It was well along in April, that year, before the last of the winter's
snow disappeared, and the robins and blue-birds darted in and out
among the naked trees. But, as the sun grew high, and the days long,
and the spring languor filled the air, Pen felt an ever-increasing
dissatisfaction with his position in his grandfather Walker's
household, and an ever-increasing desire to relinquish it. Not that he
was afraid or ashamed to work; he had sufficiently demonstrated that
he was not. Not that he ever expected to return to Bannerhall, for he
had no such thought. To beg to be taken back was unthinkable; that he
should be invited back was most improbable. He had not seen his
grandfather Butler since he came away, nor had he heard from him,
except for the vivid and oft-repeated recital by Grandpa Walker of the
spruce tree episode, and save through his Aunt Millicent who made
occasional visits to the family at Cobb's Corners. That he deplored
Pen's departure there could be no doubt, but that he would either
invite or compel him to return was beyond belief. So Pen's tasks had
come to be very irksome to him, and his mode of life very
dissatisfying. If he worked he wanted to work for himself, at a task
in which he could take interest and pride. At Cobb's Corners he could
see no future for himself worthy of the name. Many times he discussed
the situation with his mother, and, painful as it would be to her to
lose him, she agreed with him that he must go. He waited only the
opportunity.
One day, late in April, Robert Starbird dropped in while the members
of the Walker family were at dinner. He was a wool-buyer for the
Starbird Woolen Company of Lowbridge, and a nephew of its president.
Having completed a bargain with Grandpa Walker for his scanty spring
clipping of fleece, he turned to Pen.
"Haven't I seen you at Colonel Butler's, down at Chestnut Hill?" he
inquired.
"Yes," replied Pen, "I'm his grandson. I used to live there."
"I thought so. Staying here now, are you?"
"Until I can get regular work; yes, sir."
"Want a job, do you?"
"I'd like one, very much."
"Well, we'll need a bobbin-boy at the mills pretty soon. I suppose--"
And then Grandpa Walker interrupted.
"I guess," he said, "'t we can keep the young man busy here for a
while yet."
Robert Starbird looked curiously for a moment, from man to boy, and
then, saying that he must go on up to Henry Cobb's to make a deal with
him for his fleece, he went out to his buggy, got in and drove away.
Pen went back to his work in the field with a sinking heart. It had
not before occurred to him that Grandpa Walker would object to his
leaving him whenever he should find satisfactory and profitable
employment elsewhere. But it was now evident that, if he went, he must
go against his grandfather's will. His first opportunity had already
been blocked. What opposition he would meet with in the future he
could only conjecture.
With Old Charlie hitched to a stone-boat, he was drawing stones from
a neighbor's field to the roadside, where men were engaged in laying
up a stone wall. He had not been long at work since the dinner hour,
when, chancing to look up, he saw Robert Starbird driving down the
hill from Henry Cobb's on his way back to Chestnut Hill. A sudden
impulse seized him. He threw the reins across Old Charlie's back, left
him standing willingly in his tracks, and started on a run across the
lot to head off Robert Starbird at the roadside. The man saw him
coming and stopped his horse.
Panting a little, both from exertion and excitement, Pen leaped the
fence and came up to the side of the buggy.
"Mr. Starbird," he said, "if that job is still open, I--I think I'll
take it--if you'll give it to me."
The man, looking at him closely, saw determination stamped on his
countenance.
"Why, that's all right," he said. "You could have the job; but what
about your grandfather Walker? He doesn't seem to want you to leave."
"I know. But my mother's willing. And I'll make it up to Grandpa
Walker some way. I can't stay here, Mr. Starbird; and--I'm not going
to. They're good enough to me here. I've no complaint to make. But--I
want a real job and a fair chance."
He paused, out of breath. The intensity of his desire, and the
fixedness of his purpose were so sharply manifest that the man in the
wagon did not, for the moment, reply. He placed his whip slowly in its
socket, and seemed lost in thought. At last he said:
"Henry Cobb has been telling me about you. He gives you a very good
name."
He paused a moment and then added:
"I'll tell you what I'll do. If you'll give the old gentleman fair
notice--and not sneak away from him like a vagabond--I won't harbor
any runaways--why, I'll see that you get the job."
Pen drew a long breath, and his face lighted up with pleasure.
"Thank you, Mr. Starbird!" he exclaimed. "Thank you very much. When
may I come?"
"Well, let's see. To-day's Wednesday. Suppose you report for duty next
Monday."
"All right! I'll be there. I'll leave here Monday morning. I'll speak
to Grandpa Walker to-night."
"Very well. See you Monday. Good-by!"
"Good-by!"
Robert Starbird chirruped to his horse, started on, and was soon lost
to sight around a bend in the road.
And Pen strode back across the field, prouder and happier than he had
ever been before in all his life.
But he still had Grandpa Walker to settle with.
At supper time, on the evening after his talk with Robert Starbird,
Pen had no opportunity to inform his grandfather of the success of his
application for employment. For, almost as soon as he left the table,
Grandpa Walker got his hat and started down to the store to discuss
politics and statecraft with his loquacious neighbors. But Pen felt
that his grandfather should know, that night, of the arrangement he
had made for employment, and so, after his evening chores were done,
he went down to the gate at the roadside to wait for the old man to
come home.
The air was as balmy as though it had been an evening in June.
Somewhere in the trees by the fence a pair of wakeful birds was
chirping. From the swamp below the hill came the hoarse croaking of
bull-frogs. Above the summit of the wooded slope that lay toward
Chestnut Hill the full moon was climbing, and, aslant the road, the
maples cast long shadows toward the west.
To Pen, as he stood there waiting, came his mother. A wrap was around
her shoulders, and a light scarf partly covered her head. She had
finished her evening work and had come out to find him.
"Are you waiting for grandpa?" she asked; though she knew without
asking, that he was.
"Yes," was the reply. "I want to see him about leaving. I had a talk
with Mr. Starbird this afternoon, in the road, and he's given me the
job he spoke about. I wasn't going to tell you until after I'd seen
grandpa, and the trouble was all over."
"You dear boy! And if grandpa objects to your going?"
"Well, I--I think I'll go anyway. Look here, mother," he continued,
hastily; "I don't want to be mean nor anything like that; and
grandpa's been kind to me; but, mother--I can't stay here. Don't you
see I can't stay here?"
He held his arms out to her appealingly, and she took them and put
them about her neck.
"I know, dear," she said; "I know. And grandfather must let you go. I
shall die of loneliness, but--you must have a chance."
"Thank you, mother! And as soon as I can earn enough you shall come to
live with me."
"I shall come anyway before very long, dearie. I worked for other
people before I was married. I can do it again."
She laughed a little, but on her cheeks tears glistened in the
moonlight.
Then, suddenly, they were aware that Grandpa Walker was approaching
them. He was coming up the road, talking to himself as was his custom
when alone, especially if his mind was ill at ease. And his mind was
not wholly at ease to-night. The readiness with which Pen had, that
day, accepted a suggestion of employment elsewhere, had given him
something of a turn. He could not contemplate, with serenity, the
prospect of resuming the burdens of which his grandson had, for the
last two months, relieved him. To become again a "hewer of wood and
drawer of water" for his family was a prospect not wholly to his
liking. He became suddenly aware that two people were standing at his
gate in the moonlight. He stopped in the middle of the road, to look
at them inquiringly.
"It's I, father!" his daughter called out to him. "Pen and I. We've
been waiting for you."
"Eh? Waitin' for me?" he asked.
"Yes, Pen has something he wants to say to you."
The old man crossed over to the roadside fence and leaned on it. The
announcement was ominous. He looked sharply at Pen.
"Well," he said. "I'm listenin'."
"Grandpa," began Pen, "I want you to be willing that I should take
that job that Mr. Starbird spoke about to-day."
"So, that's it, is it? Ye've got the rovin' bee a buzzin' in your
head, have ye? Don't ye know 't 'a rollin' stone gethers no moss'?"
"Well, grandpa, I'm not contented here. Not but what you're good
enough to me, and all that, but I'm unhappy here. And I saw Mr.
Starbird again this afternoon, and he said I could have that job."
"Think a job in a mill's better'n a job on a farm?"
"I think it is for me, grandpa."
"Work too hard for ye here?"
"Why, I'm not complaining about the work being hard. It's just because
farm work does not suit me."
"Don't suit most folks 'at ain't inclined to dig into it."
Then Pen's mother spoke up.
"Now, father," she said, "you know Pen's done a man's work since he's
been here, and he's never whimpered about it. And it isn't quite fair
for you to insinuate that he's been lazy."
"I ain't insinuatin' nothin'," replied the old man, doggedly. "I ain't
findin' no fault with what he's done sence he's been here; I'm just
gittin' at what he thinks he's goin' to do." He turned again to Pen.
"Made up yer mind to go, hev ye?"
"Yes, grandpa."
"When?"
"Next Monday morning."
"Wuther I'm willin' or no?"
"I want you to be willing."
"I say, wuther I'm willin' or no?"
In the moonlight the old man's face bore a look of severity that
augured ill for any happy completion to Pen's plan. A direct question
had been asked, and it called for a direct answer. And with the answer
would come the clash of wills. Pen felt it coming, and, although he
was apprehensive to the verge of alarm, he braced himself to meet it
calmly. His answer was frank, and direct.
"Yes, grandpa."
"Well, I'm willin'."
"Why, grandpa!"
"Father! you old dear!" from Pen's mother.
"I say I'm willin'," repeated the old man. "I hed hoped 't Pen'd stay
here to hum an' help me out with the farm work. I ain't so soople as I
use to be. An' Mirandy's man's got a stiddy job a-teamin'. An' the boy
seemed to take to the work natural, and I thought he liked it, and I
rested easy and took my comfort till Robert Starbird put that notion
in his head to-day. Sence then I ain't had no hope."
"I'm sorry to leave you, grandpa, and it's awfully good of you to let
me go, and you know I wouldn't go if I thought I could possibly stay
and be contented."
"I understand. It's the same with most young fellers. They see suthin'
better away from hum. And I ain't willin' to stand in the way o' no
young feller that thinks he can better himself some'eres else. When I
was fifteen I wanted to go down to Chestnut Hill and work in Sampson's
planin' factory; but my father wouldn't let me. Consekence is I never
got spunk enough agin to leave the farm. So I ain't goin' to stand in
nobody else's way, you can go Monday mornin' or any other mornin', and
I'll just say God bless ye, an' good luck to ye, an' start in agin on
the chores."
Then Pen's mother, like a girl still in her sympathies and impulses,
flung her arms around her father's neck, and hugged him till he was
positively obliged to use force to release himself. And they all
walked up the path together in the moonlight, and entered the house
and told Grandma Walker and Aunt Miranda of Pen's contemplated
departure, to which Grandpa Walker, with martyrlike countenance, added
the story of his own unhappy prospect.
When Monday morning came Pen was up long before his usual hour for
rising. He did all the chores, picked up a dozen odds and ends, and
left everything ship-shape for his grandfather who was now to succeed
him in doing the morning work. Then he changed his clothes, packed his
suit-case and came down to breakfast. Grandpa Walker had offered to
take him into town with Old Charlie, but Pen had learned, the night
before, that Henry Cobb was going down to Chestnut Hill in the
morning, and when Mr. Cobb heard that Pen also was going, he gave him
an invitation to ride with him. He and the boy had become fast
friends during Pen's sojourn at Cobb's Corners, and both of them
anticipated, with pleasure, the ride into town.
After breakfast Grandpa Walker lighted his pipe and put on his hat but
he did not go to the store, as had been his custom; he stayed to say
good-by to Pen, and to bid him Godspeed, as he had said he would, and
to tell him that when he lacked for work, or wanted a home, there was
a latch-string at Cobb's Corners that was always hanging out for him.
He did more than that. He shoved into Pen's hands enough money to pay
for a few weeks' board at Lowbridge, and told him that if he needed
more, to write and ask for it.
"It's comin' to ye," he said, when Pen protested. "Ye ain't had
nothin' sence ye been here, and I kind o' calculate ye've earned it."
Pen's mother went with him to the gate to wait for Henry Cobb to come
along; and when they saw Mr. Cobb driving down the hill toward them,
she kissed Pen good-by, adjured him to be watchful of his health, and
to write frequently to her, and then went back up the path toward the
house she could not see for the tears that filled her eyes.
Henry Cobb drove a smart horse, and a buggy that was spick and span,
and it was a pleasure to ride with him. He pulled up at the gate with
a flourish, and told Pen to put his suit-case under the seat, and to
jump in.
It was not until after they had left the Corners some distance behind
them that the object of Pen's journey was mentioned. Then Henry Cobb
asked:
"How does the old gentleman like your leaving?"
"I don't think he likes it very well," was the reply. "But he's been
lovely about it. He gave me some money and his blessing."
"You don't say so!"
Henry Cobb stared at the boy in astonishment. It was not an unheard of
thing for Grandpa Walker to give his blessing; but that he should give
money besides, was, to say the least, unusual.
"Yes," replied Pen, "he couldn't have treated me better if I'd lived
with him always."
Mr. Cobb cast a contemplative eye on the landscape, and, for a full
minute, he was silent. Then he turned again to Pen.
"I don't want to be curious or anything," he said; "but would you mind
telling me how much money the old gentleman gave you?"
"Not at all," was the prompt reply. "He gave me eighteen dollars."
"Good for him!" exclaimed the man. "He's got more good stuff in him
than I gave him credit for. I was afraid he might have given you only
a dollar or two, and I was going to lend you a little to help you out.
I will yet if you need it. I will any time you need it."
Henry Cobb was not prodigal with his money, but he was kind-hearted,
and he had seen enough of Pen to feel that he was taking no risk.
"You're very kind," replied the boy, "but grandpa's money will last me
a good while, and I shall get wages enough to keep me comfortably, and
I shall not need any more."
After a while Mr. Cobb's thoughts turned again to Grandpa Walker.
"He'll miss you terribly," he said to Pen. "He hasn't had so easy a
time in all his life before as he's had this spring, with you to do
all the farm chores and help around the house. It'll be like pulling
teeth for him to get into harness again."
Henry Cobb gave a little chuckle. He knew how fond Grandpa Walker was
of comfortable ease.
"Well," replied Pen, "I'm sorry to go, and leave him with all the work
to do; but you know how it is, Mr. Cobb."
"Yes, I know; I know. And you're going with splendid people. I've
known the Starbirds all my life. None better in the country."
They had reached the summit of the elevation overlooking the valley
that holds Chestnut Hill. Spring lay all about them in a riot of fresh
green. The world, to boyish eyes, had never before looked so fair, nor
had the present ever before been filled with brighter promises for the
future. But the morning ride, delightful as it had been, was drawing
to an end.
Coming from Cobb's Corners into Chestnut Hill you go down the Main
street past Bannerhall. Pen looked as he went by, but he saw no one
there. The lawn was rich with a carpet of fresh, young grass, the
crocus beds and the tulip plot were ablaze with color, and the
swelling buds that crowned the maples with a haze and halo of elusive
pink foretold the luxury of summer foliage. But no human being was in
sight. The street looked strange to Pen as they drove along; as
strange as though he had been away two years instead of two months.
They stopped in front of the post-office, and he remained in the wagon
and minded the horse while Henry Cobb went into a hardware store near
by. People passed back and forth, and some of them looked at him and
said "good-morning," in a distant way, as though it were an effort for
them to speak to him. He knew the cause of their indifference and he
did not resent it, though it cut him deeply. Last winter it would have
been different. But last winter he was the grandson of Colonel Richard
Butler, and lived with that old patriot amid the memories and luxuries
of Bannerhall. To-day he was the grandson of Enos Walker, of Cobb's
Corners, leaving the farm to seek a petty job in a mill, discredited
in the eyes of the community because of his disloyalty to his
country's flag. He was musing on these things when some one called to
him from the sidewalk. It was Aunt Millicent.
"Pen Butler!" she cried, "get right down here and kiss me."
Pen did her bidding.
"What in the world are you doing here?" she continued.
"I'm on my way to Lowbridge," he said. "I have a job up there in the
Starbird woolen mills, as bobbin-boy."
"Well, for goodness sake! Who would have thought it? Pen Butler going
to work as a bobbin-boy! And Lowbridge is fourteen miles away, and we
shall never see you again."
Pen comforted her as best he could, and explained his reasons for
going, and then he asked after the health of his grandfather Butler.
"Don't ask me," she said disconsolately. "He's grieving himself into
his grave about you. But he doesn't say a word, and he won't let me
say a word. Oh, dear!"
Then Henry Cobb came out and greeted Aunt Millicent, and, after a few
more inquiries and admonitions, she kissed Pen good-by and went on her
way.
Mr. Cobb was going on down to Chestnut Valley, but, as the train to
Lowbridge did not leave until afternoon, Pen said he would go down
later. So he was left on the sidewalk there alone. He did not quite
know what to do with himself. The boys were, doubtless, all in school.
He walked up the street a little way, and then he walked back again.
He had no reason for entering any of the stores, and no desire to do
so. There was really no place for him to go. Finally he decided that
he would go down to the Valley and wait there for the train. So he
started on down the hill. People whom he met, acquaintances of the old
days, looked at him askance, spoke to him indifferently, or ignored
him altogether. It seemed to him that he was like a stranger in an
alien land.
As he passed by the school-house a boy whom he did not know was
lingering about the steps. Otherwise there was no one in sight.
Then, suddenly, there burst upon his view a sight for which he was
not prepared. In the yard on the lower side of the school-house, the
yard through which he and his victorious troops had driven the
retreating enemy at the battle of Chestnut Hill, a flag-staff was
standing; tall, straight, symmetrical, and from its summit floated the
Star-Spangled Banner; the very banner that he had trodden under his
feet that February day. It was as though some one had struck him on
the breast with an ice-cold hand. He gasped and stood still, his eyes
fixed immovably on the flag. Then something stirred within him, a
strange impulse that ran the quick gamut of his nerves; and when he
came to himself he was standing in the street, with head bared and
bowed, and his eyes filled with tears. Like Saul of Tarsus he had been
stricken in the way, and ever afterward, whenever and wherever he saw
his country's flag, his soul responded to the sight, and thrilled with
memories of that April day when first he discovered that rare quality
of patriotism that had hitherto lain dormant in his breast.
So he walked on down to the railroad station in Chestnut Valley, and
went into the waiting-room and sat down.
It was very lonely there and it was very tiresome waiting for the
train.
At noon he went out to a bakery and bought for himself a light
luncheon. As he was returning to the depot he came suddenly upon Aleck
Sands, who had had his dinner and was starting back to school. There
was no time for either boy to consider what kind of greeting he should
give to the other. They were face to face before either of them
realized it. As for Pen, he bore no resentment now, toward any one.
His heart had been wrung dry from that feeling through two months of
labor and of contemplation. So, when the first shock of surprise was
over, he held out his hand.
"Let's be friends, Aleck," he said, "and forget what's gone by."
"I'm not willing," was the reply, "to be friends with any one who's
done what you've done." And he made a wide detour around the
astonished boy, and marched off up the hill.
From that moment until the train came and he boarded it, Pen could
never afterward remember what happened. His mind was in a tumult.
Would the cruel echo of one minute of inconsiderate folly on a
February day, keep sounding in his ears and hammering at his heart so
long as he should live?
It was mid-afternoon when Pen reached Lowbridge, and he went at once
to the Starbird mill on the outskirts of the town. He caught sight of
Robert Starbird in the mill-yard, and went over to him. The man did
not at first recognize him.
"I'm Penfield Butler," said the boy, "with whom you were talking last
week."
"Oh, yes. Now I know you. You look a little different, some way. I've
been watching out for you. How did you make out with your Grandpa
Walker?"
"Well, Grandpa Walker found it a little hard to take up the work I'd
been doing, but he was quite willing I should come, and helped me very
much."
"I see." An amused twinkle came into the man's eyes; just such a
twinkle as had come into the eyes of Henry Cobb that morning on the
way to Chestnut Hill.
"Well," he added, "I guess it's all right. Come over to the office.
We'll see what we can do for you."
They crossed the mill-yard and entered the office. An elderly,
benevolent looking man with white side-whiskers, wearing a Grand Army
button on the lapel of his coat, was seated at a table, writing. Three
or four clerks were busy at their desks, and a girl was working at a
type-writer in a remote corner of the room.
"Major Starbird," said the man who had brought Pen in, "this is the
boy whom I told you last week I had hired as a bobbin-boy. He's a
grandson of Enos Walker out at Cobb's Corners."
The man with white side-whiskers laid down his pen, removed his
glasses, and looked up scrutinizingly at Pen.
"Yes," he said, "I know Mr. Walker."
"He is also," added Robert Starbird, "a grandson of Colonel Richard
Butler at Chestnut Hill."
"Indeed! Colonel Butler is a warm friend of mine. I was not aware
that--is your name Penfield Butler?"
"Yes, sir," replied Pen. Something in the man's changed tone of voice
sent a sudden fear to his heart.
"Are you the boy who is said to have mistreated the American flag on
the school grounds at Chestnut Hill?"
"I--suppose I am. Yes, sir."
Pen's heart was now in his shoes. The man with white side-whiskers
raked him from head to foot with a look that boded no good. He turned
to his nephew.
"I've heard of that incident," he said. "I do not think we want this
young man in our employ."
Robert Starbird looked first at his uncle and then at Pen. It was
plain that he was puzzled. It was equally plain that he was
disappointed.
"I didn't know about this," he said. "I'm sorry if it's anything that
necessitates our depriving him of the job. Penfield, suppose you
retire to the waiting-room for a few minutes. I'll talk this matter
over with Major Starbird."
So Pen, with the ghosts of his misdeeds haunting and harassing him,
and a burden of disappointment, too heavy for any boy to bear,
weighing him down, retired to the waiting-room. For the first time
since his act of disloyalty he felt that his punishment was greater
than he deserved. Not that he bore resentment now against any person,
but he believed the retribution that was following him was unjustly
proportioned to the gravity of his offense. And if Major Starbird
refused to receive him, what could he do then?
In the midst of these cruel forebodings he heard his name called, and
he went back into the office.
Major Starbird's look was still keen, and his voice was still
forbidding.
"I do not want," he said, "to be too hasty in my judgments. My nephew
tells me that Henry Cobb has given you an excellent recommendation,
and we place great reliance on Mr. Cobb's opinion. It may be that your
offense has been exaggerated, or that you have some explanation which
will mitigate it. If you have any excuse to offer I shall be glad to
hear it."
"I don't think," replied Pen frankly, "that there was any excuse for
doing what I did. Only--it seems to me--I've suffered enough for it.
And I never--never had anything against the flag."
He was so earnest, and his voice was so tremulous with emotion, that
the heart of the old soldier could not help but be stirred with pity.
"I have fought for my country," he said, "and I reverence her flag.
And I cannot have, in my employ, any one who is disloyal to it."
"I am not disloyal to it, sir. I--I love it."
"Would you be willing to die for it, as I have been?"
"I would welcome the chance, sir."
Major Starbird turned to his nephew.
"I think we may trust him," he said. "He has good blood in his veins,
and he ought to develop into a loyal citizen."
Pen said: "Thank you!" But he said it with a gulp in his throat. The
reaction had quite unnerved him.
"I am sure," replied Robert Starbird, "that we shall make no mistake.
Penfield, suppose you come with me. I will introduce you to the
foreman of the weaving-room. He may be able to take you on at once."
So Pen, with tears of gratitude in his eyes, followed his guide and
friend. They went through the store-room between great piles of
blankets, through the wool-room filled with big bales of fleece, and
up-stairs into the weaving-room amid the click and clatter and roar of
three score busy and intricate looms. Pen was introduced to the
foreman, and his duties as bobbin-boy were explained to him.
"It's easy enough," said the foreman, "if you only pay attention to
your work. You simply have to take the bobbins in these little
running-boxes to the looms as the weavers call for them and give you
their numbers. Perhaps you had better stay here this afternoon and let
Dan Larew show you how. I'll give him a loom to-morrow morning, and
you can take his place."
So Pen stayed. And when the mills were shut down for the day, when the
big wheels stopped, and the cylinders were still, and the clatter of
a thousand working metal fingers ceased, and the voices of the mill
girls were no longer drowned by the rattle and roar of moving
machinery, he went with Dan to his home, a half mile away, where he
found a good boarding-place.
At seven o'clock the next morning he was at the mill, and, at the end
of his first day's real work for real wages, he went to his new home,
tired indeed, but happier than he had ever been before in all his
life.
So the days went by; and spring blossomed into summer, and summer
melted into autumn, and winter came again and dropped her covering of
snow upon the landscape, whiter and softer than any fleece that was
ever scoured or picked or carded at the Starbird mills. And then Pen
had a great joy. His mother came to Lowbridge to live with him. Death
had kindly released Grandma Walker from her long suffering, and there
was no longer any need for his mother to stay on the little farm at
Cobb's Corners. She was an expert seamstress and she found more work
in the town than she could do. And the very day on which she
came--Major Starbird knew that she was coming--Pen was promoted to a
loom. One thing only remained to cloud his happiness. He was still
estranged from the dear, tenderhearted, but stubborn old patriot at
Chestnut Hill.
With only his daughter to comfort him, the old man lived his lonely
life, grieving silently, ever more and more, at the fate which
separated him from this brave scion of his race, aging as only the
sorrowing can age, yet, with a stubborn pride, and an unyielding
purpose, refusing to make the first advance toward a reconciliation.