I went back to father's bedside. Oh, what should I ever do without him. Yes, it was my duty to do what I could for his comfort. That thought inspired me. To prolong his life!
I was not altogether a meek sweetheart. There were times when I feared and resented Dan's assumed authority. Once I said, in some rather heated argument:
"Oh, I am not compelled to marry you. I might say no, even when the minister asked me."
"You will love me so much by that time you will not want to," and his laugh was tantalizing.
He took it for granted that I should love him even as he desired. I would not have any one told, even his mother, and I declared I was not engaged until I had promised to marry him. I think now he liked the secrecy. It did not make any outward change in my life. I had a number of my young friends in on my birthday. I was sixteen and we had a merry time. Father brought out some of his best quips and told some funny Yankee stories.
"You'll have a better time without me," Dan said, and I think I did. There was no need of self-consciousness or embarrassment.
Father had a new plan that interested him strongly. This was building a house for me, for us all, but it was to be mine, farther away from the river, nearer the lake and on higher ground. It was afterward to be Washington Square. He had taken quite a plot of ground there a year or so before he was hurt, in the way of trade. We had a good deal of amusement planning it. It was to be of brick, full two stories, but with a peaked roof. He would have two rooms on the lower floor, a sort of office and a sleeping-room. We would have a real parlor, a dining-room—living-room we called it then—and a commodious kitchen. There was room for a vegetable garden, a hennery, and some flowers. Pigs were at last debarred from the streets. Father raised so many now that he had a separate enclosure. Some people were trying to raise sheep and making quite a success, only there were at times forays of wolves, when every one turned out for a wolf hunt.
The old house was to be built on and turned into stores. Business was increasing on every side. The terms of peace with Mexico were arranged early in the new year. For the territory ceded we were to pay fifteen millions. There were bitter arguments pro and con. One party was resolutely against our having any more land, we were large enough now, we had not settled half the country we did own. The other side pointed out the advantage the Louisiana purchase had been. Of course we needed the Mississippi River, but this wild land, overrun with Mexicans and Indians, would be more plague than profit.
Father was in favor of having all we could get.
The spring came early that year. We had discovered in our county a fine bed of clay and were making brick. All our lumber had to be brought from a distance.