Mrs. Grant went on, not having heard a word of John's aside: "This table you're eating from, once belonged to Mr. Adams. He gave it to my father, who often spent a week at a time with him in the White House."
"And I wish he was there now," interrupted Silas from the foot of the table. "He'd straighten out this snarl we're drifting into. Looks to me as if there would be some powder burnt before this thing is over. What do your people say about it?" and he nodded at Oliver. He had served the turkey, and was now sharpening the carver for the boiled ham, trying the edge with his thumb, as Shylock did.
"I haven't been at home for some time, sir," replied Oliver, in a courteous tone--he intended to be polite to the end--"and so I cannot say. My father's letters, seem to be very anxious, but mother doesn't think there'll be any trouble; at least she said so in her last letter."
Silas looked up from under the tufts of cotton-wool. Were the mothers running the politics of the South, he wondered?
"And there's another thing you folks might as well remember. We're not going to let you break up the Union, and we're not going to pay you for your slaves, either," and he plunged the fork into the ham that the spectacled waitress had laid before him and rose in his chair, the knife poised in his hand to carve it the better.
"Mr. Horn hasn't got any slaves to sell, father--didn't you hear him say so? His father freed his," laughed Margaret. Her father's positiveness never really worried her. She rather liked it at times. It was only because she had read in Oliver's face the impression her father was making upon him that she essayed to soften the force of his remarks.
"I heard him, Margaret, I heard him. Glad of it--but he's the only man from his parts that I ever heard who did. The others won't give 'em up so easy. They hung John Brown for trying to help the negroes free themselves, don't forget that."
Oliver looked up and knitted his brows. Silas saw it. "I'm not meaning any offence to you, young man," he said quickly, waving the knife toward Oliver. "I'm taking this question on broad grounds.
If I had my way I'd teach those slave-drivers--" and he buried the knife in the yielding ham, "that--"
"They did just right to hang him," interrupted John. "Brown was a fanatic, and ought to have stayed at home. No one is stronger than the law.
That's where old Ossawatomie Brown made a mistake."
Everybody was entitled to express his or her opinion in this house except the dear old mother.
Margaret's fearless independence of manner and thought had been nurtured in fertile soil.
Mrs. Grant had been vainly trying to get the drift of the conversation, her hand behind her ear.
"Parson Brown, did you say, John? He married us, sir," and she turned to Oliver. "He lived here over forty years. The church that you passed was where he preached."
John laughed, and so did Silas, at the old lady's mistake, but Oliver only became the more attentive to his hostess. He was profoundly grateful to the reverend gentleman for coming out of his grave at this opportune moment and diverting the talk into other channels. Why did they want to bother him with all this talk about slavery and the South, when he was so happy he could hardly stay in his skin? It set his teeth on edge--he wished that the dinner were over and everybody down at the bottom of the sea but Margaret; he had come to see his sweetheart --not to talk slavery.
"Yes, I saw the church," and for the rest of the dinner, Oliver was entertained with the details in the life of the Rev. Leonidas Brown, including his manner of preaching; the crowds who would go to hear him; the number converted under the good man's ministrations; to all of which Oliver listened with a closeness of attention that would have surprised those who knew him unless they had discovered that his elbow had found Margaret's during the recital, and that the biography of every member of Brown's congregation might have been added to that of the beloved pastor without wearying him in the slightest degree.
When the nuts were served--Silas broke his with his fingers--his host made one more effort to draw Oliver into a discussion, but Margaret stopped it by exclaiming, suddenly:
"Where shall Mr. Horn smoke, mother?" She wanted Oliver to herself--the family had had him long enough.
"Why, does he want to SMOKE?" she answered, with some consternation.
"Yes, of course he does. All painters smoke."
"Well, I don't know; let me see." The old lady hesitated as if seeking the choice between two evils.
"I suppose in the sitting-room. No--the library would be better."
"Oh, I won't smoke at all if your mother does not like it," Oliver protested, springing from his chair.
"Oh, yes, you will," interrupted John. "I never smoke, and father don't, but I know how good a pipe tastes. Let's go into the library."
Margaret gave Oliver the big chair and sat beside him. It was a small room, the walls almost hidden with books; the windows filled with flowering plants.
There was a long table piled up with magazines and pamphlets, and an open fireplace, the wall above the mantel covered with framed pictures of weeping-willows worked out with hair of dead relatives, and the mantel itself with faded daguerreotypes propped apart like half-opened clam-shells.
Mr. Grant on leaving the dining-room walked slowly to the window without looking to the right or left, dropped into a chair and gazed out through the leaves of a geranium. The meal was over.
