I do not believe I am deceitful, though all my life I have seen my
parents try to seem what they are not; that is, try to seem like rich
people, when sometimes father's practice brought him only a few hundreds
a year, and there was mother and myself and Tom to support. Tom is my
cousin--Tom McDonald--who lived with us and fell in love with me, though
I never tried to make him. I liked him ever so much, though he used to
tease me horribly, and put horn-bugs in my shoes, and worms on my neck,
and Jack-o'-lanterns in my room, and tip me off his sled into the snow;
but still I liked him, for with all his teasing he had a great, kind,
unselfish heart, and I shall never forget that look on his face when I
told him I could not be his wife. I did not like him as he liked me, and
I did not want to be married anyway, and if I did marry it must be to
some rich man. That was in Chicago, and the night before he started for
South America, where he was going to make his fortune, and he wanted me
to promise to wait for him, and said no one would ever love me as well
as he did.
I could not promise, because, even if he had all the gold mines in Peru,
I did not care to spend my days with him--to see him morning, noon, and
night, and all the time. It is a good deal to ask of a woman, and I told
him so, and he cried so hard--not loud, but in a pitiful kind of way,
which hurt me cruelly. I hear that sobbing sometimes now in my sleep,
and it's like the moan of the wind round that house on the prairie where
Tom's mother died. Poor Tom! I gave him a lock of my hair and let him
kiss me twice, and then he went away, and after that old Judge Burton
offered himself and his million to me; but I could not endure his bald
head a week, and I told him no, and when father seemed sorry and said I
missed it, I told him I would not sell myself for gold alone. I'd run
away first and go after Tom. Then Guy Thornton came, and--and--well, he
took me by storm, and I liked him better than anyone I ever saw, and I
married him. Everybody said he was rich, and father was satisfied and
gave his consent, and bought be a most elaborate trousseau. I wondered
then where the money came from. Now I know that Tom sent it. He has been
very successful with his mine, and in a letter to father sent me a check
for fifteen hundred dollars. Father would not tell me that, but mother
did, and I felt worse, I think, than when I heard the sobbing. Poor Tom!
I never wear one of the dresses now without thinking who paid for it and
wrote, "I am working like an ox for Daisy." Poor, poor Tom!