Part 24 (2/2)

”Neal is such a fine handsome young fellow.”

”But, Jane,” exclaimed Barclay, impatiently, as he rose to walk the rug, ”Jennie is only a child. Why, she's only--”

”Nineteen, John--she's a big girl now.”

”I know, dear,” he protested, ”but that's absurdly young. Why--”

”Yes,” she answered, ”I was nearly twenty when I was engaged to you, and Jennie's not engaged yet, nor probably even thinking seriously of it.”

”Don't you think,” cried Barclay, as he limped down the diagonal of the rug, ”that you should do something? Isn't it a little unusual?

Why--”

”Well, John,” smiled the wife, ”I might do what mother did: turn the young man over to father!” Barclay laughed, and she went on patiently: ”It's not at all unusual, John, even if they do--that is, if they are--you know; but they aren't, and Jennie is too much in love with her work at school to quit that. But after all it's the American way; it was the way we did, dear, and the way our mothers and fathers did, and unless you wish to change it--to Europeanize it, and pick--”

”Ah, nonsense, Jane--of course I don't want that! Only I thought some way, if it's serious she ought to--Oh, don't you know she ought to--”

Mrs. Barclay broke her smile with, ”Of course she ought to, dear, and so ought I and so ought mother when she married father and so ought my grandmother when she married grandpa--but did we? Dear, don't you see the child doesn't realize it? If it is anything, it is growing in her heart, and I wouldn't smudge it for the world, by speaking to her now--unless you don't like Neal; unless you think he's too--unless you want a different boy. I mean some one of consequence?”

”Oh, no, it isn't that, Jane--it isn't that. Neal's all right; he's clean and he is honest--I asked Bob Hendricks about him to-day, when we pa.s.sed the boy chasing news for the _Banner_, and Bob gives him a fine name.” Barclay threw himself into a chair and sighed. ”I suppose it's just that I feel Jeanette's kind of leaving us out of it--that is all.”

Jane went to him and patted his head gently, as she spoke: ”That is nature, dear--the fawn hiding in the woods; we must trust to Jennie's good sense, and the good blood in Neal. My, but his sisters are proud of him! Last week Lizzie was telling me Neal's wages had been increased to ten dollars a week--and I don't suppose their father in all of his life ever had that much of a steady income. The things the family is planning to do with that ten dollars a week brought tears of joy to my eyes. Neal's going to have his mother-in-law on his side, anyway--just as you had yours. I know now how mother felt.”

But John Barclay did not know how mother felt, and he did not care. He knew how father felt--how Lycurgus Mason felt, and how the father of Mrs. Lycurgus Mason felt; he felt hurt and slighted, and he could not repress a feeling of bitterness toward the youth. All the world loves a daughter-in-law, but a father's love for a son-in-law is an acquired taste; some men never get it. And John Barclay was called away the next morning to throttle a mill in the San Joaquin Valley, and from there he went to North Dakota to stop the building of a compet.i.tive railroad that tapped his territory; so September came, and with it Jeanette Barclay went back to school. The mother wondered what the girl would do with her last night at home. She was clearly nervous and unsettled all the afternoon before, and made an errand into town and came back with a perturbed face. But after dinner the mother heard Jeanette at the telephone, and this is the one-sided dialogue the mother caught: ”Yes--this is Miss Barclay.” ”Oh, yes, I didn't recognize your voice at first.” ”What meeting?” ”Yes--yes.” ”And they are not going to have it?” ”Oh, I see.” ”You were--oh, I don't know.

Of course I should have felt--well, I--oh, it would have been all right with me. Of course.” Then the voice cheered up and she said: ”Why, of course--come right out. I understand.” A pause and then, ”Yes, I know a man has to go where he is called.” ”Oh, she'll understand--you know father is always on the wing.” ”No--why, no, of course not--mother wouldn't think that of you. I'll tell her how it was.” ”All right, good-by--yes, right away.” And Jeanette Barclay skipped away from the telephone and ran to her mother to say, ”Mother, that was Neal Ward--he wants to come out, and he was afraid you'd think it rude for him to ask that way, but you know he had a meeting to report and thought he couldn't come, and now they've postponed the meeting, and I told him to come right out--wasn't that all right?”

And so out came Neal Ward, a likely-looking young man of twenty-one or maybe twenty-two--a good six feet in height, with a straight leg, a square shoulder, and firm jaw, set like his father's, and clean brown eyes that did not blink. And as Jeanette Barclay, with her mother's height, and her father's quick keen features, and her Grandmother Barclay's eyes and dominant figure, stood beside him in the doorway, Mrs. Jane Barclay thought a good way ahead, and Jeanette would have blushed her face to a cinder if the mother had spoken her thoughts.

The three, mother and daughter and handsome young man, sat for a while together in the living room, and then Jane, who knew the heart of youth, and did not fear it, said, ”You children should go out on the porch--it's a beautiful night; I'm going upstairs.”

And now let us once more in our astral bodies watch them there in the light of the veiled moon--for it is the last time that even we should see them alone. She is sitting on a bal.u.s.trade, and he is standing beside her, and their hands are close together on the stones. ”Yes,”

he is saying, ”I shall be busy at the train to-morrow trying to catch the governor for an interview on the railroad question, and may not see you.”

”I wish you would throw the governor into the deep blue sea,” she says, and he responds:--

”I wish I could.” There is a silence, and then he risks it--and the thing he has been trying to say comes out, ”I wonder if you will do something for me, Jeanette?”

”Oh, I don't know--don't ask me anything hard--not very hard, Neal!”

The last word was all he cared for, and by what sleight of hand he slipped his fraternity pin from his vest into her hand, neither ever knew.

”Will you?” he asks. ”For me?”

She pins it at her throat, and smiles. Then she says, ”Is this long enough--do you want it back now?”

He shakes his head, and finally she asks, ”When?” and then it comes out:--

”Never.”

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