Papa's own girl: A novel

by Marie Stevens Howland

“Yes, we do. We create them in others. We constantly affect their motives and their actions; and so we may act on ourselves, and change our motives. We can make weak ones strong.”

“What do you mean by we acting on ourselves? But I will not quibble, Fannie. What is the result, when you put two pounds in one scale of a balance and one pound in the other? Dan’s desire for the excitement produced by alcohol is the two-pound weight; his resisting force is the other.”

“I am sure there can be no pleasure in the excitement he is now under, for example.”

“Oh, yes; a subverted pleasure. He felt himself a hero as he talked about his wrongs, and he had strong hopes of conquering Frauenstein, whom he thinks his enemy. You see it is insanity; but many insane people are happy. This is often the case when insane enough to be ignorant of their condition. Some madmen enjoy years of a triumphant career as Julius Cæsar, Napoleon, and so on.”

“Well, then, you think Dan happy, and that we had better do nothing to save him,” said Mrs. Forest, with a sad irony. “For my part, I shall do all I can to avoid the repetition of this.”

“Do all you can, dear. You should know, without my telling you, how I feel about our son; but I see no possible way to save him, except the one I suggested. How do you propose to keep him from getting in the same condition to-morrow?”

Mrs. Forest was silent a moment, and then she went quickly out of the room. Pretty soon she returned. “Just look!” she said, holding some crumpled money in her hands and counting it. “Two dollars and eighty-four cents, out of twenty dollars that I gave him to-day. Well, he can’t get any liquor to-morrow; that’s one satisfaction. Such a shame! Such a disgrace to us!”

“Rather worse than Clara’s leaving Delano, eh?”

“Oh, don’t mock me, doctor. It is a hundred thousand times worse.” This concession was quite new on Mrs. Forest’s part, and the doctor did his best to comfort and reassure his wife. Dan, however, did come home the next night in much the same state, after seeming so penitent, and promising his mother that she would never see him intoxicated again. In sore distress Mrs. Forest then went to Clara. It was the first time she had crossed the threshold in seven years. Clara received her in the sweetest, most filial way; took her all over the conservatories and nurseries, and presented young Page to her. Mrs. Forest was greatly pleased with this happy, modest young fellow. She looked at his fair complexion, his light, boyish moustache just appearing, and thought of her own boy, before the wicked world had degraded and ruined him. He wore a straw hat, shading his girlish complexion, and a brown linen blouse, buttoned to the throat. Mrs. Forest stayed and took lunch with her daughter, when there appeared at the table three of Clara’s flower-girls and this young Page, now divested of his blouse, which left exposed a fine linen shirt, printed all over with dogs of every species. It was a new experience for Mrs. Forest to sit down with working-people; but then she was getting old, and had had strange havoc made lately with all her “settled” notions of things. She watched these young people narrowly; noticed how clean they were, even to their finger-nails, and that their manners at table were unexceptionable. Clara called them her children; and it was pleasant to Mrs. Forest to see the affection and harmony existing between Clara and them.

During the lunch the conversation turned on the woman’s-rights convention, which was to sit at Oakdale the following week. Mrs. Kendrick had actually signed the call, and Mrs. Forest had been almost tempted to do so, but that was before the count’s name had been added, or she would not have resisted. These adolescents seemed to have very decided views on the subject of equal political rights, especially young Page. Mrs. Forest asked him where he obtained his first convictions on this mooted question. “From my mother, ma’am,” he answered, promptly. She had had at one time a very successful millinery industry in a large village near Boston, and her husband ruined it through drinking. Mrs. Forest did not see how the ballot in his mother’s hands could have prevented her husband from drinking.