“As to the Indian wife, she is as good as the husband, if not a bit better.”
“But impossible, Edgar. She will be a burden, a burden impossible. Why should a young boy assume that handicap?”
“Mark me, he’ll stick to his father. Try him tomorrow.”
The Colonel was proved to be right in his judgment, for, a quarter of an hour after lessons and practice were finished, Paul stood ready at the door of the living room.
“The wagon will come for my box, Aunt Augusta,” he said, standing up white and very straight.
“Mother! Mother! He says he’s going to leave us! And his father told him to stay. Tell him to stay, Mother.” Peg’s face was red and indignant.
“And why are you leaving us, Paul? Come here and sit down and let us talk it over.”
Paul approached her, but did not sit down.
“Are you not happy here?” Augusta’s voice, when she chose, could carry a world of tenderness. Paul’s lip trembled. He could not trust his voice, and before Peg he would rather suffer much bodily injury than “cry like a girl.” So he wisely remained silent, while Augusta cunningly and carefully marshalled her arguments which she had spent much of the night in preparing. The boy would have often made reply but for his recreant lips which would not keep firm. In the midst of the one-sided argument the Colonel entered the room.
“Daddy! oh, Daddy! he says he’s going away!” stormily cried Peg, whose emotions had been deeply wrought upon by her mother’s moving argumentation.