Part 8 (1/2)

”Yes,” said he, ”I do.”

”We love to,” said Anne. ”We don't know what we should do if Farvie turned us out.”

”My dear!” from the colonel.

”Why, he's our father,” said Lydia, in a burst. ”He's just as much our father as he is yours.”

”Good!” said Jeffrey. His voice had warmed perceptibly. ”Good for you.

That's what I thought.”

”If you'd rather not settle down here,” said his father, in a tone of hoping Jeff would like it very much, ”we shall be glad to let the house again and go anywhere you say. We've often talked of it, the girls and I.”

Jeffrey did not thank them for that, or seem to hear it even.

”I want,” said he, ”to go West.”

”Well,” said Farvie, with a determined cheerfulness, ”I guess the girls'll agree to that. Middle West?”

”No,” said Jeffrey, ”the West--if there is any West left. Somewhere where there's s.p.a.ce.” His voice fell, on that last word. It held wonder even. Was there such a thing, this man of four walls seemed to ask, as s.p.a.ce?

”You'd want to go alone,” said Anne softly. She felt as if she were breaking something to Farvie and adjuring him to bear it.

”Yes,” said Jeffrey, in relief. ”I've got to go alone.”

”My son--” said the colonel and couldn't go on. Then he did manage.

”Aren't we going to live together?”

”Not yet,” said Jeffrey. ”Not yet.”

The colonel had thought so much about his old age that now he was near saying: ”You know I haven't so very many years,” but he held on to himself.

”He's got to go alone,” said Anne. ”But he'll come back.”

”Yes,” said Lydia, from the habit they had learned of heartening Farvie, ”he'll come back.”

But she was hotly resolving that he should learn his duty and stay here.

Let her get a word with him alone.

”What I'm going to do out there I don't know,” said Jeffrey. ”But I am going to work, and I'm going to turn in enough to keep you as you ought to be. I want to stay here a little while first.”

The colonel was rejuvenated by delight. Lydia wondered how anybody could see that look on his face and not try to keep it there.

”I've got,” said Jeffrey, ”to write a book.”

”Oh, my son,” said the colonel, ”that's better than I hoped. The newspapers have had it all, how you've changed the prison paper, and how you built up a scheme of prison government, and I said to myself, 'When he comes out, he'll write a book, and good will come of it, and then we shall see that, under Providence, my son went to prison that he might do that.'”

He was uplifted with the wonder of it. The girls felt themselves carried along at an equal pace. This was it, they thought. It was a part of the providences that make life splendid. Jeffrey had been martyred that he might do a special work.