"Dear Pearl:—I forgot to give you the roses when you were in this afternoon. Accept them now with my deep affection. You have been a bright spot in my life, and you will always be that—like a red rose in a dull room. Your success will always be very dear to me, and my prophecy is that you will go far. I will always think of you with deepest admiration and pride. Ever yours,
"HORACE CLAY."
Pearl read it twice; then impulsively pressed it to her cheek.
"It sounds like good-bye," she said, with her lips trembling, "it sounds like the last of something. Why won't he tell me? It is not like him."
A wither of loneliness went over her face as she clasped the note between her hands.
"I don't believe it is that," she said fiercely. "I won't believe it!" Mrs. Crocks' words were taunting her; "the doctor thinks more of blue blood than he does of money, and if he goes into politics it will mean a lot to him to be related to the senator."
An overwhelming rage was in Pearl's heart, in spite of her determination not to believe the suggestion; a blind, choking rage—it was all so unfair.
"My dad is more of a man than Senator Keith," she said to herself, "for all his fine clothes and his big house. He was nothing but a heeler for the party, and was made Senator because there was no dirty job that he would not do to get votes for them. I know how he bought liquor for the Galicians and brought them in by the car-load to vote, like cattle, and that's blue blood, is it? Sure it is—you can see it in his shot-silk face and his two bad old eyes swollen like oysters! If the doctor wants him he can have him, and it's blamed little frettin' I'll do!… My dad eats with his knife, does he? All right, he bought the knife with honest money, and he earned what's on it too. All the dirty money they have would not buy him, or make him do a mean trick to any one. I am not ashamed of him—he suits me, and he can go on eating with his knife and wearing his overalls and doing anything he wants to do. He suits me!"
When Pearl went back to the kitchen, her father was taking off his smock. Supper was ready, and he and Teddy had just come in. The dust of the fanning-mill was on his face and his clothes. His unmittened hands were red and rough, and bore traces of the work he had been doing. In his hair were some of the seeds and straws blown out by the mill. There was nothing very attractive about John Watson, unless it was his kindly blue eye and the humorous twist of his mouth, but in Pearl's heart there was a fierce tenderness for her father, a protective love which glorified him in her eyes.
"Did you hear the news, pa," she cried, as she impulsively threw her arms around his neck. "Did you know that I am going to speak in the school, and they are all coming out to hear me. Are you glad, Pa, and do you think I can do it?"