HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER
By
Gene Stratton-Porter
Contents
I. “What Kind of Shoes are the Shoes You Wear?”
II. Cotyledon of Multiflores Canyon
III. The House of Dreams
IV. Linda Starts a Revolution
V. The Smoke of Battle
VI. Jane Meredith
VII. Trying Yucca
VIII. The Bear-cat
IX. One Hundred Per Cent. Plus
X. Katy to the Rescue
XI. Assisting Providence
XII. The Lay of the Land
XIII. Leavening the Bread of Life
XIV. Saturday’s Child
XV. Linda’s Hearthstone
XVI. Producing the Evidence
XVII. A Rock and a Flame
XVIII. Spanish Iris
XIX. The Official Bug-Catcher
XX. The Cap Sheaf
XXI. Shifting the Responsibility
XXII. The End of Marian’s Contest
XXIII. The Day of Jubilee
XXIV. Linda’s First Party
XXV. Buena Moza
XXVI. A Mouse Nest
XXVII. The Straight and Narrow
XXVIII. Putting It Up to Peter
XXIX. Katy Unburdens Her Mind
XXX. Peter’s Release
XXXI. The End of Donald’s Contest
XXXII. How the Wasp Built Her Nest
XXXIII. The Lady of the Iris
List of Characters
Linda Strong, her Father’s Daughter
Dr. Alexander Strong, a great Nerve Specialist
Mrs. Strong, his Wife
Eileen Strong, having Social Aspirations
Mr. and Mrs. Thorne, neighbors of the Strongs
Marian Thorne, a Dreamer of Houses
John Gilman, a Man of Law
Peter Morrison, an Author
Henry Anderson, an Architect
Donald Whiting, a High School Senior
Mary Louise Whiting, his Sister
Judge and Mrs. Whiting, a Man of Law and a Woman of Culture
Katherine O’Donovan, the Strong Cook
Oka Sayye, a High School Senior
James Heitman, accidentally rich
Mrs. Caroline Heitman, his Wife
CHAPTER I
“What Kind of Shoes Are the Shoes You Wear?”
“What makes you wear such funny shoes?”
Linda Strong thrust forward a foot and critically examined the narrow
vamp, the projecting sole, the broad, low heel of her well-worn brown
calf-skin shoe. Then her glance lifted to the face of Donald Whiting,
one of the most brilliant and popular seniors of the High School. Her
eyes narrowed in a manner habitual to her when thinking intently.
“Never you mind my shoes,” she said deliberately. “Kindly fix your
attention on my head piece. When you see me allowing any Jap in my
class to make higher grades than I do, then I give you leave to say
anything you please concerning my head.”
An angry red rushed to the boy’s face. It was an irritating fact that
in the senior class of that particular Los Angeles high school a
Japanese boy stood at the head. This was embarrassing to every senior.
“I say,” said Donald Whiting, “I call that a mean thrust.”
“I have a particular reason,” said Linda.
“And I have ‘a particular reason’,” said Donald, “for being interested
in your shoes.”
Linda laughed suddenly. When Linda laughed, which was very seldom,
those within hearing turned to look at her. Hers was not a laugh that
can be achieved. There were a few high places on the peak of Linda’s
soul, and on one of them homed a small flock of notes of rapture; notes
as sweet as the voice of the white-banded mocking-bird of Argentina.
“How surprising!” exclaimed Linda. “We have been attending the same
school for three years; now, you stop me suddenly to tell me that you
are interested in the shape of my shoes.”
“I have been watching them all the time,” said Donald. “I can’t
understand why any girl wants to be so different. Why don’t you dress
your hair the same as the other girls and wear the same kind of clothes
and shoes?”
“Now look here,” interposed Linda “You are flying the track. I am
willing to justify my shoes, if I can, but here you go including my
dress and a big psychological problem, as well; but I think perhaps the
why of the shoes will explain the remainder. Does the name ‘Alexander
Strong’ mean anything to you?”
“The great nerve specialist?” asked Donald.
“Yes,” said Linda. “The man who was the author of half-dozen books
that have been translated into many foreign tongues and are used as
authorities all over the world. He happened to be my father. There are
two children in our family. I have a sister four years older than I
am who is exactly like Mother, and she and Mother were inseparable. I
am exactly like Father; because we understood each other, and because
both of us always knew, although we never mentioned it, that Mother
preferred my sister Eileen to me, Father tried to make it up to me, so
from the time I can remember I was at his heels. It never bothered him
to have me playing around in the library while he was writing his most
complicated treatise. I have waited in his car half a day at a time,
playing or reading, while he watched a patient or delivered a lecture
at some medical college. His mental relaxation was to hike or to motor
to the sea, to the mountains, to the canyons or the desert, and he
very seldom went without me even on long trips when he was fishing or
hunting with other men. There was not much to know concerning a woman’s
frame or her psychology that Father did not know, so there were two
reasons why he selected my footwear as he did. One was because he be
believed high heels and pointed toes an outrage against the nervous
system of a woman that would in time bring her within his province, and
the other was that I could not possibly have kept pace with him except
in shoes like these. No doubt, they are the same kind I shall wear all
my life, for walking. You probably don’t know it, but my home lies near
the middle of Lilac Valley and I walk over a mile each morning and
evening to and from the cars. Does this sufficiently explain my shoes?”
“I should think you’d feel queer,” said Donald.
“I suspect I would if I had time to brood over it,” Linda replied, “but
I haven’t. I must hustle to get to school on time in the morning. It’s
nearly or quite dark before I reach home in the evening. My father
believed in having a good time. He had superb health, so he spent most
of what he made as it came to him. He counted on a long life. It never
occurred to him that a little piece of machinery going wrong would
plunge him into Eternity in a second.”
“Oh, I remember!” cried the boy.
Linda’s face paled slightly.
“Yes,” she said, “it happened four years ago and I haven’t gotten away
from the horror of it yet, enough ever to step inside of a motor car;
but I am going to get over that one of these days. Brakes are not all
defective, and one must take one’s risks.”
“You just bet I would,” said Donald. “Motoring is one of the greatest
pleasures of modern life. I’ll wager it makes some of the gay old boys,
like Marcus Aurelius for example, want to turn over in their graves
when they see us flying along the roads of California the way we do.”
“What I was getting at,” said Linda, “was a word of reply to the
remainder of your indictment against me. Dad’s income stopped with him,
and household expenses went on, and war came, so there isn’t enough
money to dress two of us as most of the High-School girls are dressed.
Eileen is so much older that it’s her turn first, and I must say she
is not at all backward about exercising her rights. I think that will
have to suffice for the question of dress; but you may be sure that I
am capable of wearing the loveliest dress imaginable, that would be
suitable for a school girl, if I had it to wear.”
“Ah, there’s the little ‘fly in your ointment’—‘dress that would be
suitable.’ I bet in your heart you think the dresses that half the
girls in high school are wearing are _not suitable_!”
“Commendable perspicacity, O learned senior,” said Linda, “and
amazingly true. In the few short years I had with Daddy I acquired
a fixed idea as to what kind of dress is suitable and sufficiently
durable to wear while walking my daily two miles. I can’t seem to
become reconciled to the custom of dressing the same for school as for
a party. You get my idea?”
“I get it all right enough,” said Donald, “but I must think awhile
before I decide whether I agree with you. Why should you be right, and
hundreds of other girls be wrong?”
“I’ll wager your mother would agree with me,” suggested Linda.
“Did yours?” asked Donald.
“Half way,” answered Linda. “She agreed with me for me, but not for
Eileen.”
“And not for my sister,” said Donald. “She wears the very foxiest
clothes that Father can afford to pay for, and when she was going to
school she wore them without the least regard as to whether she was
going to school or to a tea party or a matinée. For that matter she
frequently went to all three the same day.”
“And that brings us straight to the point concerning you,” said Linda.
“Sure enough!” said Donald. “There is me to be considered! What is it
you have against me?”
Linda looked at him meditatively.
“You _seem_ exceptionally strong,” she said. “No doubt are good in
athletics. Your head looks all right; it indicates brains. What I want
to know is why in the world you don’t use them.”
“What are you getting at, anyway?” asked Donald, with more than a hint
of asperity in his voice.
“I am getting at the fact,” said Linda, “that a boy as big as you and
as strong as you and with as good brain and your opportunities has
allowed a little brown Jap to cross the Pacific Ocean and in a totally
strange country to learn a language foreign to him, and, and, with the
same books and the same chances, to beat you at your own game. You
and every other boy in your classes ought to thoroughly ashamed of
yourselves. Before I would let a Jap, either boy or girl, lead in my
class, I would give up going to school and go out and see if I could
beat him growing lettuce and spinach.”
“It’s all very well to talk,” said Donald hotly.
“And it’s better to make good what you say,” broke in Linda, with equal
heat. “There are half a dozen Japs in my classes but no one of them is
leading, you will notice, if I do wear peculiar shoes.”
“Well, you would be going some if you beat the leading Jap in the
senior class,” said Donald.
“Then I would go some,” said Linda. “I’d beat him, or I’d go straight
up trying. You could do it if you’d make up your mind to. The trouble
with you is that you’re wasting your brain on speeding an automobile,
on dances, and all sorts of foolishness that is not doing you any
good in any particular way. Bet you are developing nerves smoking
cigarettes. You are not concentrating. Oka Sayye is not thinking of a
thing except the triumph of proving to California that he is head man
in one of the Los Angeles high schools. That’s what I have got against
you, and every other white boy in your class, and in the long run it
stacks up bigger than your arraignment of my shoes.”
“Oh, darn your shoes!” cried Donald hotly. “Forget ’em! I’ve got to
move on or I’ll be late for trigonometry, but I don’t know when I’ve
had such a tidy little fight with a girl, and I don’t enjoy feeling
that I have been worsted. I propose another session. May I come out to
Lilac Valley Saturday afternoon and flay you alive to pay up for my
present humiliation?”
“Why, if your mother happened to be motoring that way and would care to
call, I think that would be fine,” said Linda.
“Well, for the Lord’s sake!” exclaimed the irate senior. “Can’t a
fellow come and fight with you without being refereed by his mother?
Shall I bring Father too?”
“I only thought,” said Linda quietly, “that you would like your mother
to see the home and environment of any girl whose acquaintance you
made, but the fight we have coming will in all probability be such a
pitched battle that when I go over the top, you won’t ever care to
follow me and start another issue on the other side. You’re dying right
now to ask why I wear my hair in braids down my back instead of in
cootie coops over my ears.”
“I don’t give a hang,” said Donald ungallantly, “as to how you wear
your hair, but I am coming Saturday to fight, and I don’t think Mother
will take any greater interest in the matter than to know that I am
going to do battle with a daughter of Doctor Strong.”
“That is a very nice compliment to my daddy, thank you, said Linda,
turning away and proceeding in the direction of her own classrooms.
There was a brilliant sparkle in her eyes and she sang in a muffled
voice, yet distinctly enough to be heard:
“The shoes I wear are common-sense shoes,
And you may wear them if you choose.”
“By gracious! She’s no fool,” he said to himself. In three minutes’
unpremeditated talk the “Junior Freak,” as he mentally denominated her,
had managed to irritate him, to puncture his pride, to entertain and
amuse him.
“I wonder——” he said as he went his way; and all day he kept on
wondering, when he was not studying harder than ever before in all his
life.
That night Linda walked slowly along the road toward home. She was
not seeing the broad stretch of Lilac Valley, on every hand green
with spring, odorous with citrus and wild bloom, blue walled with
lacy lilacs veiling the mountain face on either side; and she was not
thinking of her plain, well-worn dress or her common-sense shoes. What
she was thinking was of every flaying, scathing, solidly based argument
she could produce the following Saturday to spur Donald Whiting in some
way to surpass Oka Sayye. His chance remark that morning, as they stood
near each other waiting a few minutes in the hall, had ended in his
asking to come to see her, and she decided as she walked homeward that
his first visit in all probability would be his last, since she had
not time to spare for boys, when she had so many different interests
involved; but she did decide very firmly in her own mind that the would
make that visit a memorable one for him.
In arriving at this decision her mind traveled a number of devious
roads. The thought that she had been criticized did not annoy her as
to the kind of criticism, but she did resent the quality of truth
about it. She was right in following the rules her father had laid
down for her health and physical well-being, but was it right that
she should wear shoes scuffed, resoled, and even patched, when there
was money enough for Eileen to have many pairs of expensive laced
boots, walking shoes, and fancy slippers? She was sure she was right
in wearing dresses suitable for school, but was it right that she must
wear them until they were sun-faded, stained, and disreputable? Was
it right that Eileen should occupy their father’s and mother’s suite,
redecorated and daintily furnished according to her own taste, to keep
the parts of the house that she cared to use decorated with flowers and
beautifully appointed, while Linda must lock herself in a small stuffy
bedroom room, dingy and none too comfortable, when in deference to her
pride she wished to work in secret until she learned whether she could
succeed.
Then she began thinking, and decided that the only available place in
the house for her use was the billiard room. She made up her mind that
she would demand the sole right to this big attic room. She would sell
the table and use the money to buy herself a suitable work table and
a rug. She would demand that Eileen produce enough money for better
clothing for her, and then she remembered what she had said to Donald
Whiting about conquering her horror for a motor car. Linda turned in
at the walk leading to her home, but she passed the front entrance
and followed around to the side. As she went she could hear voices in
the living room and she knew that Eileen was entertaining some of her
many friends; for Eileen was that peculiar creature known as a social
butterfly. Each day of her life friends came, or Eileen went—mostly the
latter, for Eileen had a knack of management and she so managed her
friends that, without their realizing it, they entertained her many
times while she entertained them once. Linda went to the kitchen, laid
her books and package of mail on the table, and, walking over to the
stove, she proceeded deliberately and heartily to kiss the cook.
“Katy, me darlin’,” she said, “look upon your only child. Do you notice
a ‘lean and hungry look’ on her classic features?”
Katy turned adoring eyes to the young girl.
“It’s growing so fast ye are, childie,” she said. “It’s only a little
while to dinner, and there’s company to-night, so hadn’t ye better wait
and not spoil your appetite with piecing?”
“Is there going to be anything ‘jarvis’?” inquired Linda.
“I’d say there is,” said Katy. “John Gilman is here and two friends of
Eileen’s. It’s a near banquet, lassie.”
“Then I’ll wait,” said Linda. “I want the keys to the garage.”
Katy handed them to her and Linda went down the back walk beneath an
arch of tropical foliage, between blazing walls of brilliant flower
faces, unlocked the garage, and stood looking at her father’s runabout.
In the revolution that had taken place in their home after the passing
of their father and mother, Eileen had dominated the situation and done
as she pleased, with the exception of two instances. Linda had shown
both temper and determination at the proposal to dismantle the library
and dispose of the cars. She had told Eileen that she might take the
touring car and do as she pleased with it. For her share she wanted her
father’s roadster, and she meant to have it. She took the same firm
stand concerning the library. With the rest of the house Eileen might
do as she would. The library was to remain absolutely untouched and
what it contained was Linda’s. To this Eileen had agreed, but so far
Linda had been content merely to possess her property.
Lately, driven by the feeling that she must find a way in which she
could earn money, she had been secretly working on some plans that she
hoped might soon yield her small returns. As for the roadster, she as
well as Eileen had been horror-stricken when the car containing their
father and mother and their adjoining neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Thorne,
driven by Marian Thorne, the playmate and companion from childhood
of the Strong girls, had become uncontrollable and plunged down the
mountain in a disaster that had left only Marian, protected by the
steering gear, alive. They had simply by mutual agreement begun using
the street cars when they wanted to reach the city.
Linda stood looking at the roadster, jacked up and tucked under a heavy
canvas tent that she and her father had used on their hunting and
fishing trips. After a long time she laid strong hands on the canvas
and dragged it to one side. She looked the car over carefully and then,
her face very white and her hands trembling, she climbed into it and
slowly and mechanically went through the motions of starting it. For
another intent period she sat with her hands on the steering gear,
staring straight ahead, and then she said slowly: “Something has got
to be done. It’s not going to be very agreeable, but I am going to do
it. Eileen has had things all her own way long enough. I am getting
such a big girl I ought to have a few things in my life as I want them.
Something must be done.”
Then Linda proceeded to do something. What she did was to lean forward,
rest her head upon the steering wheel and fight to keep down deep,
pitiful sobbing until her whole slender body twisted in the effort.
She was yielding to a breaking up after four years of endurance, for
the greater part in silence. As the months of the past year had rolled
their deliberate way, Linda had begun to realize that the course her
elder sister had taken was wholly unfair to her, and slowly a tumult
of revolt was growing in her soul. Without a doubt the culmination
had resulted from her few minutes’ talk with Donald Whiting in the
hall that morning. It had started Linda to thinking deeply, and the
more deeply she thought the clearly she saw the situation. Linda was a
loyal soul and her heart was honest. She was quite willing that Eileen
should exercise her rights as head of the family, that she should take
the precedence to which she was entitled by her four years’ seniority,
that she should spend the money which accrued monthly from their
father’s estate as she saw fit, up to a certain point. That point was
where things ceased to be fair or to be just. If there had been money
to do no more for Eileen than had been done for Linda, it would not
have been in Linda’s heart to utter a complaint. She could have worn
scuffed shoes and old dresses, and gone her way with her proud young
head held very high and a jest on her lips; but when her mind really
fastened on the problem and she began to reason, she could not feel
that Eileen was just to her or that she was fair in her administration
of the money which should have been divided more nearly equally between
them, after the household expenses had been paid. Once rebellion burned
in her heart the flames leaped rapidly, and Linda began to remember a
thousand small things that she had scarcely noted at the time of their
occurrence.
She was leaning on the steering wheel, tired with nerve strain, when
she heard Katy calling her, and realized that she was needed in the
kitchen. As a matter of economy Eileen, after her parents’ passing, had
dismissed the housemaid, and when there were guests before whom she
wished to make a nice appearance Linda had been impressed either to
wait on the table or to help in the kitchen in order that Katy might
attend the dining room, so Linda understood what was wanted when Katy
called her. She ran her fingers over the steering wheel, worn bright
by the touch of her father’s and her own hands, and with the buoyancy
of youth, found comfort. Once more she mechanically went through the
motions of starting the car, then she stepped down, closed the door,
and stood an instant thinking.
“You’re four years behind the times,” she said slowly. “No doubt
there’s a newer and a better model; I suspect the tires are rotten,
but the last day I drove you for Daddy you purred like a kitten, and
ran like a clock, and if you were cleaned and oiled and put in proper
shape, there’s no reason in the world why I should not drive you again,
as I have driven you hundreds of miles when Daddy was tired or when
he wanted to teach me the rules of good motoring, and the laws of the
road. I can do it all right. I have got to do it, but it will be some
time before I’ll care to tackle the mountains.”
Leaving the cover on the floor, she locked the door and returned to the
kitchen.
“All right, Katy, what is the programme?” she inquired as lightly as
she could.
Katy had been cook in the Strong family ever since they had moved to
Lilac Valley. She had obeyed Mrs. Strong and Eileen. She had worshiped
the Doctor and Linda. It always had been patent to her eyes that Mrs.
Strong was extremely partial to Eileen, so Katy had joined forces with
the Doctor in surreptitiously doing everything her warm Irish heart
prompted to prevent Linda from feeling neglected. Her quick eyes saw
the traces of tears on Linda’s face, and she instantly knew that the
trip the girl had made to the garage was in some way connected with
some belongings of her father’s, so she said: “I am serving to-night
but I want you to keep things smoking hot and to have them dished up
ready for me so that everything will go smoothly.”
“What would happen,” inquired Linda, “if everything did _not_ go
smoothly? Katy, do you think the roof would blow straight up if I had
_my_ way about something, just for a change?”
“No, I think the roof would stay right where it belongs,” said Katy
with a chuckle, “but I do think its staying there would not be because
Miss Eileen wanted it to.”
“Well,” said Linda, deliberately, “we won’t waste any time on thinking
We are going to have some positive knowledge on the subject pretty
immediately. I don’t feel equal to starting any domestic santana
to-day, but the forces are gathering and the blow is coming soon. To
that I have firmly made up my mind.”
“It’s not the least mite I’m blaming you, honey,” said Katy.
“Ye’ve got to be such a big girl that it’s only fair things in this
house should go a good deal different.”
“Is Marian to be here?” asked Linda as she stood beside the stove
peering into pans and kettles.
“Miss Eileen didn’t say,” replied Katy.
Linda’s eyes reddened suddenly. She slammed down a lid with vicious
emphasis.
“That is another deal Eileen’s engineered,” she said, “that is just
about as wrong as anything possibly can be. What makes me the maddest
about it is that John Gilman will let Eileen take him by the nose and
lead him around like a ringed calf. Where is his common sense? Where is
his perception? Where is his honour?”
“Now wait, dearie,” said Katy soothingly, “wait. John Gilman is a
mighty fine man. Ye know how your father loved him and trusted him and
gave him charge of all his business affairs. Ye mustn’t go so far as to
be insinuating that he is lacking in honour.”
“No,” said Linda, “that was not fair. I don’t in the least know that he
ever _asked_ Marian to marry him; but I do know that as long as he was
a struggling, threadbare young lawyer Marian was welcome to him, and
they had grand times together. The minute he won the big Bailey suit
and came into public notice and his practice increased until he was
independent, that minute Eileen began to take notice, and it looks to
me now as if she very nearly had him.”
“And so far as I can see,” said Katy, “Miss Marian is taking it without
a struggle. She is not lifting a finger or making a move to win him
back.”
“Of course she isn’t!” said Linda indignantly. “If she thought he
preferred some other girl to her, she would merely say: ‘If John has
discovered that he likes Eileen the better, why, that is all right’;
but there wouldn’t be anything to prevent seeing Eileen take John from
hurting like the deuce. Did you ever lose a man you loved, Katy?”
“That I did not!” said Katy emphatically. “We didn’t do any four or
five years’ philanderin’ to see if a man ‘could make good’ when I was a
youngster. When a girl and her laddie stood up to each other and looked
each other straight in the eye and had the great understanding, there
weren’t no question of whether he could do for her what her father and
mither had been doing, nor of how much he had to earn before they would
be able to begin life together. They just caught hands and hot-footed
it to the praste and told him to read the banns the next Sunday, and
when the law allowed they was man and wife and taking what life had for
them the way it came, and together. All this philanderin’ that young
folks do nowadays is just pure nonsense, and waste of time.”
“Sure!” laughed Linda. “When my brave comes along with his blanket I’ll
just step under, and then if anybody tries to take my man I’ll have the
right to go on the war-path and have a scalping party that would be
some satisfaction to the soul.”
Then they served the dinner, and when the guests had left the dining
room, Katy closed the doors, and brought on the delicacies she had
hidden for Linda and patted and cajoled her while she ate like any
healthy, hungry young creature.