"
Getting out of her chair she dropped to her knees and putting her head in
his lap, shook with sobs. Sam sat stroking her hair. Her agitation was so
great that her muscular little back shook with it.
Sam looked past her at the fire and tried to think clearly. He was not
greatly moved by her agitation, but with all his heart he wanted to think
things out and get at the right and the honest thing to do.
"It is a time of big things," he said slowly and with an air of one
explaining to a child. "As your socialists say, vast changes are going on.
I do not believe that your socialists really sense what these changes
mean, and I am not sure that I do or that any man does, but I know they
mean something big and I want to be in them and a part of them; all big
men do; they are struggling like chicks in the shell. Why, look here! What
I am doing has to be done and if I do not do it another man will. The
colonel has to go. He will be swept aside. He belongs to something old and
outworn. Your socialists, I believe, call it the age of competition."
"But not by us, not by you, Sam," she plead. "After all, he is my father."
A stern look came into Sam's eyes.
"It does not ring right, Sue," he said coldly; "fathers do not mean much
to me.
Pages:
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336