Daisy in the Field Part 52

"Daisy is a rebel," said papa.

"No, papa; not _I_ surely. I stand by the President and the Country."

"Then _we_ are rebels, Dinwiddie," said papa, half wearily.

"Half the country is playing the fool, that is clear; and the whole must suffer."

"But the half where the seat of war is, suffers the most."

"That will not last," said papa. "I know the South."

"I wonder if we know the North," said Mr. Dinwiddie. "Farragut has run the gauntlet of the forts at the mouth of the Mississippi and taken New Orleans."

"Taken New Orleans!" my father exclaimed again, rising half up as he lay on the cus.h.i.+ons of the divan.

"It was done in style," said Mr. Dinwiddie, looking along the columns of his paper. "Let me read you this, Mr. Randolph."

Papa a.s.sented, and he read; while I turned my face to the window again, and listened to Farragut's guns and looked at Lebanon. What a strange hour it was! There was hope at work and rejoicing; but it shook me. And the calmness of the everlasting hills and the mingled sweetnesses of the air, came in upon the fever of my heart with cooling and quieting power.

The sea grew a deeper blue as I listened and looked; the mountains - what words can tell the mantle of their own purple that enfolded them as the evening came on; and the snowy heights of Sunnin and Kunisyeh grew rosy. I looked and I drank it in; and I could not fear for the future.

I believe I had fallen into a great reverie, during which Mr.

Dinwiddie ended his reading and left the room. It was papa's touch on my shoulder that roused me. He had come to my side.

"Are you happy, Daisy?" was his question.

"Papa? -" I said in bewilderment.

"Your face was as calm as if you had nothing to think about."

"I had been thinking, papa. I was thinking, I believe."

"Does this strange news make you happy?"

"Oh, no, papa; not that."

"What then?"

"Something that is no news, and that never can grow old, papa.

The mountains and the sea were just reminding me of it."

"You mean - what? You speak riddles, Daisy."

"Papa, you would give me everything good for me, if you could."

He kissed me fondly.

"I would, my child. Whether I can, or no, that troubles me by its uncertainty."

"Papa, my Father in heaven can, and will. There is no doubt about His power. And so there is no uncertainty."

"Daisy! -" said papa, looking at me in a strange way.

"Yes, papa, I mean it. Papa, you know it is true."

"I know you deserve all I can give you," he said, taking my face in his two hands and looking into it. "Daisy - is there anybody in the world that loves you as well as I do?"

That was a little too much, to bring up my heart in words in that manner. In spite of my composure, which I thought so strong, I was very near bursting into tears. I believe my face flushed and then grew pale with the struggle. Papa took me in his arms.

"You shall have no trouble that I can s.h.i.+eld you from," he said tenderly. "I will put nothing between you and this young man if he is worthy of you, Daisy. I will pat nothing. But others may. My power reaches only a certain distance."

"Papa -" I began, but I could not say what I would.

"Well?3 - said he tenderly, stroking my hair, "what is it? I would keep all trouble from you, my pet, if I could."

"Papa," I whispered, "that may not be best. We must leave that. But papa, if you only knew what I know and were glad as I am glad, - I think I could bear all the rest!"

"How shall I be glad as you are glad, Daisy?" he said, half sadly.

"Papa, let Jesus make you happy!"

"You are talking Hebrew, my child."

"No, papa; for if you seek Him, He _will_ make you happy."

"Come! we will seek him from to-day," my father said.

And that was my summer on Lebanon. My mother wrote that she would not join us in Syria; she preferred to remain in Paris, where she had my aunt Gary's company and could receive the American news regularly. Her words were bitter and scornful about the successes of the Northern army and McClellan's fruitless siege of Yorktown; so bitter, that papa and I pa.s.sed them over without a word of comment, knowing how they bore on my possible future.

But we, we studied the Bible, and we lived on Lebanon. And when I have said that, I have said all. From one village to another, higher and higher up, we went; pitching our tents under the grand old walnut trees, within sight or hearing of mountain torrents that made witcheries of beauty in the deep ravines; studying sunrisings, when the light came over the mountain's brow and lit our broken hillside by degrees, our walnut tree tops and the thread of the rus.h.i.+ng stream; and sunsets, when the sun looked at us from the far-off Mediterranean and touched no spot of Lebanon but to make a glorified place of it. With Mr. Dinwiddie we took rides to different scenes of wonder and beauty; made excursions sometimes of a week or two long; we dreamed at Baalbec and rejoiced under the Cedars. Everywhere papa and I read the Bible. Mr. Dinwiddie left us for some time during the summer, and returned again a few days before we left Lebanon and Syria.

"So you are going to-morrow" - he said the last evening, as he and I were watching the sunset from the edge of the ravine which bordered our camping-ground. I made no answer, for my heart was too full.

"It has been a good summer," he said. I bowed my head in a.s.sent.

"And now," he said, "you push out into the world again. I feel about you as I did when I saw your little craft just starting forth, and knew there were breakers ahead."

"You do not know that now, Mr. Dinwiddie?" I said.

"I know there are rocks. If the sea should let you pa.s.s them in quiet, it would be a wonder."

That was too true, I knew. I could only be silent.

"How do you feel?" he next asked.

"I know it is as you say, Mr. Dinwiddie."

"And in view of it? -"

"What can I do, - Mr. Dinwiddie?"