Jubilee Trail by Gwen Bristow Read Free Book Online Page A

thought sometimes that a good many of the people who were heroes after they were dead must have been great nuisances while they were alive.
    But they had had a quality in them, a quality of strength and daring and defiance. And this was something you could never quite breed out. Sometimes, after many comfortable generations, it quieted down, as it had quieted in himself and Pauline. But it was there. Americans had it, or they wouldn’t be Americans; their ancestors would have stayed at home. So he and Pauline had passed on something they did not even know they had, and here it was, blazing up at him in their daughter.
    Garnet did not know why he had been so silent. He looked at her long and thoughtfully. She asked,
    “Will you let me go, father?”
    “Yes,” he said gently. “I’ll let you go.”
    All of a sudden, though she did not know why, she burst into tears. He put his arm around her, and she buried her face on his shoulder. He led her to a chair and she sat down, and he sat on the arm of it with his hand holding hers, while he told her what he had been thinking about. Garnet listened wonderingly. At last she said,
    “Is that what I’ve got? I never thought about it. But you have it too.”
    “I’m afraid not, Garnet,” he said.
    “Yes you have. Because if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t understand it. And you’re wonderful, and I love you very much.”
    There was a long pause.
    “You’d better go to your room now, Garnet,” he said, “while I talk to your mother.”
    Garnet had shed tears, but as she went upstairs she could feel her heart beating fast, as though keeping time to a dance-tune. Her father had said yes.
    Her room was warm and cheerful. It had two windows hung with flowered curtains, overlooking the little square of garden between this house and the next. The bed had twisting mahogany posts holding up curtains that matched the window draperies. On the wall were flower prints in oval frames. There was a bureau with a tall mirror, and on the wall above the washstand was a white linen splasher to keep soapsuds from spattering the wall.
    There was always a fire here in winter. Some people thought a bedroom fire was a foolish extravagance, but Pauline did not. Garnet’s great-grandfather had shivered nobly at Valley Forge, but Pauline said this was no reason why Garnet should shiver in New York when her father was perfectly well able to buy coal.
    Garnet sat down on a hassock by the fireplace. She wondered how it would be to live outdoors for weeks and weeks, and what sort of men the other traders were. She and Oliver would go to California this summer, and spend the winter on the rancho with Oliver’s brother Charles; then next summer they would come back. They would reach New York in October or November of next year. By that time she would have been away a year and eight months. Some of her friends would have been to Europe, but anybody could go to ordinary places like that. She alone would have been out to the end of the world.
    There was a tap on the door, and her mother came in. Garnet stood up.
    Pauline came over to her and took her hands. She did not say anything. She stood looking into Garnet’s eyes, long and searchingly. At last Garnet said,
    “Mother—did father tell you?”
    “Yes, dear, he told me.” Pauline’s teeth closed hard on her lower lip for an instant, but when she went on her voice was steady. “Garnet, my darling, do you love him very, very much?”
    Garnet nodded. She smiled dreamily.
    “And you’re sure you want to go to California with him?” Pauline asked.
    “Oh yes! Mother, he’s wonderful.”
    “Yes, I know,” said Pauline. “Sit down here by me, Garnet.”
    She drew up a chair, and Garnet sat down on the hassock again. Pauline held her hand.
    “I want you to be happy, Garnet,” Pauline said softly. “I want you to be happy always.”
    This time her voice had a little quiver. Garnet looked up in astonishment. Her mother was always so busy and