"Why did the powers put the State Capitol and the College so far from town, I wonder," I said as we loitered about the walls of the former.
"For the same reason that the shortsighted colonists of the Revolution put Washington away off up the Potomac, west of the thirteen States," my father answered. "We can't picture a city here now, but it will be built in your day if not in mine."
And then we walked on until before us stood that graceful little locust tree, the landmark of the prairie. Its leaves were falling in golden showers now, save as here and there a more protected branch still held its summer green foliage.
"What a beautiful, sturdy little pioneer!" my father exclaimed. "It has earned a first settler's right to the soil. I hope it will be given the chance to live, the chance most of the settlers have had to fight for, as it has had to stand up against the winds and hold its own against the drouth. Any enterprising city official who would some day cut it down should be dealt with by the State."
We sat down by the tree and talked of many things, but my father carefully avoided the mention of Marjie's name. When he gave the little girl the letter that had fallen from her cloak pocket he read her story in her face, but he had no right or inclination to read it aloud to me. I tried by all adroit means to lead him to tell me of the Whatelys. It was all to no purpose. On any other topic I would have quitted the game, but—oh, well, I was just the same foolish-hearted boy that put the pink blossoms on a little girl's brown curls and kissed her out in the purple shadows of the West Draw one April evening long ago. And now I was about to begin a dangerous campaign where the hazard of war meant a nameless grave for a hundred, where it brought after years of peace and honor to one. I must hear something of Marjie. The love-light in her brown eyes as she gave me one affectionate glance when I presented her to Rachel Melrose in my father's office—that pledge of her heart, I pictured over and over in my memory.
"Father, Tillhurst says he has heard that Amos Judson and Marjie are engaged. Are they?" I put the question squarely. My father was stripping the gold leaves one by one off a locust spray.
"Yes, I have heard it, too," he replied, and to save my life I could not have judged by word or manner whether he cared one whit or not. He was studying me, if toying with a locust branch and whistling softly and gazing off at Burnett's Mound are marks of study. He had nothing of himself to reveal. "I have heard it several times," he went on. "Judson has made the announcement quietly, but generally."
He threw away the locust branch, shook down his cuff and settled it in his sleeve, lifted his hat from his forehead and reset it on his head, and then added as a final conclusion, "I don't believe it."
He had always managed me most skilfully when he wanted to find out anything; and when the time came that I began in turn to manage him, being of his own blood, the game was interesting. But before I knew it, we had drifted far away from the subject, and I had no opportunity to come back to it. My father had found out all he wanted to know.
"Phil, I must leave on the train for Kansas City this evening," he said as we rose to go back to town. "I'm to meet Morton there, and we may go on East together. He will have the best surgeons look after that wound of his, Governor Crawford tells me."