"Of course!It's the way he's MADE!Father is like that!He has chances to live in cities,make big business deals,and go to the legislature at Indianapolis;I've seen his letters from his friend Oliver P.Morton,our Governor,you know;they're in his chest till now;but father can't do it,because he is made so he stays at home and works for us,and this farm,and township,and county where he belongs.He says if all men will do that the millennium will come to-morrow.I 'spose you know what the millennium is?""I do!"said the Princess."But I don't know what your father and his friend Oliver P.Morton have to do with Laddie.""Why,everything on earth!Laddie is father's son,you see,and he is made like father.None of our other boys is.Not one of them loves land.Leon is going away as quick as ever he finishes college;but the more you educate Laddie,the better he likes to make things grow,the more he loves to make the world beautiful,to be kind to every one,to gentle animals--why,the biggest fight he ever had,the man he whipped 'til he most couldn't bring him back again,was one who kicked his horse in the stomach.
Gee,I thought he'd killed him!Laddie did too for a while,but he only said the man deserved it.""And so he did!"cried the Princess angrily."How beastly!""That's one reason Laddie sticks so close to land.He says he doesn't meet nearly so many two-legged beasts in the country.
Almost every time he goes to town he either gets into a fight or he sees something that makes him fighting mad.Princess,you think this beautiful,don't you?"I just pointed anywhere.All the world was in it that morning.
You couldn't look right or left and not see lovely places,hear music,and smell flowers.
"Yes!It is altogether wonderful!"she said.
"Would you like to live among this all your life,and have your plans made to fix you a place even nicer,and then be forced to leave it and go to a little room in the city,and make all the money you earned off of how much other men fight over business,and land and such perfectly awful things,that they always have to be whispered when Jerry tells about them?Would you?""You little dunce!"she cried.
"I know I'm a fool.I know I'm not telling you a single thing I should!Maybe I'm hurting Laddie far more than I'm helping him,and if I am,I wish I would die before I see him;but oh!
Princess,I'm trying with all my might to make you understand how he feels.He WANTS to do every least thing you'd like him to.
He will,almost any thing else in the world,he would this--he would in a minute,but he just CAN'T.All of us know he can't!
If you'd lived with him since he was little and always had known him,you wouldn't ask him to;you wouldn't want him to!You don't know what you're doing!Mother says you don't!You'll kill him if you send him to the city to live,you just will!You are doing it now!He's getting thinner and whiter every day.
Don't!Oh please don't do it!"
The Princess was looking at the world.She was gazing at it so dazed-like she seemed to be surprised at what she saw.She acted as if she'd never really seen it before.She looked and she looked.She even turned her horse a full circle to see all of it,and she went around slowly.I stepped from one foot to the other and sweat;but I kept quiet and let her look.At last when she came around,she glanced down at me,and she was all melted,and lovely as any one you ever saw,exactly like Shelley at Christmas,and she said:"I don't think I ever saw the world before.I don't know that I'm so crazy about a city myself,and I perfectly hate lawyers.Come to thing of it,a lawyer helped work ruin in our family,and I never have believed,I never will believe----"She stopped talking and began looking again.I gave her all the time she needed.I was just straining to be wise,for mother says it takes the very wisest person there is to know when to talk,and when to keep still.As I figured it,now was the time not to say another word until she made up her mind about what I had told her already.If Pryors didn't know what we thought of them by that time,it wasn't mother's fault or mine.As she studied things over she kept on looking.What she saw seemed to be doing her a world of good.Her face showed it every second plainer and plainer.Pretty soon it began to look like she was going to come through as Amos Hurd did when he was redeemed.
Then,before my very eyes,it happened!I don't know how I ever held on to the pie or kept from shouting,"Praise the Lord!"as father does at the Meeting House when he is happiest.Then she leaned toward me all wavery,and shining eyed,and bloomful,and said:"Did you ever hurt Laddie's feelings,and make him angry and sad?""I'm sure I never did,"I answered.
"But suppose you had!What would you do?"
"Do?Why,I'd go to him on the run,and I'd tell him I never intended to hurt his feelings,and how sorry I was,and I'd give him the very best kiss I could."The Princess stroked Maud's neck a long time and thought while she studied our farm,theirs beyond it,and at the last,the far field where Laddie was plowing.She thought,and thought,and afraid to cheep,I stood gripping the shingle and waited.
Finally she said:"The last time Laddie was at our house,I said to him those things he repeated to you.He went away at once,hurt and disappointed.Now,if you like,along with your precious pie,you may carry him this message from me.You may tell him that I said I am sorry!"I could have cried "Glory!"and danced and shouted there in the road,but I didn't.It was no time to lose my head.That was all so fine and splendid,as far as it went,but it didn't quite cover the case.I never could have done it for myself;but for Laddie I would venture anything,so I looked her in the eyes,straight as a dart,and said:"He'd want the kiss too,Princess!"You could see her stiffen in the saddle and her fingers grip the reins,but I kept on staring right into her eyes.
"I could come up,you know,"I offered.
