Hempfield

"I will say this for Anthy Doane," old Mrs. Parker was accustomed to remark, "she is turrible particular."

How often have we been astonished to see gentlewomen (I like the good old word) torn from the harbour of sheltered lives and serenely navigating their ships on the stormiest seas, but without real cause for our astonishment, for they have merely applied in a wider field that genius for command and organization which they have long cultivated in their households. We may yet come to look upon many of the functions of government as only a larger kind of housekeeping, and find that we cannot afford to dispense longer with the executive genius of women in all those activities which deal with the comforts of human kind. (It's true, Harriet.)

Mrs. Parker, as I have said, having something on her mind, was in condition of unstable equilibrium.

"When you was little, Anthy," she began finally, "I used to tell you to put on your rubbers when you went out in the rain, and to take your umbrella to school, and not forget your 'rithmetic. Didn't I, Anthy?"

"Why, yes, Margaret." Anthy was much mystified.

Old Mrs. Parker paused: "Well, I don't approve of this Norton Carr."

Anthy laughed. "Why, what's the matter with Norton Carr?"

Old Mrs. Parker closed her lips and wagged her head with a world of dark significance.

"What is it, Margaret?"

Mrs. Parker lowered her voice.

"He stimmylates," she said.

It was about the worst she could have said about poor Nort, except one thing – in Hempfield.

Anthy tried to draw her out still further, but not another word would she say. A long time afterward, when Anthy told me of this incident (how I have coveted the knowledge of every least thing in the lives of Nort and Anthy!), when she told me, she said reflectively: "I can't tell you how those words hurt me."

And then came the surprising telephone call from the old Captain, with the news that he had discharged Ed Smith!

It was characteristic of Anthy that when she put down the telephone receiver she was laughing. The tone of the Captain's voice and the picture she had of him, dramatically discharging Ed, were irresistible. But it was only for a moment, and the old problem of the Star leaped at her again. In the letters to Lincoln here in my desk I find that she referred to it repeatedly: "Ed Smith will not get on much longer with our vagabond, who isn't really a vagabond at all; and as for Uncle Newt, it seems to me that he grows more difficult every day. What shall I do?"

Now that the crisis was here, she was very quiet about it. When she had put on her hat she stepped for a moment into the quiet, old-fashioned living-room, where her desk was, and the fireplace before which she and her father had sat together for so many, many evenings, and the picture of Lincoln over the mantel. She had not changed it in the least particular since her father's death, and it had always a soothing effect upon her: the picture of her mother, the familiar, well-thumbed books which her father had delighted in, the very chair where he loved to sit. She did not feel bold or confident, but the moment in the old room gave her a curious sense of calmness, as though there were something strong and sure back of her. She glanced up quickly at the countenance of Mr. Lincoln, and turned and went out of the house.

The explosion at the office had been followed by a dead calm. We were all awaiting the arrival of Anthy. After all, she was the owner of the Star. What would she do?

I saw Ed Smith glancing surreptitiously out of the window, and even the old Captain, in spite of his jauntiness, seemed ill at ease. Only Fergus remained undisturbed. That Scotchman continued working steadily at the cases.

"You took it coolly, Fergus," I said to him in a low voice.

"Got to print a paper this week," he observed.

I verily believe if we had all deserted our jobs Fergus would have brought out the Star as usual on Wednesday, a little curtailed, perhaps, but on the dot.

Anthy came in looking perfectly calm. Ed Smith jumped from his seat at once.

"See here, Miss Doane," he began excitedly, "what right has the Captain to discharge me?"

The old Captain had arisen, too, and very formidable he looked. But my eyes were on Anthy. She stepped over to her uncle's side. She had a deep affection for this old uncle of hers. "Look out for your Uncle Newt," her father had said in the letter she found after his death. She put her arm through his, drew him toward her, and looking up at him, smiled a little.

"What right has the Captain to discharge me?" demanded Ed Smith.

"No right at all," she said.

"There!" exclaimed Ed, exultantly.

"But I have the right," said Anthy, "if I choose to exert it."

There was a curious finality in her voice – calmness and finality. The old Captain was frowning, but Anthy held him close by the arm. A moment of silence followed. I suppose we must, indeed, have been an absurd group of men standing there helplessly, for Anthy surveyed us with a swift glance.

"What are you all so serious about?" she asked.

While we were awkwardly bestirring ourselves, Anthy took off her hat, just as usual, put on her apron, just as usual. It was the natural-born genius of Anthy to have the orderly wheels of life running again. And presently, standing near the Captain's littered desk, she exclaimed:

"At last, at last, Uncle Newt, you've written your editorial on Roosevelt!"

She picked up the manuscript.

"Yes, Anthy," rumbled the Captain, "I have written my convictions about the Colonel. It was a duty I had."

The Captain was not yet placated, but there was no resisting Anthy very long. "David will never be satisfied until he hears it," she said. She looked over the pages. "Have you said exactly what you think, Uncle?"

"Exactly," said the Captain; "I could not do less. But I wanted Nort to hear it."

"Well, where is Mr. Carr?" asked Anthy, looking about in surprise.

For a moment no one said a word. And then Ed Smith spoke:

"We've simply got to cut down expenses. I hired Carr when I thought we needed a cheap man to help Fergus – and now I've let him go."

For a moment Anthy stood silent, and just a little rigid, I thought. But it was only for a moment.

"We were going to have Uncle's editorial, weren't we? Mr. Carr can see it later."

She was now in complete command. She got the Captain down into his chair and put the manuscript in his hand. He cleared his throat, threw back his head, pleased in spite of himself.

"It was a hard duty, but here it is," he said, and began reading in a resonant voice:

"We have hesitated long and considered deeply before expressing the views of the Star upon the recent sad apostasy of Theodore Roosevelt. We loved him like a son. We gloried in him as in an older brother. We followed that bright figure (in a manner of speaking) when he fought on the bloody slopes of San Juan, we were with him when he marched homeward in his hour of triumph to the plaudits of a grateful nation – "

The Captain narrated vividly how the Star had stood staunchly with that peerless leader through every campaign. And then his voice changed suddenly, he drew a deep breath.

"But we are with him no longer. We know him now no more – "

He mourned him as a son gone astray, as a follower after vain gods. I remember just how Nort looked when he read this part of the editorial some time afterward, glancing up quickly. "Isn't it great! Doesn't it make you think of old King David: 'Oh, my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom!'"

But the editorial was not all mournful. It closed with a triumphant note. There was no present call to be discouraged about the nation or the Grand Old Party. Leaders might come and go, but the party of Lincoln, the party of Grant, the party of Garfield, with undiminished lustre, would march ever onward to victory.

"The Star," he writes, "will remain faithful to its allegiance. The Star is old-line Republican, Cooper Union Republican – the unchanging Republicanism of the great-souled McKinley and of Theodore Roosevelt – before his apostasy."

It was wonderful! No editorial ever published in the Hempfield Star or, so far as I could learn, in any paper in the county, was ever as widely copied throughout the country as this one – copied, indeed, by some editors who did not know or love the old Captain as we did.