Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 136, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 June 1913 — HIS REAL DAUGHTER [ARTICLE]

HIS REAL DAUGHTER

How a Father Discovered the True Meaning of the Word “Daughter.”

By LAURA A. KIRKMAN.

Marjorie told her chum the good news even before she told her aunt. "See!" she cried, excitedly, waving the letter. “My father has written—he’s coming to see me!" Helen’s face clouded. “He’s coming to take you away!’’ she suspected. “I guess so. He says he has a ."proposition to lay before me.” At the torrent of unhappiness that flowed from lips, Marjorie’s eyes opened wide. , < “Don’t you want me to have a daddy, too?’’ she reproached. “You ought to want me to go away with him —and be happy. Oh, I’ll be like you with your father!” 5 Helen’s jolly, big-hearted father had always been a source of envy to Marjorie. On a holiday, he would stroll across the lawn to where Helen was playing tennis and stand and watch her as ff he asked no greater pleasure of life; pride was written on his face when he drove home nightly .from the depot beside his pretty daughter. “I have always loved my father,” Marjorie confided suddenly. “I loved him even when mother was alive and used to talk against him. I have always wished he would love me and try to find me. I don’t care if he is married again and has another daughter; I’m his daughter, too—his first daughter’” Her voice rang on the last words, and she started through the hedge towards her aunt’s house. “Wait!” cried Helen, holding her 'back. “Are you going to forget all about me, Margie? Aren’t you going to care that I’ll be lonely here without you? Won’t you even visit me ■sometimes?” : ”

“I think Til wear my lavender dress,” answered Marjorie. “He comes on the 4:30 train —Oh, yes, of course, 'Helen, I’ll visit you sometimes!”

She broke away and fley up the steps of her veranda. Passing her aunt in the hall, She tossed her the beloved letter, and ran up to her room.

“And I’ll wear my gold beads, too,” she planned flutteringly, “and lavender ribbons in my hair!” At half-past four, she was at the gate all ready to welcome her father. Behind the locked door of her room stood a packed trunk. “Oh!” she breathed excitedly, as a covered carriage drew near.

The man that alighted from it was older and more iron-haired than the man her memory pictured. “Father!” she cried gladly, running forward.

He kissed her, but not as she expected him to; somehow his manner chilled her, made her feel ill at east. It was a relief when Aunt Jennie came forward to shake hands with him.

“My child, you must take me for a little walk,” were his first words to her. “I have much to say to you.' Have you a garden to stroll in?” She strove for ease in her answer. could go into the orchard back of the house —” As they started for the orchard, she fought again for self-possession and naturalness. “That’s where my chum lives/’ she Informed him, waving her hand toward Helen’s house. “See, there she is now—on the tennis court! Why, her horse is hitched up already—ahd she doesn’t have to go to the depot until 5:30.” Swiftly her father pulled out hid watch. “Five-thirty,” he repeated. “That’s ,my train back. We have barely sn hour for our talk, my dear, so we best go straight to my proposition. How would you like to go to college this fall?"

She did not answer. She could not; ■something had come up into her. throat that threatened to strangle her. “Would you like that?” repeated her father in a voice that bespoke his certainty of her liking it. “You shall have all your expenses paid, an ample allowance, and the privilege of choosing the college.”

Marjorie swallowed hard, and winked very fast. At last her voice came. “No, thank yob—father?’ ( He stood still in the path. He stared at her, first incredulously, then a little angrily.

"Don’t you want to accept it from mn?” he asked. She searched wildly for an excuse. “Oh, no! It’s not that! It’s just —that I couldn't bear to leave Aunt Jeanie!’’ The absurdity of this reason almost turned the emotion raised by disappointment into wild, hysterical laughter; what young girl would from choice remain with a spartan-minded, self-sufficient person like Aunt Jennie?

“I couldn’t bear to leave her,” she reaffirmed nervously. “She’d be so .lonely without me! I couldn’t imaIglne myself away from her!” She had 'succeeded in convincing !hlm. “Very well,” he said, starting again Ito walk. “Then you must name some iother thing that. I can do for you. i Perhaps you and your aunt would like to take s trip somewhere? You must : let me do something for you. my -'dear, for I feel that I would like to? She could think of nothing—nothing but the longing hidden deep in [her heart. She walked on beside him |ln dumb misery. -- - At last, under pressure of his ques|tloaing glances, she framed a wish.

It was a wish her aunt had expressed a week ago: ’ ’’ “If you could only rent the Berkley. place—” “The Berkley place?" he caught up quickly. “Tell me about it, ifly dear!” She described the rambling, old homestead with such enthusiasm as she could feign. “And it has a stable,” she ended, “and a garden, and a fountain in the front yard.” Her father drew out a notebook and scribbled hastily. / “You shall have horses in the stable,” he promised, “and plenty of flowers in the garden, and a tennis court like your little chum’s, If you wish—” She interrupted him sharply! “I don’t want a tennis court!” She could not have explained why she said this; she knew only that she on her tennis court could never be like Helen on beys —for some reason. But her father demanded no explanation; he was once more writing in the note book. ? “You said the agent’s address was River road?” he asked. “Let me see,” he pulled out his watch, “I have just twenty minutes in which to she him and catch my train.” She was glad when they neared the house and the strain of the call was at an end. Yet she detained him a moment at the gate; she could not bear to let Him go before finding out why he had no love to give her. Questions about his other daughter—the daughter who had grown up beside him—sprang to her lips and forced themselves out: “Tell me about my—sister! I suppose she wouldn’t go to college for anything?”

-'A look of pain crossed her father’s face.

“On the contrary, she wouldn’t stay at home for anything,” he said a little bitterly.

Marjorie could have murdered her half sister-at that moment. She sawthe whole situation —saw the father’s pain at the coolness of the child he had watched grow up—saw why he’ had no love to give the first daughter.

And she no longer asked for his love; she knew at last that she had ho right to ,it —that she was not his real daughter. “Good bye!” she said, more brightly than she had been able to speak throughout .the entire hour. “And thank you ever and ever and ever so much!”

Even with resignation in her heart, she watched him disappear down the street." “,I shall be happy again, now,” she told herself. “For of course there’s no reason in the world for me to be disappointed—there never was a reason. As the politicians say, “it isn’t an issue!* ”

Cheerfully she went up to her room. She sat down on her trunk. With locked hands she stared clear-eyed out of the window. “I wonder if I look—actressy—ln this lavender dress?” was the thought that presented itself most persistently to her mind. She got up and walked to the mirror and stood looking long at her reflection.

“I think these gold beads make pie 100k —garish,” said her lips as though speaking independently of her will. Through the open window sEe saw Helen and her father drive up to their door. She watched the man take his arm from his daughter's shoulders as one watches the actress of a beautiful play. Then suddenly her calmness went; she sprang alert and stool listening. Her heart almost suffocated her. “Marjorie!” came Up the stairs in her father’s voice. He found her on the floor beside the trunk. He would have flown for doctor—water—stimulants, but, seeing him, she sat up; she needed no other stimulant than his arms.

“My child!” he said tenderly, “why didn't you tell me that you love me?” She clung to him. “I should never have known it If your little chum had not run up to me at the depot and asked me to let you visit her sometimes. Marjorie, why did you let me think that you wouldn’t leave your aunt?” She clung to him. "I thought ‘daughter’ meant a child who found companionship only in young people of her own age,” he defined. “Now I know the real meaning of the word.” She clung to him. % (Copyright, 1918, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)