He could not take his eyes from it, and besought her not to leave his side, even when the Elder bade her go and not excite him, but allow him to rest.

No sooner was her son laid on his own bed in his old room than she began a series of gentle ministrations most sweet to the boy and to herself. But the Elder had been told that all he needed now was rest and absolute quiet, and the surgeon's orders must be carried out regardless of all else. Hester Craigmile yielded, as always, to the Elder's will, and remained without, seated close beside her son's door, her hands, that ached to serve, lying idle in her lap, while the Elder brought him his warm milk and held it to his lips, lifting his head to drink it, and then left him with the command to sleep.

"Don't go in for an hour at least," he enjoined on his wife as he passed her and took his way to the bank, for it was too early for closing, and there would still be time for him to look into his affairs a bit. Thus for the banker the usual routine began.

Not so for Hester Craigmile. Joy and life had begun for her. She had her boy again—quite to herself when the Elder was away, and the tears for very happiness came to her eyes and dropped on her hands unchecked. Had the Elder been there he would have enjoined upon her to be controlled and she would have obeyed, but now there was no need, and she wept deliciously for joy while she still sat outside the door and listened. Intense—eager—it seemed almost as if she could hear him breathe.

"Mother!" Hark! Did he speak? "Mother!" It was merely a breath, but she heard and went swiftly to him. Kneeling, she clasped him, and her tears wet his cheek, but at the same time they soothed him, and he slept. It was thus the Elder found them when he returned from the bank, both sweetly sleeping. He did not take his wife away for fear of waking his son, nevertheless he was displeased with her, and when they met at table that evening, she knew it.

The whole order of the house was changed because of Peter Junior's return. Blinds, windows, and doors were thrown open at the direction of the physician, that he might be given all the air and sunlight it was possible to admit; else he would never gain strength, for so long had he lived in the open air, in rain and sun, that he had need now of every help nature could give.

A bullet had struck him in the hip and glanced off at a peculiar angle, rendering his recovery precarious and long delayed, and causing the old doctor to shake his head with the fear that he must pass the rest of his life a cripple. Still, normal youth is buoyant and vigorous and mocks at physicians' fears, and after a time, what with heart at rest, with loving and unceasing care on his mother's part, and rigorous supervision on his father's, Peter Junior did at length recover sufficiently to be taken out to drive, and began to get back the good red blood in his veins.

During this long period of convalescence, Peter Junior's one anxiety was for his cousin Richard. Rumors had reached him that his comrade had been wounded and taken prisoner, yet nothing definite had been heard, until at last, after much writing, he learned Richard's whereabouts, and later that he had been exchanged. Then, too ill and prison-worn to go back to his regiment, he appeared one day, slowly walking up the village street toward the banker's house.

There he was welcomed and made much of, and the two young men spent a while together happily, the best of friends and comrades, still filled with enthusiasm, but with a wider knowledge of life and the meaning of war. These weeks were few and short, and soon Richard was back in the army. Peter Junior, envying him, still lay convalescing and only able with much difficulty to crawl to the carriage for his daily drive.

His mother always accompanied him on these drives, and the very first of them was to the home of the Ballards. It was early spring, the air was biting and cool, and Peter was unable to alight, but Mary and her husband came to them where they waited at the gate and stood long, talking happily. Jamie and Bobby followed at their heels and peered up curiously at the wounded soldier, but Betty was seized with a rare moment of shyness that held her back.

Dear little Betty! She had grown taller since Peter Junior had taken that last tea at the Ballards. No longer care free, the oldest but one, she had taken many of her mother's burdens upon her young shoulders, albeit not knowing that they were burdens, since they were wholly acts of love and joyously done. She was fully conscious of her advancing years, and took them very seriously, regarding her acts with a grave and serene sense of their importance. She had put back the wild hair that used to fly about her face until her father called her "An owl in an ivy bush" and her mother admonished her that her "head was like a mop." Now, being in her teens, she wore her dresses longer and never ran about barefooted, paddling in the brook below the spring, although she would like to do so; still she was child enough to run when she should walk, and to laugh when some would sigh.

Her thoughts had been romantically active regarding Peter Junior, how he would look, and how splendid and great he was to have been a real soldier and come home wounded—to have suffered and bled for his country. And Richard, too, was brave and splendid. He must have been in the very front of the battle to have been taken prisoner. She wondered a little if he remembered her, but not much, for how could men with great work to do, like fighting and dying for their country, stop to think of a little girl who was still in short dresses when they had seen her last?

Then, when the war was ended at last, there was Richard returned and stopping at his uncle's. In the few short visits he made at the Ballards' he greeted Betty as of old, as he would greet a little sister of whom he was fond, and she accepted his frank, old-time brotherliness in the same spirit, gayly and happily, revealing but little of herself, and holding a slight reserve in her manner which seemed to him quite delightful and maidenly. Then, all too suddenly, he was gone again, but in his heart he carried a memory of her that made a continual undercurrent in his thoughts.

And now Betty's father and mother were actually talking with Peter Junior at their very gate. Impulse would have sent her flying to meet him, but that new, self-conscious shyness stayed her feet, for he was one to be approached with reverence. He was afflicted with no romantic shyness with regard to her, however. He quite forgot her, indeed, although he did ask in a general way after the children and even mentioned Martha in particular, as, being the eldest, she was best remembered. So Betty did not see Peter Junior this time, but she stood where she could see the top of the carriage from her bedroom window, whither she had fled, and she could see the blue sleeve of his coat as he put out his arm to take her mother's hand at parting. That was something, and she listened with beating heart for the sound of his voice. Ah, little he dreamed what a tumult he had raised in the heart of that young being whose imagination had been so stirred by all that she had read and heard of war, and the part taken in it by their own young men of Leauvite. That Peter Junior had come home brevetted a captain for his bravery crowned him with glory. All that day Betty went about with dreams in her head, and coursing through them was the voice of the wounded young soldier.

At last, with the slow march of time, came the proclamation of peace, and the nation so long held prostrate—a giant struggling against fetters of its own forging, blinded and strangling in its own blood—reared its head and cried out for the return of Hope, groping on all sides to gather the divine youth to its arms, when, as a last blow, dealt by a wanton hand, came the death of Lincoln.

Then it was that the nation recoiled and bowed itself for a time, beaten and crushed—both North and South—and vultures gathered at the seat of conflict and tore at its vitals and wrangled over the spoils. Then it was that they who had sowed discord stooped to reap the Devil's own harvest,—a woeful, bitter, desperate time, when more enmity and deep rancor was bred and treasured up for future sorrow than during all the years of the honest and active strife of the war.

In the very beginning that first news of the firing on Fort Sumter flew through the North like a tragic cry, and men felt a sense of doom hanging over the nation. Bertrand Ballard heard it and walked sorrowfully home to his wife, and sat long with bowed head, brooding and silent. Neighbor Wilcox heard it, and, leaving his business, entered his home and called his household together with the servants and held family worship—a service which it was his custom to hold only on the Sabbath—and earnestly prayed for the salvation of the country, and that wisdom might be granted its rulers, after which he sent his oldest son to fight for the cause. Elder Craigmile heard it, and consented that his last and only son should enter the ranks and give his life, if need be, for the saving of the nation. Still, tempering all this sorrow and anxiety was the chance for action, and the hope of victory.

But now, in this later time, when the strength of the nation had been wasted, when victory itself was dark with mourning for sons slain, the loss of the one wise leader to whom all turned with uplifted hearts seemed the signal for annihilation; and then, indeed, it appeared that the prophecy of Mary Ballard's old grandfather had been fulfilled and the curse of slavery had not only been wiped out with blood, but that the greater curse of anarchy and misrule had taken its place to still further scourge the nation.

Mary Ballard's mother, while scarcely past her prime, was taken ill with fever and died, and immediately upon this blow to the dear old father who was not yet old enough by many years to be beyond his usefulness to those who loved and depended on him, came the tragic death of Lincoln, whom he revered and in whom all his hopes for the right adjustment of the nation's affairs rested. Under the weight of the double calamity he gave up hope, and left the world where all looked so dark to him, almost before the touch of his wife's hand had grown cold in his.

"Father died of a broken heart," said Mary, and turned to her husband and children with even more intensity of devotion. "For," she said, "after all, the only thing in life of which we can be perfectly sure is our love for each other. A grave may open at our feet anywhere at any time, and only love oversteps it."

With such an animating spirit as this, no family can be wholly sad, and though poverty pinched them at times, and sorrow had bitterly visited them, with years and thrift things changed. Bertrand painted more pictures and sold them; the children were gay and vigorous and brought life and good times to the home, and the girls grew up to be womanly, winsome lasses, light-hearted and good to look upon.

Enough of the war and the evils thereof has been said and written and sung. Animosity is dead, and brotherhood and mutual service between the two opposing factions of one great family have taken the place of strife. Useless now to say what might have been, or how otherwise that terrible time of devastation and sorrow could have been avoided. Enough to know that at last as a nation, whole and undivided, we may pull together in the tremendous force of our united strength, and that now we may take up the "White Man's Burden" and bear it to its magnificent conclusion to the service of all mankind and the glory of God.



CHAPTER VII

A NEW ERA BEGINS

Bertrand Ballard's studio was at the top of his house, with a high north window and roughly plastered walls of uncolored sand, left as Bertrand himself had put the plaster on, with his trowel marks over the surface as they happened to come, and the angles and projections thereof draped with cobwebs.

When Peter Junior was able to leave his home and get about a little on his crutches, he loved to come there and rest and spend his idle hours, and Bertrand found pleasure in his companionship. They read together, and sang together, and laughed together, and no sound was more pleasant to Mary Ballard's ears than this same happy laughter. Peter had sorely missed the companionship of his cousin, for, at the close of the war, no longer a boy and unwilling to be dependent and drifting, Richard had sought out a place for himself in the work of the world.

First he had gone to Scotland to visit his mother's aunts. There he found the two dear old ladies, sweetly observant of him, willing to tell him much of his mother, who had been scarcely younger than the youngest of them, but discreetly reticent about his father. From this he gathered that for some reason his father was under a cloud. Yet he did not shrink from trying to learn from them all they knew about him, and for what reason they spoke as if to even mention his name was an indiscretion. It was really little they knew, only that he had gravely displeased their nephew, Peter Craigmile, who had brought Richard up, and who was his mother's twin brother.

"But why did Uncle Peter have to bring me up? You say he quarreled with my father?"

"Weel, ye see, ye'r mither was dead." It was Aunt Ellen, the elder by twenty years, who told him most about it, she who spoke with the broadest Scotch.

"Was my father a bad man, that Uncle 'Elder' disliked him so?"

"Weel now, I'd no say that; he was far from that to be right fair to them both—for ye see—ye'r mither would never have loved him if he'd been that—but he—he was an Irishman, and ye'r Uncle Peter could never thole an Irishman, and he—he—fair stole ye'r mither from us a'—an—" she hesitated to continue, then blurted out the real horror. "Your Uncle Peter kenned he had ance been in the theayter, a sort o' an actor body an' he couldna thole that."

But little was to be gained with all his questioning, and what he could learn seemed no more than that his father had done what any man might be expected to do if some one stood between him and the girl he loved; so Richard felt that there must be something unknown to any one but his uncle that had turned them all against his father. Why had his father never appeared to claim his son? Why had he left his boy to be reared by a man who hated the boy's father? It was a strange thing to do, and it must be that his father was dead.

At this time Richard was filled with ambitions,—fired by his early companionship with Bertrand Ballard,—and thought he would go to France and become an artist;—to France, the Mecca of Bertrand's dreams—he desired of all things to go there for study. But of all this he said nothing to any one, for where was the money? He would never ask his uncle for it, and now that he had learned that he had been all his young life really a dependent on the bounty of his Uncle Peter, he could no longer accept his help. He would hereafter make his own way, asking no favors.

The old aunts guessed at his predicament, and offered to give him for his mother's sake enough to carry him through the first year, but he would not allow them to take from their income to pay his bills. No, he would take his way back to America, and find a place for himself in the new world; seek some active, stirring work, and save money, and sometime—sometime he would do the things his heart loved. He often thought of Betty, the little Betty who used to run to meet him and say such quaint things; some day he would go to her and take her with him. He would work first and do something worthy of so choice a little mortal.

Thus dreaming, after the manner of youth, he went to Ireland, to his father's boyhood home. He found only distant relatives there, and learned that his father had disposed of all he ever owned of Irish soil to an Englishman. A cousin much older than himself owned and still lived on the estate that had been his grandfather Kildene's, and Richard was welcomed and treated with openhearted hospitality. But there, also, little was known of his father, only that the peasants on the estate remembered him lovingly as a free-hearted gentleman.

Even that little was a relief to Richard's sore heart. Yes, his father must be dead. He was sorry. He was a lonely man, and to have a relative who was his very own, as near as a father, would be a great deal. His cousin, Peter Junior, was good as a friend, but from now on they must take paths that diverged, and that old intimacy must naturally change. His sweet Aunt Hester he loved, and she would fill the mother's place if she could, but it was not to be. It would mean help from his Uncle Peter, and that would mean taking a place in his uncle's bank, which had already been offered him, but which he did not want, which he would not accept if he did want it.

So, after a long and happy visit at his cousin Kildene's, in Ireland, he at last left for America again, and plunged into a new, interesting, and vigorous life, one that suited well his energetic nature. He found work on the great railway that was being built across the plains to the Pacific Coast. He started as an engineer's assistant, but soon his talent for managing men caused his employers to put him in charge of gangs of workmen who were often difficult and lawless. He did not object; indeed he liked the new job better than that he began with. He was more interested in men than materials.

The life was hard and rough, but he came to love it. He loved the wide, sweeping prairies, and, later on, the desert. He liked to lie out under the stars,—often when the men slept under tents,—his gun at his side and his thoughts back on the river bluffs at Leauvite. He did a lot of dreaming and thinking, and he never forgot Betty. He thought of her as still a child, although he was expecting her to grow up and be ready for him when he should return to her. He had a vague sort of feeling that all was understood between them, and that she was quietly becoming womanly, and waiting for him.

Peter Junior might have found other friends in Leauvite had he sought them out, but he did not care for them. His nature called for what he found in Bertrand's studio, and he followed the desire of his heart regardless of anything else, spending all the time he could reasonably filch from his home. And what wonder! Richard would have done the same and was even then envying Peter the opportunity, as Peter well knew from his cousin's letters. There was no place in the village so fascinating and delightful as this little country home on its outskirts, no conversation more hopeful and helpful than Bertrand's, and no welcome sweeter or kinder than Mary Ballard's.

One day, after Richard had gone out on the plains with the engineers of the projected road, Peter lay stretched on a long divan in the studio, his head supported by his hand as he half reclined on his elbow, and his one crutch—he had long since discarded the other—within reach of his arm. His violin also lay within reach, for he had been playing there by himself, as Bertrand had gone on one of his rare visits to the city a hundred miles away.

Betty Ballard had heard the wail of his violin from the garden, where she had been gathering pears. That was how she knew where to find him when she quickly appeared before him, rosy and flushed from her run to the house and up the long flight of stairs.

As Peter lay there, he was gazing at the half-finished copy he had been making of the head of an old man, for Peter had decided, since in all probability he would be good for no active work such as Richard had taken up, that he too would become an artist, like Bertrand Ballard. To have followed his cousin would have delighted his heart, for he had all the Scotchman's love of adventure, but, since that was impossible, nothing was more alluring than the thought of fame and success as an artist. He would not tie himself to Leauvite to get it. He would go to Paris, and there he would do the things Bertrand had been prevented from doing. Poor Bertrand! How he would have loved the chance Peter Junior was planning for himself as he lay there dreaming and studying the half-finished copy.

Suddenly he beheld Betty, standing directly in front of the work, extending to him a folded bit of paper. "Here's a note from your father," she cried.

Looking upon her thus, with eyes that had been filled with the aged, rugged face on the canvas, Betty appealed to Peter as a lovely vision. He had never noticed before, in just this way, her curious charm, but these months of companionship and study with Bertrand had taught him to see beauty understandingly, and now, as she stood panting a little, with breath coming through parted lips and hair flying almost in the wild way of her childhood, Peter saw, as if it were a revelation, that she was lovely. He raised himself slowly and reached for the note without taking his eyes from her face.

He did not open the letter, but continued to look in her eyes, at which she turned about half shyly. "I heard your violin; that's how I knew you were up here. Oh! Have you been painting on it again?"

"On my violin? No, I've been playing on it."

"No! Painting on the picture of your old man. I think you have it too drawn out and thin. He's too hollow there under the cheek bone."

"Is he, Miss Critic? Well, thank your stars you're not."

"I know. I'm too fat." She rubbed her cheek until it was redder than ever.

"What are you painting your cheeks for? There's color enough on them as they are."

She made a little mouth at him. "I could paint your old man as well as that, I know."

"I know you could. You could paint him far better than that."

She laughed, quickly repentant. "I didn't say that to be horrid. I only said it for fun. I couldn't."

"And I know you could." He rose and stood without his crutch, looking down on her. "And you're not 'too long drawn out,' are you? See? You only come up to—about—here on me." He measured with his hand a little below his chin.

"I don't care. You're not so awfully tall."

"Very well, have it so. That only makes you the shorter."

"I tell you I don't care. You'd better stop staring at me, if I'm so little, and read your letter. The man's waiting for it. That's why I ran all the way up here." By this it may be seen that Betty had lost all her awe of the young soldier. Maybe it left her when he doffed his uniform. "Here's your crutch. Doesn't it hurt you to stand alone?" She reached him the despised prop.

"Hurt me to stand alone? No! I'm not a baby. Do you think I'm likely to grow up bow-legged?" he thundered, taking it from her hand without a thank you, and glaring down on her humorously. "You're a bit cruel to remind me of it. I'm going to walk with a cane hereafter, and next thing you know you'll see me stalking around without either."

"Why, Peter Junior! I'd be so proud of that crutch I wouldn't leave it off for anything! I'd always limp a little, even if I didn't use it. Cruel? I was complimenting you."

"Complimenting me? How?"

"By reminding you that you had been brave—and had been a soldier—and had been wounded for your country—and had been promoted—and—"

But Peter drowned her voice with uproarious laughter, and suddenly surprised himself as well as her by slipping his arm around her waist and stopping her lips with a kiss.

Betty was surprised but not shocked. She knew of no reason why Peter should not kiss her even though it was not his custom to treat her thus. In Betty's home, demonstrative expressions of affection were as natural as sunlight, and why should not Peter like her? Therefore it was Peter who was shocked, and embarrassed her with his sudden apology.

"I don't care if you did kiss me. You're just like my big brother—the same as Richard is—and he often used to kiss me." She was trying to set Peter at his ease. "And, anyway, I like you. Why, I supposed of course you liked me—only naturally not as much as I liked you."

"Oh, more! Much more!" he stammered tremblingly. He knew in his heart that there was a subtle difference, and that what he felt was not what she meant when she said, "I like you." "I'm sure it is I who like you the most."

"Oh, no, it isn't! Why, you never even used to see me. And I—I used to gaze on you—and be so romantic! It was Richard who always saw me and played with me. He used to toss me up, and I would run away down the road to meet him. I wonder when he's coming back! I wish he'd come. Why don't you read your father's letter? The man's waiting, you know."

"Ah, yes. And I suppose Dad's waiting, too. I wonder why he wrote me when he can see me every day!"

"Well, read it. Don't stand there looking at it and staring at me. Do you know how you look? You look as if it were a message from the king, saying: 'You are remanded to the tower, and are to have your head struck off at sundown.' That's the way they did things in the olden days." She turned to go.

"Stay here until I see if you are right." He dropped on the divan and made room for her at his side.

"All right! That's what I wanted to do, but I thought it wouldn't be polite to be curious."

"But you wouldn't be polite anyway, you know, so you might as well stay. M-m-m. I'm remanded to the tower, sure enough. Father wants me to meet him in the director's room as soon as banking hours are over. Fine old Dad! He wouldn't think of infringing on banking hours for any private reasons unless the sky were falling, and even then he would save the bank papers first. See here—Betty—er—never mind. I'll tell you another time."

"Please tell me now! What is it? Something dreadful, Peter Junior?"

"I wasn't thinking about this; it—it's something else—"

"About what?"

"About you."

"Oh, then it is no consequence. I want to hear what's in the letter. Why did you tell me to stay if you weren't going to tell me what's in it?"

"Nothing. We have had a little difference of opinion, my father and I, and he evidently wants to settle it out of hand his way, by summoning me in this official manner to appear before him at the bank."

"I know. He thinks you are idling away your time here trying to paint pictures, and he wishes to make a respectable banker of you." She reached over and began picking the strings of his violin.

"You musn't finger the strings of a violin that way."

"Why not? I want to see if I can pick out 'The Star Spangled Banner' on it. I can on the flute, father's old one; he lets me."

"Because you'll get them oily."

She spread out her two firm little hands. "My fingers aren't greasy!" she cried indignantly; "that's pear juice on them."

Peter Junior's gravity turned to laughter. "Well, I don't want pear juice on my strings. Wait, you rogue, I'm going to kiss you again."

"No, you're not, you old hobble-de-hoy. You can't catch me." When she was halfway down the stairs, she called back, "The man's waiting."

"Coward! Coward!" he called after her, "to run away from a poor old cripple and then call him names." He thrust the letter into his pocket, and seizing his crutch began deliberately and carefully to descend the stairs, with grave, set face, not unlike his father's.

"Catch, Peter Junior," called Betty from the top of the pear tree as he passed down the garden path, and tossed him a pear which he caught, then another and another. "There! No, don't eat them now. Put them in your desk, and next month they'll be just as sweet!"

"Will they? Just like you? I'll be even with you yet—when I catch you."

"You'll get pear juice on your strings. There are lots of nice girls in the village for you to kiss. They'll do just as well as me."

"Good girl. Good grammar. Good-by." He waved his hand toward Betty, and turned to the waiting servant. "You go on and tell the Elder I'm coming right along," he said, and hopped off down the road. It was only lately he had begun to take long walks or hops like this, with but one crutch, but he was growing frantic to be fairly on his two feet again. The doctor had told him he never would be, but he set his square chin, and decided that the doctor was wrong. More than ever to-day, with the new touch of little pear-stained fingers on his heart, he wanted to walk off like other men.

Now he tried to use his lame leg as much as possible. If only he might throw away the crutch and walk with a cane, it would be something gained. With one hand in his pocket he crushed his father's letter into a small wad, then tossed it in the air and caught it awhile, then put it back in his pocket and hobbled on.

The atmosphere had the smoky appearance of the fall, and the sweet haze of Indian summer lay over the landscape, the horizon only faintly outlined through it. Peter Junior sniffed the air. He wondered if the forests in the north were afire. Golden maple leaves danced along on the path before him, whirled hither and thither by the light breeze, and the wild asters and goldenrod powdered his dark trousers with pollen as he brushed them in passing. All the world was lovely, and he appreciated it as he had never been able to do before. Bertrand's influence had permeated his thoughts and widened thus his reach of happiness.

He entered the bank just at the closing hour, and the staid, faithful old clerks nodded to him as he passed through to the inner room, where he found his father awaiting him. He dropped wearily into a swivel chair before the great table and placed his crutch at his feet; wiping the perspiration from his forehead, he leaned forward, and rested his elbows on the table.

The young man's wan look, for the walk had taxed his strength, reminded his father of the day he had brought the boy home wounded, and his face relaxed.

"You are tired, my son."

"Oh, no. Not very. I have been more so." Peter Junior smiled a disarming smile as he looked in his father's face. "I've tramped many a mile on two sound feet when they were so numb from sheer weariness that I could not feel them or know what they were doing. What did you want to say to me, father?"

"Well, my son, we have different opinions, as you know, regarding your future."

"I know, indeed."

"And a father's counsel is not to be lightly disposed of."

"I have no intention of doing so, father."

"No, no. But wait. You have been loitering the day at Mr. Ballard's? Yes."

"I have nothing else to do, father,—and—" Peter Junior's smile again came to the rescue. "It isn't as though I were in doubtful company—I—there are worse places here in the village where I might—where idle men waste their time."

"Ah, yes. But they are not for you—not for you, my son." The Elder smiled in his turn, and lifted his brows, then drew them down and looked keenly at his son. The afternoon sunlight streamed through the high western window and fell on the older man's face, bringing it into strong relief against the dark oak paneling behind him, and as Peter Junior looked on his father he received his second revelation that day. He had not known before what a strong, fine old face his father's was, and for the second time he surprised himself, when he cried out:—

"I tell you, father, you have a magnificent head! I'm going to make a portrait of you just as you are—some day."

The Elder rose with an indignant, despairing downward motion of the hands and began pacing the floor, while Peter Junior threw off restraint and laughed aloud. The laughter freed his soul, but it sadly irritated the Elder. He did not like unusual or unprecedented things, and Peter Junior was certainly not like himself, and was acting in an unprecedented manner.

"You have now regained a fair amount of strength and have reached an age when you should think seriously of what you are to do in life. As you know, it has always been my intention that you should take a place here and fit yourself for the responsibilities that are now mine, but which will some day devolve on you."

Peter Junior raised his hand in protest, then dropped it. "I mean to be an artist, father."

"Faugh! An artist? Look at your friend, Bertrand Ballard. What has he to live on? What will he have laid by for his old age? How has he managed to live all these years—he and his wife? Miserable hand-to-mouth existence! I'll see my son trying to emulate him! You'll be an artist? And how will you support a wife if you ever have one? You mean to marry some day?"

"I mean to marry Betty Ballard," said Peter Junior, with a rugged set of his jaw.

Again the Elder made that despairing downward thrust with his open hands. "Take a wife who has nothing, and a career which brings in nothing, and live on what your father has amassed for you, and leave your sons nothing—a pretty way for you to carry on the work I have begun for you—to—establish an honorable family—"

"Father, father, I mean to do all I can to please you. I'll be always dutiful—and honorable—but you must leave me my manhood. You must allow me to choose my own path in life."

The Elder paced the floor a few moments longer, then resumed his chair opposite his son, and, leaning back, looked across the table at his boy, meditatively, with half-closed eyes. At last he said, "We'll take this matter to the Lord, and leave it in his hands."

Then Peter Junior cried out upon him: "No, no, father; spare me that. It only means that you'll state to the Lord what is your own way, and pray to have it, and then be more than ever convinced that it is the Lord's way."

"My son, my son!"

"It's so, father. I'm willing to ask for guidance of the Lord, but I'm not willing to have you dictate to the Lord what—what I must do, and so whip me in line with the scourge of prayer." Peter Junior paused, as he looked in his father's face and saw the shocked and sorrowful expression there instead of the passionate retort he expected. "I am wrong to talk so, father; forgive me; but—have patience a little. God gave to man the power of choice, didn't he?"

"Certainly. Through it all manner of evil came into the world."

"And all manner of good, too. I—a man ought not to be merely an automaton, letting some one else always exercise that right for him. Surely the right of choice would never have been given us if it were not intended that each man should exercise it for himself. One who does not is good for nothing."

"There is the command you forget; that of obedience to parents."

"But how long—how long, father? Am I not man enough to choose for myself? Let me choose."

Then the Elder leaned forward and faced his son as his son was facing him, both resting their elbows on the table and gazing straight into each other's eyes; and the old man spoke first.

"My father founded this bank before I was born. He came from Scotland when he was but a lad, with his parents, and went to school and profited by his opportunities. He was of good family, as you know. When he was still a very young man, he entered a bank in the city as clerk, and received only ten dollars a week for his services, but he was a steady, good lad, and ambitious, and soon he moved higher—and higher. His father had taken up farming, and at his death, being an only son, he converted the farm, all but the homestead, which we still own, and which will be yours, into capital, and came to town and started this bank. When I was younger than you, my son, I went into the bank and stood at my father's right hand, as I wish you—for your own sake—to do by me. We are a set race—a determined race, but we are not an insubordinate race, my son."

Peter Junior was silent for a while; he felt himself being beaten. Then he made one more plea. "It is not that I am insubordinate father, but, as I see it, into each generation something enters, different from the preceding one. New elements are combined. In me there is that which my mother gave me."

"Your mother has always been a sweet woman, yielding to the judgment of her husband, as is the duty of a good wife."

"I know she was brought up and trained to think that her duty, but I doubt if you really know her heart. Did you ever try to know it? I don't believe you understood what I meant by the scourge of prayer. She would have known. She has lived all these years under that lash, even though it has been wielded by the hand of one she loves—by one who loves her." He paused a second time, arrested by his father's expression. At first it was that of one who is stunned, then it slowly changed to one of rage. For once the boy had broken through that wall of self-control in which the Elder encased himself. Slowly the Elder rose and leaned towering over his son across the table.

"I tell you that is a lie!" he shouted. "Your mother has never rebelled. She has been an obedient, docile woman. It is a lie!"

Peter Junior made no reply. He also rose, and taking up his crutch, turned toward the door. There he paused and looked back, with flashing eyes. His lip quivered, but he held himself quiet.

"Come back!" shouted his father.

"I have told you the truth, father." He still stood with his hand on the door.

"Has—has—your mother ever said anything to you to give you reason to insult me this way?"

"No, never. We can't talk reasonably now. Let me go, and I'll try to explain some other time."

"Explain now. There is no other time."

"Mother is sacred to me, father. I ought not to have dragged her into this discussion."

The Elder's lips trembled. He turned and walked to the window and stood a moment, silently looking out. At last he said in a low voice: "She is sacred to me also, my son."

Peter Junior went back to his seat, and waited a while, with his head in his hands; then he lifted his eyes to his father's face. "I can't help it. Now I've begun, I might as well tell the truth. I meant what I said when I spoke of the different element in me, and that it is from my mother. You gave me that mother. I know you love her, and you know that your will is her law, as you feel that it ought to be. But when I am with her, I feel something of a nature in her that is not yours. And why not? Why not, father? There is that of her in me that makes me know this, and that of you in me that makes me understand you. Even now, though you are not willing to give me my own way, it makes me understand that you are insisting on your way because you think it is for my good. But nothing can alter the fact that I have inherited from my mother tastes that are not yours, and that entitle me to my manhood's right of choice."

"Well, what is your choice, now that you know my wish?"

"I can't tell you yet, father. I must have more time. I only know what I think I would like to do."

"You wish to talk it over with your mother?"

"Yes."

"She will agree with me."

"Yes, no doubt; but it's only fair to tell her and ask her advice, especially if I decide to leave home."

The Elder caught his breath inwardly, but said no more. He recognized in the boy enough of himself to know that he had met in him a power of resistance equal to his own. He also knew what Peter Junior did not know, that his grandfather's removal to this country was an act of rebellion against the wishes of his father. It was a matter of family history he had thought best not to divulge.



CHAPTER VIII

MARY BALLARD'S DISCOVERY

Peter Junior's mind was quite made up to go his own way and leave home to study abroad, but first he would try to convert his father to his way of thinking. Then there was another thing to be done. Not to marry, of course; that, under present conditions, would never do; but to make sure of Betty, lest some one come and steal into her heart before his return.

After his talk with his father in the bank he lay long into the night, gazing at the shadowed tracery on his wall cast by the full harvest moon shining through the maple branches outside his window. The leaves had not all fallen, and in the light breeze they danced and quivered, and the branches swayed, and the shadows also swayed and danced delicately over the soft gray wall paper and the red-coated old soldier standing stiffly in his gold frame. Often in his waking dreams in after life he saw the moving shadows silently swaying and dancing over gray and red and gold, and often he tried to call them out from the past to banish things he would forget.

Long this night he lay planning and thinking. Should he speak to Betty and tell her he loved her? Should he only teach her to think of him, not with the frank liking of her girlhood, so well expressed to him that very day, but with the warm feeling which would cause her cheeks to redden when he spoke? Could he be sure of himself—to do this discreetly, or would he overstep the mark? He would wait and see what the next day would bring forth.

In the morning he discarded his crutch, as he had threatened, and walked out to the studio, using only a stout old blackthorn stick he had found one day when rummaging among a collection of odds and ends in the attic. He thought the stick was his father's and wondered why so interesting a walking stick—or staff; it could hardly be called a cane, he thought, because it was so large and oddly shaped—should be hidden away there. Had his father seen it he would have recognized it instantly as one that had belonged to his brother-in-law, Larry Kildene, and it would have been cut up and used for lighting fires. But it had been many years since the Elder had laid eyes on that knobbed and sturdy stick, which Larry had treasured as a rare thing in the new world, and a fine antique specimen of a genuine blackthorn. It had belonged to his great-grandfather in Ireland, and no doubt had done its part in cracking crowns.

Betty, kneading bread at a table before the kitchen window, spied Peter Junior limping wearily up the walk without his crutch, and ran to him, dusting the flour from her hands as she came.

"Lean on me. I won't get flour on your coat. What did you go without your crutch for? It's very silly of you."

He essayed a laugh, but it was a self-conscious one. "I'm not going to use a crutch all my lifetime; don't you think it. I'm very well off without, and almost myself again. I don't need to lean on you—but I will—just for fun." He put his arm about her and drew her to him.

"Stop, Peter Junior. Don't you see you're getting flour all over your clothes?"

"I like flour on my clothes. It will do for stiffening." He raised her hand and kissed her wrist where there was no flour.

"You're not leaning on me. You're just acting silly, and you can hardly walk, you're so tired! Coming all this way without your crutch. I think you're foolish."

"If you say anything more about that crutch, I'll throw away my cane too." He dropped down on the piazza and drew her to the step beside him.

"I must finish kneading the bread; I can't sit here. You rest in the rocker awhile before you go up to the studio. Father's up there. He came home late last night after we were all in bed." She returned to her work, and after a moment called to him through the open window. "There's going to be a nutting party to-morrow, and we want you to go. We're going out to Carter's grove; we've got permission. Every one's going."

Peter Junior rubbed the moisture from his hair and shook his head. He must get nearer her, but it was always the same thing; just a happy game, with no touch of sentiment—no more, he thought gloomily, than if she were his sister.

"What are you all going there for?"

"Why, nuts, goosey; didn't I say we were going nutting?"

"I don't happen to want nuts." No, he wanted her to urge and coax him to go for her sake, but what could he say?

He left his seat, took the side path around to the kitchen door, and drew up a chair to the end of the table where she deftly manipulated the sweet-smelling dough, patting it, and pulling it, and turning it about until she was ready to put the shapely balls in the pans, holding them in her two firm little hands with a slight rolling motion as she slipped each loaf in its place. It had never occurred to Peter Junior that bread making was such an interesting process.

"Why do you fuss with it so? Why don't you just dump it in the pan any old way? That's the way I'd do." But he loved to watch her pink-tipped fingers carefully shaping the loaves, nevertheless.

"Oh—because."

"Good reason."

"Well—the more you work it the better it is, just like everything else; and then—if you don't make good-looking loaves, you'll never have a handsome husband. Mother says so." She tossed a stray lock from her eyes, and opening the oven door thrust in her arm. "My, but it's hot! Why do you sit here in the heat? It's a lot nicer on the porch in the rocker. Mother's gone to town—and—"

"I'd rather sit here with you—thank you." He spoke stiffly and waited. What could he say; what could he do next? She left him a moment and quickly returned with a cup of butter.

"You know—I'd stop and go out in the cool with you, Peter, but I must work this dough I have left into raised biscuit; and then I have to make a cake for to-morrow—and cookies—there's something to do in this house, I tell you! How about to-morrow?"

"I don't believe I'd better go. All the rest of the world will be there, and—"

"Only our little crowd. When I said everybody, you didn't think I meant everybody in the whole world, did you? You know us all."

"Do you want me to go? There'll be enough others—"

She tossed her head and gave him a sidelong glance. "I always ask people to go when I don't want them to."

He rose at that and stood close to her side, and, stooping, looked in her eyes; and for the first time the color flamed up in her face because of him. "I say—do you want me to go?"

"No, I don't."

But the red he had brought into her cheeks intoxicated him with delight. Now he knew a thing to do. He seized her wrists and turned her away from the table and continued to look into her eyes. She twisted about, looking away from him, but the burning blush made even the little ear she turned toward him pink, and he loved it. His discretion was all gone. He loved her, and he would tell her now—now! She must hear it, and slipping his arm around her, he drew her away and out to the seat under the old silver-leaf poplar tree.

"You're acting silly, Peter Junior,—and my bread will all spoil and get too light,—and my hands are all covered with flour, and—"

"And you'll sit right here while I talk to you a bit, if the bread spoils and gets too light and everything burns to a cinder." She started to run away from him, and his peremptory tone changed to pleading. "Please, Betty, dear! just hear me this far. I'm going away, Betty, and I love you. No, sit close and be my sweetheart. Dear, it isn't the old thing. It's love, and it's what I want you to feel for me. I woke up yesterday, and found I loved you." He held her closer and lifted her face to his. "You must wake up, too, Betty; we can't play always. Say you'll love me and be my wife—some day—won't you, Betty?"

She drooped in his arms, hanging her head and looking down on her floury hands.

"Say it, Betty dear, won't you?"

Her lip quivered. "I don't want to be anybody's wife—and, anyway—I liked you better the other way."

"Why, Betty? Tell me why."

"Because—lots of reasons. I must help mother—and I'm only seventeen, and—"

"Most eighteen, I know, because—"

"Well, anyway, mother says no girl of hers shall marry before she's of age, and she says that means twenty-one, and—"

"That's all right. I can wait. Kiss me, Betty." But she was silent, with face turned from him. Again he lifted her face to his. "I say, kiss me, Betty. Just one? That was a stingy little kiss. You know I'm going away, and that is why I spoke to you now. I didn't dare go without telling you this first. You're so sweet, Betty, some one might find you out and love you—just as I have—only not so deeply in love with you—no one could—but some one might come and win you away from me, and so I must make sure that you will marry me when you are of age and I come back for you. Promise me."

"Where?—why—Peter Junior! Where are you going?" Betty removed his arm from around her waist and slipped to her own end of the seat. There, with hands folded decorously in her lap, with heightened color and serious eyes, she looked shyly up at him. He had never seen her shy before. Always she had been merry and teasing, and his heart was proud that he had wrought such a miracle in her.

"I am going to Paris. I mean to be an artist." He leaned toward her and would have taken her in his arms again, but she put his hands away.

"Will your father let you do that?" Her eyes widened with surprise, and the surprise nettled him.

"I don't know. He's thinking about it. Anyway, a man must decide for himself what his career will be, and if he won't let me, I'll earn the money and go without his letting me."

"Wouldn't that be the best way, anyway?"

"What do you mean? To go without his consent?"

"Of course not—goosey." She laughed and was herself again, but he liked her better the other way. "To earn the money and then go. It—it—would be more—more as if you were in earnest."

"My soul! Do you think I'm not in earnest? Do you think I'm not in love with you?"

Instantly she was serious and shy again. His heart leaped. He loved to feel his power over her thus. Still she tantalized him. "I'm not meaning about loving me. That's not the question. I mean it would look more as if you were in earnest about becoming an artist."

"No. The real question is, Do you love me? Will you marry me when I come back?" She was silent and he came nearer. "Say it. Say it. I must hear you say it before I leave." Her lips trembled as if she were trying to form the words, and their eyes met.

"Yes—if—if—"

Then he caught her to him, and stopped her mouth with kisses. He did not know himself. He was a man he had never met the like of, and he gloried in himself. It seemed as if he heard bells ringing out in joy. Then he looked up and saw Mary Ballard's eyes fixed on him.

"Peter Junior—what are you doing?" Her voice shook.

"I—I'm kissing Betty."

"I see that."

"We are to be married some day—and—"

"You are precipitate, Peter Junior."

Then Betty did what every woman does when her lover is blamed, no matter how earnestly she may have resisted him before. She went completely over to his side and took his part.

"He's going away, mother. He's going away to be gone—perhaps for years; and I've—I've told him yes, mother,—so it isn't his fault." Then she turned and fled to her own room, and hid her flaming face in the pillow and wept.

"Sit here with me awhile, Peter Junior, and we'll talk it all over," said Mary.

He obeyed her, and looking squarely in her eyes, manfully told her his plans, and tried to make her feel as he felt, that no love like his had ever filled a man's heart before. At last she sent him up to the studio to tell her husband, and she went in and finished Betty's task, putting the bread—alas! too light by this time—in the oven, and shaping the raised biscuit which Betty had left half-finished.

Then she paused a moment to look out of the window down the path where the boys and little Janey would soon come tumbling home from school, hot and hungry. A tear slowly coursed down her cheek, and, following the curves, trembled on the tip of her chin. She brushed it away impatiently. Of course it had to come—that was what life must bring—but ah! not so soon—not so soon. Then she set about preparations for dinner without Betty's help. That, too, was what it would mean—sometime—to go on doing things without Betty. She gave a little sigh, and at the instant an arm was slipped about her waist, and she turned to look in Bertrand's eyes.

"Is it all right, Mary?"

"Why—yes—that is—if they'll always love each other as we have. I think it ought not to be too definite an engagement, though, until his plans are more settled. What do you think?"

"You are right, no doubt. I'll speak to him about that." Then he kissed her warm, flushed cheek. "I declare, it makes me feel as Peter Junior feels again, to have this happen."

"Ah, Bertrand! You never grew up—thank the Lord!" Then Mary laughed. After all, they had been happy, and why not Betty and Peter? Surely the young had their rights.

Bertrand climbed back to the studio where Peter Junior was pacing restlessly back and forth, and again they talked it all over, until the call came for dinner, when Peter was urged to stay, but would not. No, he would not see Betty again until he could have her quite to himself. So he limped away, feeling as if he were walking on air in spite of his halting gait, and Betty from her window watched him pass down the path and off along the grassy roadside. Then she went down to dinner, flushed and grave, but with shining eyes. Her father kissed her, but nothing was said, and the children thought nothing of it, for it was quite natural in the family to kiss Betty.



CHAPTER IX

THE BANKER'S POINT OF VIEW

There was no picnic and nutting party the next day, owing to a downpour of rain. Betty had time to think quietly over what had happened the day before and her mind misgave her. What was it that so filled her heart and mind? That so stirred her imagination? Was it romance or love? She wished she knew how other girls felt who had lovers. Was it easy or hard for them to say yes? Should a girl let her lover kiss her the way Peter Junior had done? Some of the questions which perplexed her she would have liked to ask her mother, but in spite of their charming intimacy she could not bring herself to speak of them. She wished she had a friend with a lover, and could talk it all over with her, but although she had girl friends, none of them had lovers, and to have one herself made her feel much older than any of them.

So Betty thought matters out for herself. Of course she liked Peter Junior—she had always liked him—and he was masterful—and she had always known she would marry a soldier—and one who had been wounded and been brave—that was the kind of a soldier to love. But she was more subdued than usual and sewed steadily on gingham aprons for Janey, making the buttonholes and binding them about the neck with contrasting stuff.

"Anyway, I'm glad there is no picnic to-day. The boys may eat up the cookies, and I didn't get the cake made after all," she said to her mother, as she lingered a moment in the kitchen and looked out of the window at the pouring rain. But she did not see the rain; she saw again a gray-clad youth limping down the path between the lilacs and away along the grassy roadside.

Well, what if she had said yes? It was all as it should be, according to her dreams, only—only—he had not allowed her to say what she had meant to say. She wished her mother had not happened to come just then before she could explain to Peter Junior; that it was "yes" only if when he came back he still wanted her and still loved her, and was sure he had not made a mistake about it. It was often so in books. Men went away, and when they returned, they found they no longer loved their sweethearts. If such a terrible thing should happen to her! Oh, dear! Or maybe he would be too honorable to say he no longer loved her, and would marry her in spite of it; and she would find out afterward, when it was too late, that he loved some one else; that would be very terrible, and they would be miserable all their lives.

"I don't think I would let the boys eat up the cookies, dear; it may clear off by sundown, and be fine to-morrow, and they'll be all as glad as to go to-day. You make your cake."

"But Martha's coming home to-morrow night, and I'd rather wait now until Saturday; that will be only one day longer, and it will be more fun with her along." Betty spoke brightly and tried to make herself feel that no momentous thing had happened. She hated the constraint of it. "By that time Peter Junior will think that he can go, too. He's so funny!" She laughed self-consciously, and carried the gingham aprons back to her room.

"Bless her dear little heart." Mary Ballard understood.

Peter Junior also profited by the rainy morning. He had a long hour alone with his mother to tell her of his wish to go to Paris; and her way of receiving his news was a surprise to him. He had thought it would be a struggle and that he would have to argue with her, setting forth his hopes and plans, bringing her slowly to think with quiescence of their long separation: but no. She rose and began to pace the floor, and her eyes grew bright with eagerness.

"Oh, Peter, Peter!" She came and placed her two hands on his shoulders and gazed into his eyes. "Peter Junior, you are a boy after my own heart. You are going to be something worth while. I always knew you would. It is Bertrand Ballard who has waked you up, who has taught you to see that there is much outside of Leauvite for a man to do. I'm not objecting to those who live here and have found their work here; it is only that you are different. Go! Go!—It is—has your father—have you asked his consent?"

"Oh, yes."

"Has he given it?"

"I think he is considering it seriously."

"Peter Junior, I hope you won't go without it—as you went once, without mine." Never before had she mentioned it to him, or recalled to his mind that terrible parting.

"Why not, mother? It would be as fair to him now as it was then to you. It would be fairer; for this is a question of progress, and then it was a matter of life and death."

"Ah, that was different, I admit. But I never could retaliate, or seem to, even in the smallest thing. I don't want him to suffer as I suffered."

It was almost a cry for pity, and Peter Junior wondered in his heart at the depth of anguish she must have endured in those days, when he had thrust the thought of her opposition to one side as merely an obstacle overcome, and had felt the triumph of winning out in the contest, as one step toward independent manhood. Now, indeed, their viewpoints had changed. He felt almost a sense of pique that she had yielded so joyously and so suddenly, although confronted with the prospect of a long separation from him. Did she love him less than in the past? Had his former disregard of her wishes lessened even a trifle her mother love for him?

"I'm glad you can take the thought of my going as you do, mother." He spoke coldly, as an only son may, but he was to be excused. He was less spoiled than most only sons.

"In what way, my son?"

"Why—in being glad to have me go—instead of feeling as you did then."

"Glad? Glad to have you go? It isn't that, dear. Understand me. I'm sorry I spoke of that old time. It was only to spare your father. You see we look at things differently. He loves to have us follow out his plans. It is almost—death to him to have to give up; and with me—it was not then as it is now. I don't like to think or speak of that time."

"Don't, mother, don't!" cried Peter, contritely.

"But I must to make you see this as you should. It was love for you then that made me cling to you, and want to hold you back from going; just the same it is love for you now that makes me want you to go out and find your right place in the world. I was letting you go then to be shot at—to suffer fatigue, and cold, and imprisonment, who could know, perhaps to be cruelly killed—and I did not believe in war. I suppose your father was the nobler in his way of thinking, but I could not see it his way. Angels from heaven couldn't have made me believe it right; but it's over. Now I know your life will be made broader by going, and you'll have scope, at least, to know what you really wish to do with yourself and what you are worth, as you would not have, to sit down in your father's bank, although you would be safer there, no doubt. But you went through all the temptations of the army safely, and I have no fear for you now, dear, no fear."

Peter Junior's heart melted. He took his mother in his arms and stroked her beautiful white hair. "I love you, mother, dear," was all he could say. Should he tell her of Betty now? The question died in his heart. It was too much. He would be all hers for a little, nor intrude the new love that she might think divided his heart. He returned to the question of his father's consent. "Mother, what shall I do if he will not give it?"

"Wait. Try to be patient and do what he wishes. It may help him to yield in the end."

"Never! I know Dad better than that. He will only think all the more that he is in the right, and that I have come to my senses. He never takes any viewpoint but his own." His mother was silent. Never would she open her lips against her husband. "I say, mother, naturally I would rather go with his consent, but if he won't give it—How long must a man be obedient just for the sake of obedience? Does such bondage never end? Am I not of age?"

"I will speak to him. Wait and see. Talk it over with him again to-day after banking hours."

"I—I—have something I must—must do to-day." He was thinking he would go out to the Ballards' in spite of the rain.

The dinner hour passed without constraint. In these days Peter Junior would not allow the long silences to occur that used often to cast a gloom over the meals in his boyhood. He knew that in this way his mother would sadly miss him. It was the Elder's way to keep his thoughts for the most part to himself, and especially when there was an issue of importance before him. It was supposed that his wife could not take an interest in matters of business, or in things of interest to men, so silence was the rule when they were alone.

This time Peter Junior mentioned the topic of the wonderful new railroad that was being pushed across the plains and through the unexplored desert to the Pacific.

"The mere thought of it is inspiring," said Hester.

"How so?" queried the Elder, with a lift of his brows. He deprecated any thought connecting sentiment with achievement. Sentiment was of the heart and only hindered achievement, which was purely of the brain.

"It's just the wonder of it. Think of the two great oceans being brought so near together! Only two weeks apart! Don't they estimate that the time to cross will be only two weeks?"

"Yes, mother, and we have those splendid old pioneers who made the first trail across the desert to thank for its being possible. It isn't the capitalists who have done this. It's the ones who had faith in themselves and dared the dangers and the hardships. They are the ones I honor."

"They never went for love of humanity. It was mere love of wandering and migratory instinct," said his father, grimly.

Peter Junior laughed merrily. "What did old grandfather Craigmile pull up and come over to this country for? They had to cross in sailing vessels then and take weeks for the journey."

"Progress, my son, progress. Your grandfather had the idea of establishing his family in honorable business over here, and he did it."

"Well, I say these people who have been crossing the plains and crawling over the desert behind ox teams in 'prairie schooners' for the last twenty or thirty years, braving all the dangers of the unknown, have really paved the way for progress and civilization. The railroad is being laid along the trail they made. Do you know Richard's out there at the end of the line—nearly?"

"He would be likely to be. Roving boy! What's he doing there?"

"Poor boy! He almost died in that terrible southern prison. He was the mere shadow of himself when he came home," said Hester.

"The young men of the present day have little use for beaten paths and safe ways. I offered him a position in the bank, but no—he must go to Scotland first to make the acquaintance of our aunts. If he had been satisfied with that! But no, again, he must go to Ireland on a fool's errand to learn something of his father." The Elder paused and bit his lip, and a vein stood out on his forehead. "He's never seen fit to write me of late."

"Of course such a big scheme as this road across the plains would appeal to a man like Richard. He's doing very well, father. I wouldn't be disturbed about him."

"Humph! I might as well be disturbed about the course of the Wisconsin River. I might as well worry over the rush of a cataract. The lad has no stability."

"He never fails to write to me, and I must say that he was considered the most dependable man in the regiment."

"What is he doing? I should like to see the boy again." Hester looked across at her son with a warm, loving light in her eyes.

"I don't know exactly, but it's something worth while, and calls for lots of energy. He says they are striking out into the dust and alkali now—right into the desert."

"And doesn't he say a word about when he is coming back?"

"Not a word, mother. He really has no home, you know. He says Scotland has no opening for him, and he has no one to depend on but himself."

"He has relatives who are fairly well to do in Ireland."

The Elder frowned. "So I've heard, and my aunts in Scotland talked of making him their heir, when I was last there."

"He knows that, father, but he says he's not one to stand round waiting for two old women to die. He says they're fine, decorous old ladies, too, who made a lot of him. I warrant they'd hold up their hands in horror if they knew what a rough life he's leading now."

"How rough, my son? I wish he'd make up his mind to come home."

"There! I told him this is his home; just as much as it is mine. I'll write him you said that, mother."

"Indeed, yes. Bless the boy!"

The Elder looked at his wife and lifted his brows, a sign that it was time the meal should close, and she rose instantly. It was her habit never to rise until the Elder gave the sign. Peter Junior walked down the length of the hall at his father's side.

"What Richard really wished to do was what I mentioned to you yesterday for myself. He wanted to go to Paris and study, but after visiting his great-aunts he saw that it would be too much. He would not allow them to take from their small income to help him through, so he gave it up for the time being; but if he keeps on as he is, it is my opinion he may go yet. He's making good money. Then we could be there together."

The Elder made no reply, but stooped and drew on his india-rubber overshoes,—stamping into them,—and then got himself into his raincoat with sundry liftings and hunchings of his shoulders. Peter Junior stood by waiting, if haply some sort of sign might be given that his remark had been heeded, but his father only carefully adjusted his hat and walked away in the rain, setting his feet down stubbornly at each step, and holding his umbrella as if it were a banner of righteousness. The younger man's face flushed, and he turned from the door angrily; then he looked to see his mother's eyes fixed on him sadly.

"At least he might treat me with common decency. He need not be rude, even if I am his son." He thought he detected accusation of himself in his mother's gaze and resented it.

"Be patient, dear."

"Oh, mother! Patient, patient! What have you got by being patient all these years?"

"Peace of mind, my son."

"Mother—"

"Try to take your father's view of this matter. Have you any idea how hard he has worked all his life, and always with the thought of you and your advancement, and welfare? Why, Peter Junior, he is bound up in you. He expected you would one day stand at his side, his mainstay and help and comfort in his business."

"Then it wasn't for me; it was for himself that he has worked and built up the bank. It's his bank, and his wife, and his son, and his 'Tower of Babel that he has builded,' and now he wants me to bury myself in it and worship at his idolatry."

"Hush, Peter. I don't like to rebuke you, but I must. You can twist facts about and see them in a wrong light, but the truth remains that he has loved you tenderly—always. I know his heart better than you—better than he. It is only that he thinks the line he has taken a lifetime to lay out for you is the best. He is as sure of it as that the days follow each other. He sees only futility in the way you would go. I have no doubt his heart is sore over it at this moment, and that he is grieving in a way that would shock you, could you comprehend it."

"Enough said, mother, enough said. I'll try to be fair."

He went to his room and stood looking out at the rain-washed earth and the falling leaves. The sky was heavy and drab. He thought of Betty and her picnic and of how gay and sweet she was, and how altogether desirable, and the thought wrought a change in his spirit. He went downstairs and kissed his mother; then he, too, put on his rubber overshoes and shook himself into his raincoat and carefully adjusted his hat and his umbrella. Then with the assistance of the old blackthorn stick he walked away in the rain, limping, it is true, but nevertheless a younger, sturdier edition of the man who had passed out before him.

He found Betty alone as he had hoped, for Mary Ballard had gone to drive her husband to the station. Bertrand was thinking of opening a studio in the city, at his wife's earnest solicitation, for she thought him buried there in their village. As for the children—they were still in school.

Thus it came about that Peter Junior spent the rest of that day with Betty in her father's studio. He told Betty all his plans. He made love to her and cajoled her, and was happy indeed. He had a winsome way, and he made her say she loved him—more than once or twice—and his heart was satisfied.

"We'll be married just as soon as I return from Paris, and you'll not miss me so much until then?"

"Oh, no."

"Ah—but—but I hope you will—you know."

"Of course I shall! What would you suppose?"

"But you said no."

"Naturally! Didn't you wish me to say that?"

"I wanted you to tell the truth."

"Well, I did."

"There it is again! I'm afraid you don't really love me."

She tilted her head on one side and looked at him a moment. "Would you like me to say I don't want you to go to Paris?"

"Not that, exactly; but all the time I'm gone I shall be longing for you."

"I should hope so! It would be pretty bad if you didn't."

"Now you see what I mean about you. I want you to be longing for me all the time, until I return."

"All right. I'll cry my eyes out, and I'll keep writing for you to come home."

"Oh, come now! Tell me what you will do all the time."

"Oh, lots of things. I'll paint pictures, too, and—I'll write—and help mother just as I do now; and I'll study art without going to Paris."

"Will you, you rogue! I'd marry you first and take you with me if it were possible, and you should study in Paris, too—that is, if you wished to."

"Wouldn't it be wonderful! But I don't know—I believe I'd rather write than paint."

"I believe I'd rather have you. They say there are no really great women artists. It isn't in the woman's nature. They haven't the strength. Oh, they have the delicacy and all that; it's something else they lack."

"Humph! It's rather nice to have us lacking in one thing and another, isn't it? It gives you men something to do to discover and fill in the lacks."

"I know one little lady who lacks in nothing but years."

Betty looked out of the window and down into the yard. "There is mother driving in. Let's go down and have cookies and milk. I'm sure you need cookies and milk."

"I'll need anything you say."

"Very well, then, you'll need patience if ever you marry me."

"I know that well enough. Stop a moment. Kiss me before we go down." He caught her in his arms, but she slipped away.

"No, I won't. You've had enough kisses. I'll always give you one when you come, hereafter, and one when you go away, but no more."

"Then I shall come very often." He laughed and leaned upon her instead of using his stick, as they slowly descended.

Mary Ballard was chilled after her long drive in the rain, and Betty made her tea. Then, after a pleasant hour of chat and encouragement from the two sweet women, Peter Junior left them, promising to go to the picnic and nutting party on Saturday. It would surely be pleasant, for the sky was already clearing. Yes, truly a glad heart brings pleasant prognostications.



CHAPTER X

THE NUTTING PARTY

Peter Junior made no attempt the next day to speak further to his father about his plans. It seemed to him better that he should wait until his wise mother had talked the matter over with the Elder. Although he put in most of the day at the studio, painting, he saw very little of Betty and thought she was avoiding him out of girlish coquetry, but she was only very busy. Martha was coming home and everything must be as clean as wax. Martha was such a tidy housekeeper that she would see the least lack and set to work to remedy it, and that Betty could not abide. In these days Martha's coming marked a semimonthly event in the home, for since completing her course at the high school she had been teaching in the city. Bertrand would return with her, and then all would have to be talked over,—just what he had decided to do, and why.

In the evening a surprise awaited the whole household, for Martha came, accompanied not only by her father, but also by a young professor in the same school where she taught. Mary Ballard greeted him most kindly, but she felt things were happening too rapidly in her family. Jamie and Bobby watched the young man covertly yet eagerly, taking note of his every movement and intonation. Was he one to be emulated or avoided? Only little Janey was quite unabashed by him, and this lightened his embarrassment greatly and helped him to the ease of manner he strove to establish.

She led him out to the sweet-apple tree, and introduced him to the calf and the bantams, and invited him to go with them nutting the next day. "We're all going in a great, big picnic wagon. Everybody's going and we'll have just lots of fun." And he accepted, provided she would sit beside him all the way.

Bobby decided at this point that he also would befriend the young man. "If you're going to sit beside her all the way, you'll have to be lively. She never sits in one place more than two minutes. You'll have to sit on papa's other knee for a while, and then you'll have to sit on Peter Junior's."

"That will be interesting, anyway. Who's Peter Junior?"

"Oh, he's a man. He comes to see us a lot."

"He's the son of Elder Craigmile," explained Martha.

"Is he going, too, Betty?"

"Yes. The whole crowd are going. It will be fun. I'm glad now it rained Thursday, for the Deans didn't want to postpone it till to-morrow, and then, when it rained, Mrs. Dean said it would be too wet to try to have it yesterday; and now we have you. I wanted all the time to wait until you came home."

That night, when Martha went to their room, Betty followed her, and after closing the door tightly she threw her arms around her sister's neck.

"Oh, Martha, Martha, dear! Tell me all about him. Why didn't you let us know? I came near having on my old blue gingham. What if I had? He's awfully nice looking. Is he in love with you? Tell me all about it. Does he make love to you? Oh, Martha! It's so romantic for you to have a lover!"

"Hush, Betty, some one will hear you. Of course he doesn't make love to me!"

"Why?"

"I wouldn't let him."

"Martha! Why not? Do you think it's bad to let a young man make love to you?"

"Betty! You mustn't talk so loud. Everything sounds so through this house. It would mortify me to death."

"What would mortify you to death: to have him make love to you or to have someone hear me?"

"Betty, dear!"

"Well, tell me all about him—please! Why did he come out with you?"

"You shouldn't always be thinking about love-making—and—such things, Betty, dear. He just came out in the most natural way, just because he—he loves the country, and he was talking to me about it one day and said he'd like to come out some Friday with me—just about asked me to invite him. So when father called at the school yesterday for me, I introduced them, and he said the same thing to father, and of course father invited him over again, and—and—so he's here. That's all there is to it."

"I bet it isn't. How long have you known him?"

"Why, ever since I've been in the school, naturally."

"What does he teach?"

"He has higher Latin and beginners' Greek, and then he has charge of the main room when the principal goes out."

Betty pondered a little, sitting on the floor in front of her sister. "You have such a lovely way of doing your hair. Is that the way to do hair nowadays—with two long curls hanging down from one side of the coil? You wind one side around the back knot, and then you pin the other up and let the ends hang down in two long curls, don't you? I'm going to try mine that way; may I?"

"Of course, darling! I'll help you."

"What's his name, Martha? I couldn't quite catch it, and I did not want to let him know I thought it queer, so wouldn't ask over."

"His name is Lucien Thurbyfil. It's not so queer, Betty."

"Oh, you pronounce it T'urbyfil, just as if there were no 'h' in it. You know I thought father said Mr. Tubfull—or something like that, when he introduced him to mother, and that was why mother looked at him in such an odd way."

The two girls laughed merrily. "Betty, what if you hadn't been a dear, and had called him that! And he's so very correct!"

"Oh, is he? Then I'll try it to-morrow and we'll see what he'll do."

"Don't you dare! I'd be so ashamed I'd sink right through the floor. He'd think we'd been making fun of him."

"Then I'll wait until we are out in the woods, for I'd hate to have you make a hole in the floor by sinking through it."

"Betty! You'll be good to-morrow, won't you, dear?"

"Good? Am I not always good? Didn't I scrub and bake and put flowers all over the ugly what-not in the corner of the parlor, and get the grease spot out of the dining room rug that Jamie stepped butter into—and all for you—without any thought of any Mr. Tubfull or any one but you? All day long I've been doing it."

"Of course you did, and it was perfectly sweet; and the flowers and mother looked so dear—and Janey's hands were clean—I looked to see. You know usually they are so dirty. I knew you'd been busy; but Betty, dear, you won't be mischievous to-morrow, will you? He's our guest, you know, and you never were bashful, not as much as you really ought to be, and we can't treat strangers just as we do—well—people we have always known, like Peter Junior. They wouldn't understand it."

But the admonition seemed to be lost, for Betty's thoughts were wandering from the point. "Hasn't he ever—ever—made love to you?" Martha was washing her face and neck at the washstand in the corner, and now she turned a face very rosy, possibly with scrubbing, and threw water over her naughty little sister. "Well, hasn't he ever put his arm around you or—or anything?"

"I wouldn't let a man do that."

"Not if you were engaged?"

"Of course not! That wouldn't be a nice way to do."

"Shouldn't you let a man kiss you or—or—put his arm around you—or anything—even when he's trying to get engaged to you?"

"Of course not, Betty, dear. You're asking very silly questions. I'm going to bed."

"Well, but they do in books. He did in 'Jane Eyre,' don't you remember? And she was proud of it—and pretended not to be—and very much touched, and treasured his every look in her heart. And in the books they always kiss their lovers. How can Mr. Thurbyfil ever be your lover, if you never let him even put his arm around you?"

"Betty, Betty, come to bed. He isn't my lover and he doesn't want to be and we aren't in books, and you are getting too old to be so silly."

Then Betty slowly disrobed and bathed her sweet limbs and at last crept in beside her sister. Surely she had not done right. She had let Peter Junior put his arm around her and kiss her, and that even before they were engaged; and all yesterday afternoon he had held her hand whenever she came near, and he had followed her about and had kissed her a great many times. Her cheeks burned with shame in the darkness, not that she had allowed this, but that she had not been as bashful as she ought. But how could she be bashful without pretending?

"Martha," she said at last, "you are so sweet and pretty, if I were Mr. Thurbyfil, I'd put my arm around you anyway, and make love to you."

Then Martha drew Betty close and gave her a sleepy kiss. "No you wouldn't, dear," she murmured, and soon the two were peacefully sleeping, Betty's troubles quite forgotten. Still, when morning came, she did not confide to her sister anything about Peter Junior, and she even whispered to her mother not to mention a word of the affair to any one.

At breakfast Jamie and Bobby were turbulent with delight. All outings were a joy to them, no matter how often they came. Martha was neat and rosy and gay. Lucien Thurbyfil wanted to help her by wiping the dishes, but she sent him out to the sweet-apple tree with a basket, enjoining him to bring only the mellow ones. "Be sure to get enough. We're all going, father and mother and all."

"It's very nice of your people to make room for me on the wagon."

"And it's nice of you to go."

"I see Peter Junior. He's coming," shouted Bobby, from the top of the sweet-apple tree.

"Who does he go with?" asked Martha.

"With us. He always does," said Betty. "I wonder why his mother and the Elder never go out for any fun, the way you and father do!"

"The Elder always has to be at the bank, I suppose," said Mary Ballard, "and she wouldn't go without him. Did you put in the salt and pepper for the eggs, dear?"

"Yes, mother. I'm glad father isn't a banker."

"It takes a man of more ability than I to be a banker," said Bertrand, laughing, albeit with concealed pride.

"We don't care if it does, Dad," said Jamie, patronizingly. "When I get through the high school, I'm going to hire out to the bank." He seized the lunch basket and marched manfully out to the wagon.

"I thought Peter Junior always went with Clara Dean. He did when I left," said Martha, in a low voice to Betty, as they filled bottles with raspberry shrub, and with cream for the coffee. "Did you tie strings on the spoons, dear? They'll get mixed with the Walters' if you don't. You remember theirs are just like ours."

"Oh, I forgot. Why, he likes Clara a lot, of course, but I guess they just naturally expected him to go with us. They and the Walters have a wagon together, anyway, and they wouldn't have room. We have one all to ourselves. Hello, Peter Junior! Mr. Thurbyfil, this is Mr. Junior."

"Happy to meet you, Mr. Junior," said the correct Mr. Thurbyfil. The boys laughed uproariously, and the rest all smiled, except Betty, who was grave and really seemed somewhat embarrassed.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Mr. Thurbyfil, this is Mr. Craigmile," said Martha. "You introduced him as Mr. Junior, Betty."

"I didn't! Well, that's because I'm bashful. Come on, everybody, mother's in." So they all climbed into the wagon and began to find their places.

"Oh, father, have you the matches? The bottles are on the kitchen table," exclaimed Martha.

"Don't get down, Mr. Ballard," said Lucien. "I'll get them. It would never do to forget the bottles. Now, where's the little girl who was to ride beside me?" and Janey crawled across the hay and settled herself at her new friend's side. "Now I think we are beautifully arranged," for Martha was on his other side.

"Very well, we're off," and Bertrand gathered up the reins and they started.

"There they are. There's the other wagon," shouted Bobby. "We ought to have a flag to wave."

Then Lucien, the correct, startled the party by putting his two fingers in his mouth and whistling shrilly.

"They have such a load I wish Clara could ride with us," said Betty. "Peter Junior, won't you get out and fetch her?"

So they all stopped and there were greetings and introductions and much laughing and joking, and Peter Junior obediently helped Clara Dean down and into the Ballards' wagon.

"Clara, Mr. Thurbyfil can whistle as loud as a train, through his fingers, he can. Do it, Mr. Thurbyfil," said Bobby.

"Oh, I can do that," said Peter Junior, not to be outdone by the stranger, and they all tried it. Bertrand and his wife, settled comfortably on the high seat in front, had their own pleasure together and paid no heed to the noisy crew behind them.

What a day! Autumn leaves and hazy distances, soft breezes and sunlight, and miles of level road skirting woods and open fields where the pumpkins lay yellow among the shocks of corn, and where the fence corners were filled with flaming sumac, with goldenrod and purple asters adding their softer coloring.

It was a good eight miles to Carter's woods, but they bordered the river where the bluffs were not so high, and it would be possible to build a fire on the river bank with perfect safety. Bertrand had brought roasting ears from his patch of sweet corn, and as soon as they arrived at their chosen grove, he and Mary leisurely turned their attention to the preparing of the lunch with Mrs. Dean and Mrs. Walters, leaving to the young people the gathering of the nuts.

Mrs. Dean, a slight, wiry woman, who acted and talked easily and unceasingly, spread out a fresh linen cloth and laid a stone on each corner to hold it down, and then looked into each lunch basket in turn, to acquaint herself with its contents.

"I see you brought cake and cookies and jam, Mrs. Ballard, besides all the corn and cream—you always do too much, and all your own work to look after, too. Well, I brought a lot of ham sandwiches and that brown bread your husband likes so much. I always feel so proud when Mr. Ballard praises anything I do; he's so clever it makes me feel as if I were really able to do something. And you're so clever too. I don't know how it is some folks seem to have all the brains, and then there's others—good enough—but there! As I tell Mr. Dean, you can't tell why it is. Now where are the spoons? Every one brings their own, of course; yes, here are yours, Mrs. Walters. It's good of you to think of that sweet corn, Mr. Ballard.—Oh, he's gone away; well, anyway, we're having a lot more than we can eat, and all so good and tempting. I hope Mr. Dean won't overeat himself; he's just a boy at a picnic, I always have to remind him—How?"

"Did you bring the cups for the coffee?" It was Mrs. Walters who interrupted the flow of Mrs. Dean's eloquence. She was portly and inclined to brevity, which made her a good companion for Mrs. Dean.

"I had such a time with my jell this summer, and now this fall my grape jell's just as bad. This is all running over the glasses. There, I'll set it on this paper. I do hate to see a clean cloth all spotted with jell, even if it is a picnic when people think it doesn't make any difference. I see Martha has a friend. Well, that's nice. I wish Clara cared more for company; but, there, as I tell Mr. Dean—Oh, yes! the cups. Clara, where are the cups? Oh, she's gone. Well, I'm sure they're in that willow basket. I told Clara to pack towels around them good. I do hate to see cups all nicked up; yes, here they are. It's good of you to always tend the coffee, Mrs. Walters; you know just how to make it. I tell Mr. Dean nobody ever makes coffee like you can at a picnic. Now, if it's ready, I think everything else is; well, it soon will be with such a fire, and the corn's not done, anyway. Do you think the sun'll get round so as to shine on the table? I see it's creeping this way pretty fast, and they're all so scattered over the woods there's no telling when we will get every one here to eat. I see another tablecloth in your basket, Mrs. Ballard. If you'll be good enough to just hold that corner, we can cover everything up good, so, and then I'll walk about a bit and call them all together." And the kindly lady stepped briskly off through the woods, still talking, while Mrs. Ballard and Mrs. Walters sat themselves down in the shade and quietly watched the coffee and chatted.

It was past the noon hour, and the air was drowsy and still. The voices and laughter of the nut gatherers came back to them from the deeper woods in the distance, and the crackling of the fire where Bertrand attended to the roasting of the corn near by, and the gentle sound of the lapping water on the river bank came to them out of the stillness.

"I wonder if Mr. Walters tied the horses good!" said his wife. "Seems as if one's got loose. Don't you hear a horse galloping?"

"They're all there eating," said Mary, rising and looking about. "Some one's coming, away off there over the bluff; see?"

"I wonder, now! My, but he rides well. He must be coming here. I hope there's nothing the matter. It looks like—it might be Peter Junior, only he's here already."

"It's—it's—no, it can't be—it is! It's—Bertrand, Bertrand! Why, it's Richard!" cried Mary Ballard, as the horseman came toward them, loping smoothly along under the trees, now in the sunlight and now in the shadow. He leaped from the saddle, and, throwing the rein over a knotted limb, walked rapidly toward them, holding out a hand to each, as Bertrand and Mary hurried forward.

"I couldn't let you good folks have one of these fine old times without me."

"Why, when did you come? Oh, Richard! It's good to see you again," said Mary.

"I came this morning. I went up to my uncle's and then to your house and found you all away, and learned that you were here and my twin with you, so here I am. How are the children? All grown up?"