The Daughter of a Republican Part 16

While her father talked, Jean, lest in the first moments of her delightful discovery she should clap her hands or cry or dance or in some other unconventional way outrage grave decorum, returned to her seat and her guitar.

The fringed palm threw long jagged shadows over her dress and stretched away to meet the firelight dancing on the hearth-rug.

The mingled tones of the two voices reached her ear, but she heard them indistinctly. To the soft strains that answered the strokes of her fingers, she kept repeating over and over to herself, "He is awake, he is awake."

Presently she heard her father leave the room.

Then her heart began to whirl and beat in a way unknown to her before.

She caught the faint chime of a distant steeple bell and the notes of the low music died away to a plaintive breathing as she counted the strokes, for she knew the fateful hour of her life was at hand.

Just as the last stroke quivered out onto the new hour, he came. He sat down beside her and putting aside the guitar, drew her close to him.

"You are awake," she said softly, as if half afraid of breaking some magic spell. "Tell me about it."

He dropped his hand over one of hers and described the tragedy of the victims of the "great iniquity" that he had seen on that eventful night.

When he spoke of the murdered child he felt her hand clinch in his and when he told of the prayer consigning the "respectable" dealer to the place prepared for Satan and his earthly henchmen, involuntarily she would have drawn away from him, but his arm bound her like a band of steel.

"A tortured face--a bitter prayer--a b.l.o.o.d.y tragedy--ugly instruments; but in the hands of the Divinity that smooths out man's rough hewing they have cut away the last outline of a 'man-atom.' Are you glad? Has fate fashioned me to the satisfaction of one peerless, priceless woman?"

For one moment Jean hesitated. Then----

But what business is that of ours? Our story has been of the daughter of a Republican, and the young woman whose face is hidden upon the shoulder of Gilbert Allison, once rum-seller, now by G.o.d's grace Prohibitionist, is no longer the daughter of a Republican; for Judge Thorn's resolution, slow formed, is as unbreakable as nature's laws.

THE END.

Section 17 of the Army Act, pa.s.sed by Congress March 2, 1899, reads:

"That no officer or private soldier shall be detailed to sell intoxicating drinks as a bartender or otherwise, in any post exchange or canteen, nor shall any other person be required or allowed to sell such liquor in any encampment or fort, or on any premises used for military purposes by the United States; and the Secretary of War is hereby directed to issue such general order as may be necessary to carry the provisions of this section into full force and effect."

After vainly trying to find some other method of evading the law, Secretary Alger, then the head of the War Department, obtained from Attorney-General Griggs the opinion that the army saloon, known as the canteen, could run as usual if only the bartenders were not soldiers.

Griggs said:

"The designation of one cla.s.s of individuals as forbidden to do a certain thing raises a just inference that all other cla.s.ses not mentioned are not forbidden. A declaration that soldiers shall not be detailed to sell intoxicating drinks in post exchanges necessarily implies that such sale is not unlawful when conducted by others than soldiers.... The act having forbidden the employment of soldiers as bartenders or salesmen of intoxicating drinks, it would be lawful and appropriate for the managers of the post exchanges to employ civilians for that purpose. Of course, employment is a matter of contract, and not of requirement or permission."

This opinion, p.r.o.nounced anarchy by every judge and every lawyer, outside of the President's Cabinet, that has spoken upon it, is upheld by Secretary Root, the new head of the War Department; and by President McKinley.