“Yes, I know, I see. I’ll fix it,” Johnnie answered. “I’ll go to father now,” and stooping down, he kissed his aunt tenderly, then suddenly asked, as he looked into her eyes, “You don’t mind my kissing you, do you? That don’t make you sick?”
“No, oh no!” she answered, and Johnnie departed on his strange errand.
Squire Russell sat in his office or reading-room, pretending to look over his evening paper, but his thoughts were really upstairs with Dora, whom he had not seen that day, and whose illness troubled him greatly, for he rightly associated it with his proposal of the previous night. Squire Russell loved Dora with a great, warm, sheltering love, which would shield her from all harm, and unselfishly yield to her everything, but he had not the nice, quick perception of Dr. West, and had he been younger he could never have satisfied the wants of her higher nature as could the rival whose existence he did not suspect. But he loved her very much. He must have her. He could not live without her, he thought, and womanish man that he was, a tear was gathering in his eyes when Johnnie entered the room abruptly, and locking the door, came and stood beside him.
“What do you wish, my boy?” the Squire said kindly, for he was never impatient with his children.
Johnnie hesitated, beginning to feel that his father’s love-affair was a delicate matter for him to meddle with.
“Confound it,” he began at last, “I may as well spit it out, and then let you knock me down, or lick me, or anything you like. Father, I heard what you said to Auntie last night, and what she said to you, and after you was gone I took the floor and beat you all to smash. I said she must be my mother,—she should be my mother, and all that, and set you up, I tell you, till you’d hardly know yourself from my description. To-night I’ve seen her again,—have just come from her room to tell you something she bade me tell.”
Squire Russell had turned very white at first, feeling indignant at his son for presuming to interfere, but this feeling had disappeared now, and he listened eagerly while Johnnie continued:
“She says its sudden; that she can’t make a love in a minute; that she must have six weeks or two months to decide, and then she will tell you sure, and, father, you’ll wait; I know you will, and,—and,—well, I guess I’d hold my tongue,—that is, I wouldn’t keep teasing her, nor say a word; just let her go her own gait, and above all I wouldn’t act lovin’ like, for fear she’d up and vomit. She don’t mind me kissing her, because I’ve no beard, I don’t shave, nor carry a cane. I’m a boy, and you are a whiskered old chap. I guess that’s the difference between us. Father, you’ll wait?”
Squire Russell could not forbear a smile at his son’s novel reasoning, but he was not angry, and it made his child seem nearer, now that both shared the same secret, and were interested in the same cause. Yes, he would wait two, three, or four months if Dora liked, and meantime things should continue as usual in the household.
“And afterward, father?” Johnnie asked. “How about that? If auntie says no, she’ll mean it, and you won’t raise a rumpus, will you? You’ll grin and bear it like a man?”