|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
Book, page 201 / 259 "My goodness, Susan Betts, if you ain't the limit, an' no mistake! I s'pose you mean CONservation." "Heh? What's that? Well, CONservation, then. What's the difference, anyway?" she scoffed a bit testily. Then, abruptly, her face changed. "But, there! this ain't settlin' what I'm going to do with Daniel Burton," she finished with a profound sigh. "Do with him?" puzzled Mrs. McGuire. "Yes." Susan picked up the silver spoon and began indifferently to polish it. "'Tain't no use for me to be doin' all this. Daniel Burton won't know whether he's eatin' with a silver spoon or one made of pewter. No more will he retire to a life of ease an' laxity with his paint-brushes--unless they declarate peace to-morrow mornin'." "You don't mean--he'll stay in the store?" Susan made a despairing gesture. "Goodness only knows what he'll do--I don't. I know what he does now. He's as uneasy as a fish out o' water, an' he roams the house from one end to the other every night, after he reads the paper. He's got one of them war maps on his wall, an' he keeps changin' the pins an' flags, an' I hear him mutterin' under his breath. You see, he has to keep it from Keith all he can, for Keith hisself feels so bad 'cause he can't be up an' doin'; an' if he thought he was keepin' his father back from helpin', I don't know what the poor boy would do. But I think if 'twa'n't for Keith, Daniel Burton would try to enlist an' go over. Oh, of course, he's beyond the malicious age, so far as bein' drafted is concerned, an' you wouldn't naturally think such a mild- tempered-lookin' man would go in much for killin'. But this war's stirred him up somethin' awful." "Well, who wouldn't it?" "Oh, I know that; an' I ain't sayin' as how it shouldn't. But that don't make it no easier for Daniel Burton to keep his feelin's hid from his son, particularly when it's that son that's made him have the
|
Knowledgerush Search
|
|
Contact Us
| Privacy Statement & Terms of Use
|