“Wait. Try to be patient and do what he wishes. It may help him to yield in the end.”
“Never! I know Dad better than that. He will only think all the more that he is in the right, and that I have come to my senses. He never takes any viewpoint but his own.” His mother was silent. Never would she open her lips against her husband. “I say, mother, naturally I would rather go with his consent, but if he won’t give 102 it––How long must a man be obedient just for the sake of obedience? Does such bondage never end? Am I not of age?”
“I will speak to him. Wait and see. Talk it over with him again to-day after banking hours.”
“I––I––have something I must––must do to-day.” He was thinking he would go out to the Ballards’ in spite of the rain.
The dinner hour passed without constraint. In these days Peter Junior would not allow the long silences to occur that used often to cast a gloom over the meals in his boyhood. He knew that in this way his mother would sadly miss him. It was the Elder’s way to keep his thoughts for the most part to himself, and especially when there was an issue of importance before him. It was supposed that his wife could not take an interest in matters of business, or in things of interest to men, so silence was the rule when they were alone.
This time Peter Junior mentioned the topic of the wonderful new railroad that was being pushed across the plains and through the unexplored desert to the Pacific.
“The mere thought of it is inspiring,” said Hester.
“How so?” queried the Elder, with a lift of his brows. He deprecated any thought connecting sentiment with achievement. Sentiment was of the heart and only hindered achievement, which was purely of the brain.
“It’s just the wonder of it. Think of the two great oceans being brought so near together! Only two weeks apart! Don’t they estimate that the time to cross will be only two weeks?”
“Yes, mother, and we have those splendid old pioneers 103 who made the first trail across the desert to thank for its being possible. It isn’t the capitalists who have done this. It’s the ones who had faith in themselves and dared the dangers and the hardships. They are the ones I honor.”