The Daughter of a Republican Part 2

Some years later he married a second time. When his first child was born and he was told it was a daughter, he was disappointed. When the second child came and was also a girl, his disappointment verged on resentment.

Through the hours of anxious waiting that preceded the arrival of the third child, he walked the floor in a state of mind alternating between hope and fear, and when at last the suspense was over and he looked upon the tiny features of a son, his joy knew no bounds.

He hurried out to break the news to the two little sisters whom he imagined would be as pleased as he was. He found them in the yard, Vivian swinging with her doll and Jean digging a hole in a pile of sand.

When the important announcement was made, the black-haired Vivian clapped her hands for joy, but the other little girl kept right on digging, just as if she had not heard. When she had pa.s.sed the critical point in the process of excavating she paused and looked up.

The expression in her father's face was something new to her, and she studied him in silence a moment, then said, solemnly:

"Are boys any better than girls, father?"

"Better? Why no, they are no better. They are boys, that is all."

"Well, then!" and the tone of her voice, no less than the words, conveyed the meaning that the matter was settled, and she returned to her digging as if nothing had happened. But she did not forget the incident, and when, shortly after, the tiny baby boy in the cold arms of his mother had been put to rest beneath a mound, and the light had gone out of the father's face and the elasticity out of his step, little Jean pondered and her heart went out strangely to her father in his bitter trouble. She followed him softly about and studied him.

One evening, some time after the little son had come and gone, Jean appeared before her father in the library to make an important announcement. "I've been thinking the matter over, father," she said, "and I've made up my mind I will be your boy. You want a boy, and you know yourself you'll never be able to make one of Vivian, with her wee little mouth and her long braids. Now my hair is just right and I can throw a stone exactly over the middle of the barn and kick a ball farther than any boy on the block. I shall kick more hereafter, for don't you think a boy's legs ought to be cultivated?"

Judge Thorn smiled and a.s.sured her that she was correct in her idea of muscular development.

"Are boys as good as girls, father?"

"Boys as good as girls? Why, certainly."

"Well, you said once that girls were as good as boys, and if boys are as good as girls they're as good as each other, aren't they?"

Judge Thorn could not keep back the laugh this time.

"I believe that is the logical conclusion," he said.

"Then tell me truly, father, if I'm going to be your boy, are you going to be as glad as you were that morning you bothered me when I was digging my well?"

Judge Thorn hesitated a moment, but the clear gray eyes were upon him, and he felt the justice of their plea.

"Yes, dear, I think so."

"And may I do just as you do when I get big--read books and make speeches?"

Now Judge Thorn was not an advocate of the advanced sphere of women and was not sure he wanted his daughter to be a lawyer, but after a short reflection, perhaps thinking the request but the pa.s.sing fancy of a child, he gave his a.s.sent.

"Thank you, father," she responded gravely. "I think you are a very good man." Then she kissed him and left the room.

He sat, still smiling, when her voice close to his side startled him with the announcement:

"I think, father, if you do not care, I will not go into pants. I might not feel at home, you know."

From the time that the little Jean had announced herself as her father's boy, he took more interest in her; and as the child developed, he saw unfolding the traits and abilities he had hoped to nurture in a son.

Intuitively she seemed to understand his moods and fancies, and as her understanding developed, the books were a source of delight to her, and many times she discussed knotty problems with her father in a way that pleased him mightily.

So, as the years went by, she slipped into the place the father had reserved for the son, and he loved her with a peculiarly tender love and was never prouder of her than when he heard her say, in explanation of her notions and her plans, "I am my father's boy."

On the particular night when Maggie Crowley was wandering about in the storm, two young women occupied a handsome room in the Thorn home. A cheerful wood fire burned on the hearth and the clear rays from an overhanging light cast brightness over the rows of books that lined the walls.

These were two people who minded not the winter weather. The cold wind blowing through the gables and leafless trees held no terror for them.

Perhaps they rather liked to hear it as by way of comparison it made their lot seem more comfortable.

The tall slender woman with black hair was examining alternately a fas.h.i.+on book and a bunch of samples. She was Vivian, a p.r.o.nounced society lady.

The other sat in a low chair, by a small study table, reading, only looking up now and then to answer some question put to her by her sister. This was "my father's boy."

The solemn little Jean was gone, in her place was this altogether charming young person, whose shapely head was crowned with coils and coils of red brown hair held in place by numerous quaintly carved silver hairpins. If it had not been for the clear gray eyes and the quaint fas.h.i.+on she still had of dropping her head on one side when solving some momentous problem, the little Jean might have been a dream.

Presently the door opened and Judge Thorn entered.

"Nice evening, girls!"

"Delightful!"

"Blackstone, Jean?"

The young lady looked at the book quizzically a moment and then laughed.

"United States history, father. Last week I reviewed Caesar. Now I am on this, and if I do my best I think I may reasonably hope to be in the Third Reader by next week."

The judge laughed.

"I have been reading our const.i.tution and looking over the record of 'the late unpleasantness,'" said Jean. "It is very interesting to me. Do you know, father, I love every woman who gave a husband or a son to her country, and I almost hold in reverence the memory of the men who shed their blood to effect the abolition of human slavery in America."

The tall form of the Judge straightened and his eye brightened, like a soldier's when he hears the names of his old battle-fields.

"Do not forget," he said, "that there were those who acted as brave a part who never faced a cannon. It is easy to be borne by the force of a great wave; but those who by their time and talents put the wave of public opinion in motion are the real heroes.

"I can remember the time when a man who preached or taught Abolition was looked upon as narrow-minded, fanatical, bigoted and even criminal. When the name was a stench in the nostrils of the people even in liberty-loving Boston. When men were rotten-egged, beaten, and in some instances killed because they dared to follow the dictates of their own consciences and make sentiment for the overthrow of the traffic in humanity. It took all this to bring it about. No great moral reform takes place without agitation, or without martyrs. Those men bore the brunt of battle before the battle was. They were most surely heroes.

They made the tidal wave of opinion that swept the country with insistent force and struck the shackles from 3,000,000 slaves."

"And you, father, were one of them," cried the enthusiastic girl. "What perils you must have braved!"

"I did all I could, you may be sure," answered the judge, modestly, "and I imagine it would be more agreeable to be whipped in a hand-to-hand encounter than to be caricatured, misrepresented and lied about, and by those, too, who claimed to have the abolition of slavery near their hearts, who prayed unceasingly for its utter destruction, and then split hairs as to the way in which it was to be accomplished, and who fondly hoped to exterminate it by marking boundary lines."

"But then," asked Jean, "was there no way by which this terrible war could have been averted? No way by which the government could have regulated and gradually suppressed slavery?"

"Regulations and restrictions," replied the Judge, waxing eloquent, "put upon such a vice by a government are but its terms of partners.h.i.+p.

Gradual suppression of a mighty evil is always a signal failure, and while we wait to prove these failures the enemy gains foothold."

"I am proud of you, father--proud to be my father's boy--proud to be the daughter of a patriot," said Jean, with tears in her clear eyes. "I am a patriot, too, and if ever such an issue comes to the front in my day, I intend to do a patriot's part, if I am a woman."

"I do not think such an issue will ever be forced to the front again.

That was a moral question as well as political. Other matters vex the people of today--money matters mostly--in which more diplomacy is required than bravery."

"I must hurry now. I have but fifteen minutes in which to get down town."

"You surely are not going out tonight?"