Under the lamp of the little parlor in the tannery house, Cynthia (who has now arrived at the very serious age of nineteen) was reading the papers to Jethro and came upon Mr. Sutton’s speech.  There were four columns of it, but Jethro seemed to take delight in every word; and portions of the noblest parts of it, indeed, he had Cynthia read over again.  Sometimes, in the privacy of his home, Jethro was known to chuckle, and to Cynthia’s surprise he chuckled more than usual that evening.

“Uncle Jethro,” she said at length, when she had laid the paper down, “I thought that you sent Mr. Sutton to Congress.”

Jethro leaned forward.

“What put that into your head, Cynthy?” he asked.

“Oh,” answered the girl, “everybody says so,—­Moses Hatch, Rias, and Cousin Eph.  Didn’t you?”

Jethro looked at her, as she thought, strangely.

“You’re too young to know anything about such things, Cynthy,” he said, “too young.”

“But you make all the judges and senators and congressmen in the state, I know you do.  Why,” exclaimed Cynthia, indignantly, “why does Mr. Sutton say the people elected him when he owes everything to you?”

Jethro, arose abruptly and flung a piece of wood into the stove, and then he stood with his back to her.  Her instinct told her that he was suffering, though she could not fathom the cause, and she rose swiftly and drew him down into the chair beside her.

“What is it?” she said anxiously.  “Have you got rheumatism, too, like Cousin Eph?  All old men seem to have rheumatism.”

“No, Cynthy, it hain’t rheumatism,” he managed to answer; “wimmen folks hadn’t ought to mix up in politics.  They—­they don’t understand ’em, Cynthy.”

“But I shall understand them some day, because I am your daughter—­now that—­now that I have only you, I am your daughter, am I not?”

“Yes, yes,” he answered huskily, with his hand on her hair.

“And I know more than most women now,” continued Cynthia, triumphantly.  “I’m going to be such a help to you soon—­very soon.  I’ve read a lot of history, and I know some of the Constitution by heart.  I know why old Timothy Prescott fought in the Revolution—­it was to get rid of kings, wasn’t it, and to let the people have a chance?  The people can always be trusted to do what is right, can’t they, Uncle Jethro?”

Jethro was silent, but Cynthia did not seem to notice that.  After a space she spoke again:—­“I’ve been thinking it all out about you, Uncle Jethro.”

“A-about me?”

“Yes, I know why you are able to send men to Congress and make judges of them.  It’s because the people have chosen you to do all that for them—­you are so great and good.”

Jethro did not answer.

Although the month was March, it was one of those wonderful still nights that sometimes come in the mountain-country when the wind is silent in the notches and the stars seem to burn nearer to the earth.  Cynthia awoke and lay staring for an instant at the red planet which hung over the black and ragged ridge, and then she arose quickly and knocked at the door across the passage.