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Show Father wrote from Provo, warning her to keep off the ankle. His brother, Doctor Fred, had warned she might lose the leg if she didn't keep off it. "I'm off it," Mother said, kneeling on the chair and scooting about busily with the packing. Between the chair and the help of Joseph and Nathan Clark, she got everything onto the railroad car by the time it was scheduled to leave. Everything including the two cows, Joseph's h01"se and dog, a pig, and the chickens. Everything but the spool bed with the hand-painted roses. There wasn't room for it without risking damage; John could send it along later. "Well, Nettie, what do you think?" Father asked, showing her through the new home in Provo. It was of white brick, a corner mansion of two stories with a curving porch around two sides. There was an expanse of velvet lawn, a big yard for the garden Father always loved to put in. "No, John," Mother said firmly. "The rent would be too much on a place like this. Let's be sensible, just once." "Rent?" Father laughed. "I bought the placel" "Now, John, no more deals, please. I don't intend to lose another home." '1 tell you," Father said, "that I bought this place. It's yours free and clear. Not a penny against it." "It's really mine? All mine?" "All yours, Nettie, in your own name." "Wait," she said. "John, you know how much this means to me, but 111 accept it on one condition-that you will never mortgage it for a business deal. I simply won't own a home again with that threat hanging over it." "Cross my heart, Nettie. I'll never plaster your house for my business again." "Oh, John," she said, going into his arms. "It's lovely. It's grand. It's magnificent. And it's free and clear!" And then she asked, "What did you buy it with?" "Cash," he said blandly. "Nettie, I do suspect that you some[240 ] times lack faith in my deals. I told you I had one right on the verge and that we'd soon be rolling in money." She didn't ask him which one. There were always so many big deals, and she couldn't keep them straight. "I cleaned up," he said, "so I bought this place for you and another one down the street a couple of blocks for Nellie. Hers is slightly larger." "Larger than this, even?" "Well, Nettie," Father said quickly, "not a great deal larger." "Calm yourself, John," she said, laughing. "I'm not jealous. This place is wonderful, and it's really too big as it is. It just seems that -well, you really must have put over a proposition in a big way." "I'did," Father admitted. "We're rich, Nettie. And I feel it's much better to be wealthy in disgrace than poor in disgrace." He could joke about it now. Mother once more gave silent thanks for the clergyman. There must be, she felt, a destiny about such things; John did have a guardian angel. Father said, "But you are my favorite wife..•.,. "You tell that to all the girls, John. I'll bet there are four others firmly convinced of that fact." "Don't sidetrack me, Nettie. I was leading up to the point that I once promised you the finest home in town." "I had it, in Farmington." "But this is Provo. Why I really bought this place, Nettie, was not for what it is but because it has possibilities." "John, I like it just the way it is." "I'm having plans drawn up to remodel it." "Remodel?" Mother said bleakly. She remembered what that always involved. "No, John, I don't want a single thing changed. It's plenty big. It's too big already." "But, Nettie," Father said, "there is no room here for the fam,!!l,mdp§1Q'I" This was always a soft spot with Father and, M~;· felt, a blind spot. His fond dream was the great family all working together, manufacturing, producing, consuming. To Mother it always sounded suspiciously like the proposition for a muskrat [241 ] |
