Seed on the Wind

“Oh, you just happened. Just a slip of the tongue. That’s quite likely. Look, you know, you think I haven’t noticed anything? The way you’ve been going, you’re never at home anymore, there’s no use going into details, but I’ve had my eyes open. I suppose I’m scaring you away by looking at you; why don’t you tell me that? I have honestly and conscientiously tried to be the best kind of a father to you. The best I know how. So it’s not as if you were going to be married — it isn’t, eh? Why did you say that? I want to know why you said that.”

“I don’t know — I just said it—”

She stopped. She saw that her father’s mouth was shut tight, and a tiny pink spot had appeared in the middle of each cheek. He looked at his cigar and saw that it had gone out and suddenly hurled it across the room toward the fireplace.

“You can’t go,” he said in a new voice.

I’ve handled this stupidly, Lora thought, surely it could have been done without getting him like this. Her own lips tightened as his had done.

“Why not?” she demanded.

“Because I say so. You can’t go.”

“What if I go anyway?”

The pink spots were larger, and his hand in his lap was trembling; the fingers of the other were pressed around the arm of his chair. Then suddenly, as if by magic, the pink spots disappeared, leaving his face and brow quite pale; Lora stared at the phenomenon, fascinated; she had never seen it happen before.

“You wouldn’t do that,” he said; it was a plea. “You know you wouldn’t do that. Listen, Lora, there are lots of things you don’t understand. The business, for instance, it hasn’t been doing so well. You have no idea how the mail-order houses are cutting into us. That’s just one difficulty; it’s a long story. Have you figured up how much this plan of yours would cost? The lessons themselves would be a big expense, nothing like Vickers; those fellows up there pile it on; they have to. Rents are way up in the clouds — everything you do, every time you turn around; you’ve never been in a big city and I have. I don’t say I couldn’t find the money, but it would be difficult, it would be a big drain. At any rate, just at present — later, perhaps, say a year or two from now, it might be quite different. That’s the truth of the matter.”

Lora was speechless. She knew nothing of all this save that it was totally unexpected. But she had a feeling about it, and she was now so aroused that nothing but feelings counted; accordingly she looked straight at her father’s shockingly pale face, and said clearly and deliberately:

“I don’t believe that. Not a word of it.”

That brought the pink spots back! He was out of his chair on the instant, towering above her, glaring down at her, his fists upraised, trembling from head to foot. He was speaking too, shouting rather, but Lora did not get the words. Ha, she was thinking, now I’ll find out what would have happened if I’d held my ground that time on the porch. She didn’t budge; and the result was that she soon found herself alone on the field; for abruptly her father turned, his fists still upraised, his face purple, shaking as if in an ague, and rushed from the room. From the house also; for Lora heard the front door open and bang to, and even the pounding of his footsteps on the porch.

Not till those sounds had gone did she realize how rigid she was, how she had fastened herself to that spot, head up, hands clenched at her sides. She let the muscles go, hunched her shoulders up and released them again, and turned and made her way upstairs to her mother’s room. Her mother had heard it all, it appeared, from the stairs, through the open hall door. She was already weeping, and as Lora patted her arm and told her not to worry the flow increased. She implored Lora not to go, declaring that it would be unbearable to be left alone with him; she couldn’t stand it. To avoid being betrayed into a promise Lora made her escape as soon as she could, to her own room, where she threw herself on the bed to get her mind straight.