In the morning air a new thought took possession of
him. The wind ran along a dusty road beside the
car track, picking up little handfuls of dust and
playfully throwing them about. He had a strained,
eager feeling like some one listening for a faint
call out of the distance.
“To be sure,” he thought, “I know
what it is, it is my wedding day. I am to marry
Sue Rainey to-day.”
At the house he found Grover and Colonel Tom standing
in the breakfast room. Grover looked at his swollen,
distorted face. His voice trembled.
“Poor devil!” he said. “You
have had a night!”
Sam laughed and slapped Colonel Tom on the shoulder.
“We will have to begin getting ready,”
he said. “The wedding is at ten. Sue
will be getting anxious.”
Grover and Colonel Tom took him by the arm and began
leading him up the stairs, Colonel Tom weeping like
a woman.
“Silly old fool,” thought Sam.
When, two weeks later, he again opened his eyes to
consciousness Sue sat beside his bed in a reclining
chair, her little thin white hand in his.
“Get the baby!” he cried, believing anything
possible. “I want to see the baby!”
She laid her head down on the pillow.
“It was gone when you saw it,” she said,
and put an arm about his neck.
When the nurse came back she found them, their heads
together upon the pillow, crying weakly like two tired
children.
The blow given the plan of life so carefully thought
out and so eagerly accepted by the young McPhersons
threw them back upon themselves. For several
years they had been living upon a hill top, taking
themselves very seriously and more than a little preening
themselves with the thought that they were two very
unusual and thoughtful people engaged upon a worthy
and ennobling enterprise. Sitting in their corner
immersed in admiration of their own purposes and in
the thoughts of the vigorous, disciplined, new life
they were to give the world by the combined efficiency
of their two bodies and minds they were, at a word
and a shake of the head from Doctor Grover, compelled
to remake the outline of their future together.
All about them the rush of life went on, vast changes
were impending in the industrial life of the people,
cities were doubling and tripling their population,
a war was being fought, and the flag of their country
flew in the ports of strange seas, while American
boys pushed their way through the tangled jungles
of strange lands carrying in their hands Rainey-Whittaker
rifles. And in a huge stone house, set in a broad
expanse of green lawns near the shores of Lake Michigan,
Sam McPherson sat looking at his wife, who in turn
looked at him. He was trying, as she also was
trying, to adjust himself to the cheerful acceptance
of their new prospect of a childless life.
