"Never mind, little dear," he said, and was gone.
"Such a dumb idiotic fool as Dan Hayne is in some things! If I couldn't see an inch before my nose I'd get some sort of a machine and pull it out longer. He's all right on this slavery business—we don't want it here at the North. And the tariff has two sides, I'm free to confess. But some other matters——"
"I wish you wouldn't quarrel so much with him," I interrupted. "And he is so good to us. You and Mr. Harris always get along so nicely."
"Shucks!" snorted father in disdain. "There's no arguing where two people believe just the same things in the same way, or pretend to. I like a man to have some sharp opinions, if he does ram the points into you. It's like a wrestling bout, and stirs up your blood. Dan won't be so sure of things when he is forty."
I felt a little relieved. But the kiss burned upon my lips and brought a curious heat to my cheek.
There was a young paper started about this time by a Mr. Wright, who was always promulgating some scheme for the public good. He was very eager and earnest about public-school education, and the necessity for children, who were to be the future rulers of the State, to know what their duties were, and to be able to undertake them. Many improvements in old Chicago were owing to his fertile brain, and the energy and ability to carry them through.
This particular one that interested father from its first inception was the "Prairie Farmer." At the head of it was this motto—"Farmers, write for your paper." All kinds of agricultural questions were asked and answered as correctly as possible for the limited knowledge of that time. Experiences were exchanged—the value of inventions and what might be done by machinery. Some of those old ideas did get appropriated.
Father told me to draw up the table and bring him pen and ink. He often looked over and straightened up accounts. He kept every item and knew the returns of different methods, always adopting the most profitable one.
This kept him busy for a long time. He had a quill pen, and he chewed the end of it, wrinkled up his brow, and shut his lips in a straight line so that you could hardly see the color. Somewhere in the afternoon he asked me to read a rather discouraging article, and then said:
"Now listen to this, and it's no visionary thing either."