"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 ent.i.tle 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 k.n.o.bbed and st.u.r.dy 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 b.u.t.ter.
"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."