An Unoficial Patriot Part 9

I am sure that I found a good deal better way for myself than my father had marked out for me. Perhaps Beverly will. Suppose we trust him.

He has been such a good son--such a frank fellow; don't let us make a pretender of him. Let him read what he does openly. You may be very sure if it looks wrong to him he won't _want_ to be open with it. I don't want to hurt Beverly as my father, dear soul, hurt me--intending it for my own good, of course; but--but--can't you trust Beverly, Katherine? I can. And maybe, after all, people have not understood this book. Leave it here. I believe I'll read it myself." Katherine was astonished, but the little talk rested and helped her. That night the book was on Beverly's table again and nothing was said of it. Beverly had joined his father's church when he was a little fellow, but since he entered college he had seemed to take slight interest in it. He was always present at family prayers, but said nothing about his religious views of late. A year ago he had been reprimanded, in company with others, by the local preacher for attending a social dance. That night he said to Roy: "The first time a dancing teacher comes to this town I am going to take lessons. Look at those Louisville boys in my cla.s.s and in yours, too.

They are twice as easy in their manners as any of the rest of us. It is their dancing that did it. They told me so."

"Mr. Brooks will turn you out of the church if you do," said Roy.

"Father wouldn't," replied Beverly, whistling--"and father is good enough for me."

But, since there had been no opportunity to fulfill the threat, the little matter of the social dance had blown over, and Beverly was still, nominally, a member of the Methodist Church.

The days pa.s.sed. The political crash was upon the country. Men met only to talk of free-soil and slave extension, of union and disunion, of repeal, and even, in some quarters, of abolition. Young men's blood boiled. In Legislature and Congress feeling ran to blows. The air was thick and heavy with threats of--no one knew what. Old friends.h.i.+ps were broken and new ones strained into real enmity. Brothers took different sides. Fathers and sons became bitter. Neighbor looked with suspicion upon neighbor. College fraternities lapsed into political clubs. It was now Beverly's last year. His favorite professor died. Griffith noticed that the boy was restless and abstracted. One day he came to his father.

"Father," he said, abruptly, "I don't feel as if I ought to waste any more time at college. There is a tremendous upheaval just ahead of us.

Could you--would you just as soon I should?--I've got an offer with two of the other fellows, and I--"

Mr. Davenport recognized in the boy's unusual hesitancy of speech an unaccustomed quality of unrest and uncertainty. He looked over his gold-bowed gla.s.ses.

"Why, what is it, son? Out with it," he said, smiling.

"Well, it's like this: You remember Shapleigh, of the cla.s.s last year?

Well, you know his father owns that little free-soil paper out in Missouri that I get every once in a while. It's democratic, you know, but free-soil."

Griffith nodded. "Very good little paper, too. Don't fully agree with those last editorials--too fiery--but a very decent little sheet."

Beverly was evidently pleased.

"Well, the old gentleman is tired of the fight, and Shap wrote me that if Donaldson and I will each put in $1,500, his father will turn the paper over to the three of us. Shap knows how to run the business end of the concern. That's what he has done since he was graduated. Shap wants me for political editor, mostly. He's a red-hot free-soiler, and he knows I am. I sent him my last two speeches and he used 'em in the paper. He says they took like wildfire; his const.i.tuents liked 'em first-cla.s.s. You know, I've always thought I'd like to be a newspaper man. Think so more than ever now. Times are so hot, and there is such a lot to be said. They need new blood to the front, and--"

Griffith was laughing gently and looking quizzically, with lips pursed up, at this ambitious son of his; but the boy went on:

"The fact is, father, I've worried over it all this term. I hated to ask you if you could let me have the money. It is such a splendid chance--one of a lifetime, I think. I do wish you'd let me."

At last he had fallen into his boyish form of speech, and Griffith laughed aloud.

"_Let_ you? _Let_ you be an editor of a fiery free-soil paper out in Missouri, hey? The fellow that edits a paper out there just now can't be made out of very meek stuff, Bev. It won't be a nest of roses for any three young birds that try it, I reckon. D'yeh see that account in the _Gazette_, yesterday, of the mob out there near Kansas City?"

"Yes, I did; and that's the very thing that decided me to ask you to-day. Of course, you'd really own the stock. It would only be in my name till I could pay you for it, and--"

"Beverly," said his father, gravely, "if you've made up your mind fully to this thing, and are sure you know what you want and can do, I reckon you don't need to worry over the money for the stock. But are you _sure_ you want to leave college before you finish? Isn't it a little premature?"

He did not hear his son's reply. It came suddenly to his mind that this boy of his was almost exactly the age that he had been when he had tried to argue his own case with the old Major. It rushed into his thoughts how hard it had been to approach the topic nearest his heart, and how cruelly it had all ended. He realized, as he often did these days, how boyish and immature he must have seemed to his father, and yet how tragically old he had felt to himself. He wondered if Beverly felt that way now. He began to realize that the boy was still talking, arguing and planning, although he had not heard.

"Bev," he said, gently, using the abbreviation instinctively to make the boy feel the tenderness of his intent--"Bev, I don't intend to argue this thing with you at all."

Beverly had misunderstood his father's long silence and abstraction. The remark confirmed his misconception. He arose, disappointed, and started for the door. Griffith reached out, caught him by the sleeve, and pulled him into a chair beside his own.

"I want to tell you something, Bev. When I was about your age--maybe a little younger--

"I made a request of my father that it had cost me a sore trial to make up my mind to ask. He--well, he didn't take it kindly, and--and--and I left home in a huff; not exactly a huff, either; but, to tell the truth, we succeeded in hurting each other sorely. And there wasn't the least need of it. It took us both a long time to get over the hurt of it.

I sometimes doubt if we ever did get really all over it. I tell you, Beverly, boy, it was a sad, sad blunder all around. It darkened and dampened my spirits for many a day, and I don't doubt it did his."

Griffith was playing idly with a paper-knife on the table beside him, and there came a pause and a far-off look in his eyes.

"Oh, father, don't fancy I feel that way--I--don't--I wouldn't think----" began Beverly, eagerly, with a suspicious quaver in his voice. To hide it, he arose suddenly.

"Sit down, son," said Griffith, smiling at the boy and taking the hand that rested on the table. It was cold. He dropped the paper-knife and laid his other hand over his son's. "Beverly, you didn't understand me, I reckon"--he threw one arm about the boy's shoulders--"I reckon you didn't understand me. I meant to say this: I still think my father was wrong. Now, if I can help it, I don't want the time to ever come, that when you recall your first independent effort with me, you will think that of me. I've always intended to try to remember, when that time came, to put myself in your place, and recall my own early struggles--be nineteen again myself. We will all hate to have you go so far away. That will be the hardest part for mother and for all of us; but if you have, thought it all over seriously----"

"I have, indeed, father--for months and months. It----"

"Why, all there is to do is for me to look into the matter and get that stock for you, and see how we can make the change as easy as possible--as----"

The boy was on his feet. He was struggling to hide his emotion.

Griffith, still holding his hand, arose. He drew the boy toward him.

Suddenly Beverly understood his father's wish. He threw both arms about his neck and kissed him as he had not done since he was a little fellow.

Mr. Davenport held the boy close to his breast. Beverly was the taller of the two, but the father's form had filled out into portly proportions during these past years and Beverly's was very slight.

"There, there, there!" exclaimed Griffith, presently, blowing a blast upon his handkerchief. "What are we two precious fools crying over?

Wasting time! Wasting time! Better go tell your mother all about it and let her get about fixing you up to go. Editor Davenport!" he exclaimed, holding the boy at arm's length. "Well, well, well! what next? Tut, tut, tut, tut! I expect Roy will be wanting to set up a law-office--or a boxing school--in a day or two." Roy's exploit with his fists in behalf of Aunt Judy had always been a family joke. "But, look here, Beverly, I want you to promise me you will be mighty careful to keep out of trouble out there. It's a hot State just now. The times are scorching, and--G.o.d only knows what's in store for the country. Keep out of trouble and hasty words, son. Bless me, but I'm glad it's not Roy! He'd be in trouble before he got his first stick set up. They call it a stick.

don't they? I'll have to coach up on journalistic language if I'm to have an editor for a son. The proof of the editorials will be in the reading thereof," he added, smiling at the play upon the old saying.

"But I stipulate right now that you send me every one you write marked in red, so I won't have to wade through all the other stuff to find yours. If they're as good as that last essay of yours at the Delta, I'll be proud of you, my boy. Only--only don't be too radical! Young blood boils too easy. Mine did. Go slow on this question, Bev. It's bigger than you think it is. In one form or another it has burdened my whole life, and I've never been able to solve it yet--for others, for others.

I solved it for myself--as Judy's presence here proves," he added, laughing. Judy's presence and her triumph over the law was a family jest, and Roy's fight on her behalf not wholly a memory of regret.

"He fit fur the ould naiger," remarked the envious Rosanna, from time to time, "but it would be the rear of me loif, shure, before he'd do the same, er even so much as jaw back, fer the loikes o' me!"

CHAPTER XI.

_"I'll stand as if a man were author of himself,

And knew no other kin."_

Shakespeare.

Since Beverly was a Virginian, and since it was well known that at least one of the new owners of the paper was from Ma.s.sachusetts, it was deemed wise to have Beverly sign all of his editorials where they touched--as they usually did--upon the ever-present, and ever-exciting topic of slave extension. The young fellows were advised by the original owner that the border people were in no mood to accept arguments opposed to the opinions of a large proportion of the property owners, if they supposed these arguments came from persons in any way hostile to their interests--as all the New England people were supposed to be.

But, he reasoned, if these arguments came from the pen of one who had known the inst.i.tution of slavery at its best and had loved the old order of things where it was an established inst.i.tution and where its roots were, as even Beverly believed, in normal earth and not to be disturbed--if from his pen came the protest against its farther extension--it was believed the natives would accept it in kindness whether they agreed with him or not. Beverly still adhered to the old order of things for the old states. He, like his father, had seen how hard it was to be rid of even a small portion of its power and its responsibility.

At the end of the second year of his new editorial work Beverly had grown to feel himself quite at home with his duties. He had made both friends and enemies. The little office had become the town's center of debate and of political development. The clash of interests had come nearer and nearer. The country was on the eve of an election excitement such as had never before been known. Four parties were in the field. The election of either of the two radical candidates meant civil war beyond hope of evasion. Many still fondly hoped that peace was yet possible if but the compromise candidates were elected. Mr. Davenport held tenaciously to that view. Beverly came out openly against it. If it were staved off by compromise, he insisted that it was only a matter of time when the inevitable would come. He argued that it would be best to meet and settle the issue once and for all.

"I shall cast my first presidential ballot for that Illinois lawyer who flayed Douglas," he wrote to his father. "War is simply inevitable now, and he is a fearless and clear-headed leader. When the extension party sees that he means business, and has the whole North and West behind, him the struggle will the sooner be over." But Griffith still hoped for peace and a compromise, and declared his intention to vote for Bell and Everett. "You are simply throwing your vote away," wrote Beverly, insistently, "and after all you have done and suffered because of this thing I am sorry to see you do it, father. I'd rather see you help other people to keep out of the fire that scorched you than to silently allow it to be lighted in the states that are now free--in the new territorial country so soon to be states. But what business have I to advise you?

I'm in a position to see it better than you are, is my only excuse. I am going to vote for Lincoln and work for him with all my strength. Things are about as hot as they can be out here, I can tell you. I mail my last editorial on the subject to-day. A good many people here don't half like it, and I've had to buck up to some pretty ugly talk first and last; but--we have to follow our consciences, don't we? That's mine, whether they like it or not. Lots of love to mother and the boys and Margaret--and to Judy, too. And af you plaise, me reshpects t' Rosanna, shure!

"P. S.--I forgot to say I'll have to postpone that visit home for a little while yet, until things settle down a bit. We have all we can possibly manage at the office now. Shap runs the business end of things very well, does the hiring and adv. work and all that. Donaldson takes all the locals and reporting, and I've got pretty much the whole of the editing to do. I sign only the political ones, but I do the other stuff on that page and the literary part too. Of course both of them do some of these things once in a while--and if they want to; but I am depended on for it; so as times are, I've got to be here to meet all these new questions. We talk 'em over and I write 'em up. It keeps me tied, but I like it; I reckon I was born for the business. We are really making great strides for youngsters. The subscriptions have very nearly doubled in the two years. Did you read the issue of the 24th with my lurid remarks on 'Breakers Ahead?' I believe every word of it. I don't believe we are going to pull through without a touch of gunpowder. I don't intend to fight myself, if I can help it--but I shall shoot with ink just as long and as strong as I can. I believe my postscript is a good deal longer than my letter; but sometimes our afterthoughts have more in 'em than the originals, so why not add 'em? I forgot, too, in my ga.s.sing about myself, to say how glad I am that Roy is doing so well at college now. I shall surely try to get home to his graduation in June next, for I hope after Lincoln is once in the White House (and you see I a.s.sume he is going to get there), that it won't take long to settle matters down.

I think by next June I can surely come home for a good visit. I doubt, though, if we do have a place for Roy to take even then. All the places we have to give are rather--well, they are not in his line and the pay is small. The salary list looks pretty big to us on payday, but I reckon it looks slim enough to each one of the men who gets his little envelope. Now, I believe that is really all I overlooked replying to in your last; only, once more, father, _do_ vote for Lincoln and _don't_ throw yourself away on that tinkling little Bell. His chances are hopeless; and if they were not, then the country's chances would be.

Might as well just put little Margaret at the helm of a s.h.i.+p. No matter how hard she'd pull, or how sweetly she'd smile or how hard she'd coax, the s.h.i.+p would miss the firm grip needed to steer clear of the breakers.

There _are_ breakers ahead I Lincoln is our only hope for an undivided country and the limitation, once and for all, of the extension of slavery--_sure sure_. Again, love to all,