Sunday morning Dan went off with one of the packers to look at a drove of cattle, and we had a delightful time with John all day. He told us about his sisters and their families. One of the husbands taught school in the winter. His own brother seemed a rather close-fisted sort of person, and his mother now and then went out nursing. But there was no chance for a young fellow in the town unless he had a farm to start with.
Dan seemed to settle into a sort of tolerant mood toward young John, but though I tried my best I often found him sharp and captious. Then he would have a spell of being tigerishly fond of me. I cannot use any other adjective, and it filled me with terror, as it had times before, as if he sought to impress upon me that I was his alone.
Then we heard that Mr. Pierre Maseurier had been thrown from his horse and picked up with a broken neck.
Everybody wondered what Polly would do. Her mother went to her.
So the winter came on again. Half a century had passed. It was 1850. How queer it seemed, as if we had written 1840 all our lives. And I was twenty years old.
Ben was in Harvard. Mr. Wight planned for Chris to study Latin and Greek, and go to a preparatory school another year.
Mrs. Morrison and Polly came home. It seems that Mr. Maseurier had made no will, and the sons claimed everything. Wives were not well provided for at that period. Still, the sons gave her a small portion of their wealth, and she returned to Chicago, her luxurious life at an end. I wondered if she was very sorry. She wore heavy widow's mourning, and did not look as attractive as in all her furbelows. Then widows were expected to live very quiet, retired lives for six months at least.
I was rather surprised when Dan inquired somewhat brusquely one day if father had given me the deed of the house.
"Is it worth while before I am twenty-one?" I asked.
"What a silly idea! It is worth while any time. Ask him to do it. He promised to."