Even the grandmother noticed that her well-meant speech was not
acceptable, for the girl's impatience was ill concealed.
"Where is my father?" she said in a voice which gave Dan little hope that
the nobler self in the girl had been awakened.
"He's working in the garden, dearie; out beyond the apple orchard," the
old lady said tremulously. "He told me when you came to send you out. He
wants to be alone with you just at first. And your little brother,
Gerald; I s'pose you're wondering where he is. Well, he's got a place
down in the village as errand boy for Peterson's grocery. They give him
his pay every night, and he fetches it right home to his Dad. Of course
my Daniel puts the money in bank for Gerald's schooling, but the boy
don't know that. He thinks he's helping, and bless him, nobody knows how
much he is helping. There's ways to bring comfort that no money could
buy."
Dan knew that Jane believed their gentle old grandmother was preaching at
her. He was almost sorry. He feared that it was antagonizing Jane; nor
was he wrong.
"Well, I think the back orchard was a strange place for father to have me
meet him," she said, almost angrily, as she flung herself out of the
house. Dan sighed. Then, stooping, he kissed the little old lady. "Don't
feel badly, grandmother," he said, adding hopefully: "The real Jane must
waken soon."
The proud, selfish girl, again rebellious, walked along the narrow path
that led under the great, old, gnarled apple trees which the children had
used for playhouses ever since they could climb. She felt like one
stunned, or as though she were reading a tragic story and expected at
every moment to be awakened to the joyful realization that it was not
true.
Her father saw her coming and dropped the hoe that he had been plying
between the long rows of beans. "How terribly he has changed," Jane
thought. He had indeed aged and there was on his sensitive face, which
was more that of an idealist than a business man, the impress of sorrow,
but also there was something else. Jane noticed it at once; an expression
of firm, unwavering determination. She knew that appealing to his love
for his daughter would be useless, great as that love was. A quotation
she had learned in school flashed into her mind--"I could not love thee,
dear, so much, loved I not honor more."
There was, indeed, infinite tenderness in the clear gray eyes that looked
at her, and then, without a word, he held out his arms, and suddenly Jane
felt as she had when she was a little child, and things had gone wrong.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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