Stories of a Western Town [47]
trust each other." "Don't you think, papa," said Esther, smiling rather tremulously, "that we would better wait, before we have all these solemn preparations, until we know surely whether Mr. Lossing wants me?" "Don't you know surely?" "He has never said anything of--of that--kind." "Oh, he is in love with you fast enough," growled Armorer; but a smile of intense relief brightened his face. "Now, you see, my dear, all I know about this young man, except that he wants my daughter-- which you will admit is not likely to prejudice me in his favor-- is that he is mayor of this town and has a furniture store ----" "A manufactory; it is a very large business!" "All right, manufactory, then; all the same he is not a brilliant match for my daughter, not such a husband as your sisters have." Esther's lip quivered and her color rose again; but she did not speak. "Still I will say that I think a fellow who can make his own fortune is better than a man with twice that fortune made for him. My dear, if Lossing has the right stuff in him and he is a real good fellow, I shan't make you go into a decline by objecting; but you see it is a big shock to me, and you must let me get used to it, and let me size the young man up in my own way. There is another thing, Esther; I am going to Europe Thursday, that will give me just a day in Chicago if I go to-morrow, and I wish you would come with me. Will you mind?" Either she changed her seat or she started at the proposal. But how could she say that she wanted to stay in America with a man who had not said a formal word of love to her? "I can get ready, I think, papa," said Esther. They drove on. He felt a crawling pain in his heart, for he loved his daughter Esther as he had loved no other child of his; and he knew that he had hurt her. Naturally, he grew the more angry at the impertinent young man who was the cause of the flitting; for the whole European plan had been cooked up since the receipt of Mrs. Ellis's letter. They were on the very street down which he used to walk (for it takes the line of the hills) when he was a poor boy, a struggling, ferociously ambitious young man. He looked at the changed rows of buildings, and other thoughts came uppermost for a moment. "It was here father's church used to stand; it's gone, now," he said. "It was a wood church, painted a kind of gray; mother had a bonnet the same color, and she used to say she matched the church. I bought it with the very first money I earned. Part of it came from weeding, and the weather was warm, and I can feel the way my back would sting and creak, now! I would want to stop, often, but I thought of mother in church with that bonnet, and I kept on! There's the place where Seeds, the grocer that used to trust us, had his store; it was his children had the scarlet fever, and mother went to nurse them. My! but how dismal it was at home! We always got more whippings when mother was away. Your grandfather was a good man, too honest for this world, and he loved every one of his seven children; but he brought us up to fear him and the Lord. We feared him the most, because the Lord couldn't whip us! He never whipped us when we did anything, but waited until next day, that he might not punish in anger; so we had all the night to anticipate it. Did I ever tell you of the time he caught me in a lie? I was lame for a week after it. He never caught me in another lie." "I think he was cruel; I can't help it, papa," cried Esther, with whom this was an old argument, "still it did good, that time!" "Oh, no, he wasn't cruel, my dear," said Armorer, with a queer smile that seemed to take only one-half of his face, not answering the last words; "he was too sure of his interpretation of the Scripture, that was all. Why, that man just slaved to educate us children; he'd have gone to the stake rejoicing to have made sure that we should be saved. And of the whole seven only one is a church member. Is that the road?" They could see a car swinging past, on a parallel street, its bent pole hitching along the trolley-wire.
"Pretty scrubby-looking
"Pretty scrubby-looking