He accepted an
official position of considerable honor and distinction in Washington,
rented a house there, and cabled his wife and younger daughter to come
over in September. He wrote his elder daughter that she might go with
some friends to Honolulu if she would return for Christmas. ("It's
eleven years since we had a Christmas tree," he added, "and the first
thing you know we shall have lost the habit!")
To his son Jack in Texas he expressed himself as so encouraged by the
last business statement, which showed a decided turn for the better,
that he was willing to add a thousand dollars to the capital and
irrigate some more of the unimproved land on the ranch.
"If Jack has really got hold out there, he can come home every two or
three years," he thought. "Well, perhaps I shall succeed in getting part
of them together, part of the time, if I work hard enough; all but Tom,
whom I care most about! Now that everything is in train I'll take a
little vacation myself, and go down to Beulah to make the acquaintance
of those Careys. If I had ever contemplated returning to America I
suppose I shouldn't have allowed them to settle down in the old house,
still, Eleanor would never have been content to pass her summers there,
so perhaps it is just as well."
The Peter-bird was too young to greatly dare; still it ought perhaps to
be set down that he sold three dozen marbles and a new kite to Billy
Harmon that summer, and bought his mother a birthday present with the
money.
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