Dorothy’s father, Napoleon Carr, was a man well known and greatly
respected throughout the south country where he had always lived.
His existence had been a laborious one, for he had entered the lists
heavily handicapped in the matter of education. Intellectual enjoyment,
dimly realized, had never been his; but he struggled that his family
might have a fairer chance. Much of his comfortable income of late
years had been generously devoted to the education of his daughter.
He had been happily wedded, though long childless. At length, when
Dorothy was born it was at the price of her mother’s life. This was
a terrific blow to the husband and father. He was inconsolable with
grief. The child was sent to a kinsman for a few months, after which
time Mr. Carr felt that he must have her ever with him. To him there
was nothing so absorbing as the tender care of Dorothy. He was very
prideful of her. He watched her daily growth and then, all at once,
while he scarcely realized that the twilight of childhood was passing,
the dawn came, and, like the rose vine by his doorway, she burst into
bloom.
With what a reverential pride he saw her filling the vacant place,
diffusing a fragrance upon all around like the sweet, wet smell of a
rose.
He was a splendid horseman and crack shot, and it had been one of his
pleasures to teach her to handle horse and gun. Together they would
ride and hunt, and no day’s outing was perfect to him unless Dorothy
was by his side.
It was not surprising, therefore, to find her a little boyish in her
fondness for sport. However, as she grew to womanhood, she sometimes,
from a fancy that it was undignified, would decline to take part in
these sports. But when he had started off alone with dogs and gun,
the sound of running feet behind him would cause him to turn to find
Dorothy with penitent face before him. Then lovingly encircling his
neck with arms like stripped willow boughs, the repentant words: “I do
want to go. I was only in fun,” would be a preface to a long day of
delight.
In time these little moods set him thinking, and he began to realize
that their beautiful days of sporting comradeship were in a measure
over. How he wished she might never outgrow this charm of childhood.
Ah! those baby days, not far past! How often of nights the father went
to her bedroom, just touching his child to find out if the covering was
right and that she slept well. How many, many times had he leaned over
her sleeping form in the dim night light, seeming to see a halo around
her head as he watched the dimpling smile about her infant mouth, and,
recalling the old nurse saying, that when a baby smiles, angels are
whispering to it, took comfort in the thought that maybe it was all
true, that the mother was soothing her child to deeper slumber, and
so, perhaps, was also beside him. All unconsciously she had slept,
never hearing the prayer to God that when the day should come when she
would leave him for the man of her heart, death might claim his lone
companionship.
How it hurt when the neighbors would says “You have a grown daughter
now,” or “Dorothy is a full fledged woman.” It was not until then that
Mr. Carr had let his daughter know that it would almost break his heart
if she should ever leave him for another. But he made absolutely no
restrictions against her meeting young men.
Of course this rare creature had sweethearts not a few, for the
neighboring boys began to nourish a tender sentiment for her before she
was out of short dresses. Her playmates were free of the house; their
coming was always welcome to her and encouraged by her father though
this past year, when a new visitor had found his way there, the father
took particular note of her manner toward this possible suitor. The
kind old eyes would follow her with pathetic eagerness, not reproaching
or reproving, only always questioning: “Is this to be the man who
shall open the new world’s doors for her; who shall give her the first
glimpse of that wonderful joy called love?”
Yet so truly unselfish was her nature,--despite the unlimited
indulgences when, visiting in congenial homes where she was petted and
admired, full of the intoxication of the social triumphs, she had out
of the abundance of her heart exclaimed: “Oh, I am so happy! happy!
happy!”--there was sure to follow a time of anxious solicitude, when
she asked herself, “But how has it been with him--with dear old father?”
It was so generous of him to spare so much of her society; so good of
him to make her orphan way so smooth and fair. She could read in his
pictured face something of the loneliness and the disappointments he
had borne; something of the heartaches he must have suffered. All this
she recalled, the pleasure of it and the pain of it, the pride and joy
of it. What a delight it was to make her visit short, and surprise him
by returning home before he expected her.