Read Ebook: Her Lord and Master by Morton Victoria Adapter Morton Martha Christy Howard Chandler Illustrator MacNamara Esther Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 2243 lines and 66954 words, and 45 pages

"No cure," said the lady. "Nothing but time."

Stillwater sat with his hand in his pocket and his eyes closed, apparently thinking deeply.

"Well, I've said all I'm going to say."

She looked at him expectantly. His eyes remained closed, however, and he breathed deeply and regularly.

"I have finished, pa. Have you any remarks to make?"

No answer.

"He's asleep, Indiana," said Mrs. Bunker, with a peal of laughter.

"He is not," said Indiana indignantly. "He's only making believe--" She bent down and looked in his face. "You're not asleep, are you, pa?"

"No, of course not; who said I was?" He sat up rubbing his eyes. "Did you get it all off your mind, Indy?"

"You heard what I said, pa?"

"Certainly; it was fine. You must write it down for me some day, Indy."

"Would you close your ears and eyes to the still, small voice," said Indiana, jumping upon a chair and declaiming in approved pulpit fashion. "The voice which says, 'Go not in the by-ways. There are snares and quick-sands. Follow in the open road, the path of truth and righteousness.' I want to know if you're going to a doctor?"

"Well, I suppose I must, if I want some peace in life."

"No ordinary doctor, you must consult a specialist." She looked around triumphantly.

Her mother smiled on her in loving approval.

"A specialist for what, Indy?" Stillwater asked drily.

Indiana met his eyes bent enquiringly upon her, then burst into laughter.

"Well, you've phazed me this time," she said. Then she installed herself on his knee. "Oh, I don't mean a specialist at all. I mean a consulting physician--an authority."

"Now you're talking," answered Stillwater, with a beaming smile.

Indiana jumped off his knee. "An ordinary doctor isn't good enough for my father!" She gave a very good imitation of a cowboy's swagger. "I'm hungry, pa."

"Well, where are you going to have lunch?"

"I'd like mine brought up," said Mrs. Stillwater. "Are the trunks unlocked, Kitty?" as a young, bright-looking girl appeared at the door.

"Yes ma'am. Come right in and I'll make you comfortable."

"I'll have my lunch up here with ma," said Mr. Stillwater. "What's the rest of you going to do?"

"Oh, we'll go down and hear the band play," said Mrs. Bunker with exuberant spirits. "Come along, Indiana!"

Stillwater was one of the men who had risen rapidly in the West. He had married at a boyish age, a very young, gentle girl, and had emigrated from the East soon after marriage, with his wife and her mother, Mrs. Chazy Bunker. He built a house on government land in Indiana. The first seven years meant hard and incessant toil, but in that time he and the two women saw some very happy days. His marriage had been a boy and girl affair, dating from the village school. One of those lucky unions, built neither upon calculation or judgment, which terminate happily for all concerned. Stillwater was only aware that the eyes of Mary Bunker were blue and sweet as the wild violets that he picked and presented to her, and that she never spelt above him. His manliness won her respect, and his gentleness her love. Their immature natures thus thoughtlessly and happily united, like a pair of birds at nesting time, grew together as the years went on until they became one. After seven years of unremitting work, Stillwater could stand and look proudly as far as the eye could reach, on acre after acre of golden wheat tossing blithely in the breeze. He had been helped to this result by the women who had lived with the greatest economy and thrift putting everything into the land. His young and inexperienced wife acted under the direction of her mother, a splendid manager and a woman of great shrewdness and sense. He could look, also, on the low, red-painted house, which could boast now of many additions, and realize that his marriage had been a success. In that low red house Indiana first saw the light, and, simultaneously, oil was struck on the land. The child became the prospective heiress of millions.

The birth of a daughter opened the source of the deepest joy Stillwater had ever known. When Mrs. Bunker laid the infant swathed in new flannels in his arms, he was assailed by indescribable feelings, altogether new to him. She watched him curiously as he held the tiny bundle with the greatest timidity in his big brawny hands. Feeling her bright eyes on his face he flushed with embarrassment. Mrs. Bunker pushed back the flannel and showed him a wee fist, like a crumpled roseleaf, which she opened by force, clasping it again around Stillwater's finger. As he felt that tiny and helpless clasp tears welled into his honest brown eyes.

"There isn't anything she shan't have," he said. And these words held good through all the years that Indiana lived under his roof. In a spirit of patriotism, Stillwater named his daughter Indiana.

"She was born right here in Indiana," he declared. "She's a prairie flower, so we named her after the State."

The birth of a daughter appealed to Stillwater as a most beautiful and wonderful thing. It awakened all the latent chivalry and tenderness of his character. As he remarked to his friend Masters, "A girl kinder brings out the soft spots in man's nature."

This feeling is a foreign one to the European who always longs for a son to perpetuate his name and possessions, and after all it is a natural egotism when there is a long and honorable line of ancestry, but in all ranks and conditions the cry is the same, "A son, oh Lord, give me a son!"

After the boom which followed the discovery of oil-gushers on the land, and Stillwater looked steadily in the face, with that level head which no amount of success could turn, the enormous prospects of the future, he thought, "It's just come in time for Indiana." His imagination pictured another Mary Bunker, another soft and clinging creature to nestle against his heart, another image of his wife to wind her arms about his neck and look up into his face with trusting love. Instead, he had a little whirlwind of a creature, a combination of tempests and sunshine, with eyes like the skies of Indiana, and hair the color of the ripe wheat, upon which his wife used to gaze as she sat on her porch sewing little garments, nothing as far as the eyes could strain but that harmony of golden color, joining the blue of the sky at the rim of the horizon. The peace and happiness of the Stillwater household fluctuated according to the moods of Indiana. These conditions commenced when she was a child, and grew as she developed. The family regarded her storms as inevitable, and nothing could be more beautiful than her serenity when they passed, nothing could equal the tenderness of her love for them all.

Stillwater, under high pressure from his family, went to consult a noted New York medical authority; a gaunt, spare-looking man, who, after the usual preliminaries, leaned back in his chair and regarded Stillwater fixedly.

"Your liver's torpid, your digestion is all wrong, and you are on the verge of a nervous collapse."

"Well, doctor, what do you advise?"

"Complete change."

"Well, don't send me too far. I have big interests on hand just now."

"Cessation of all business."

"Don't know how I can manage that."

"Get on a sailing vessel. Stay on it for three months."

"I should die for want of an interest in life."

"Take my advice in time, Mr. Stillwater. It will save future trouble."

"I wonder how Indiana would like a sailing trip," thought Stillwater. "If the folks were along I guess we'd manage to whoop it up, all right. Well, I'll think it over, Doctor. Of course, I couldn't do anything without consulting the ladies."

Stillwater smiled in a confidential way, as much as to say, "You know how it is yourself." The noted authority answered by a look of contemptuous pity.

"See you again, Doctor."

As he arrived at the hotel he was hailed by Indiana, driving up in a hansom.

"Been to see the doctor?"

"Yes; I've got lots to tell."

"Jump in and we'll drive around the park. The others won't be home yet."

Stillwater made a feint of hesitating. "Perhaps I'd better wait till we're all together."

"Well, you can jump in anyway, and come for a drive," said Indiana. "I'll give him five minutes," she thought, "before he tells me all he knows."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet