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The Kentons by William Dean Howells
page 4 of 283 (01%)
breveted at the close of the war; but he was known to the, younger,
generation of his fellow-citizens as the judge. His wife called him Mr.
Kenton in the presence of strangers, and sometimes to himself, but to his
children she called him Poppa, as they did.

The steady-going eldest son, who had succeeded to his father's affairs
without giving him the sense of dispossession, loyally accepted the
popular belief that he would never be the man his father was. He joined
with his mother in a respect for Kenton's theory of the regimental
history which was none the less sincere because it was unconsciously a
little sceptical of the outcome; and the eldest daughter was of their
party. The youngest said frankly that she had no use for any history,
but she said the same of nearly everything which had not directly or
indirectly to do with dancing. In this regulation she had use for
parties and picnics, for buggy-rides and sleigh-rides, for calls from
young men and visits to and from other girls, for concerts, for plays,
for circuses and church sociables, for everything but lectures; and she
devoted herself to her pleasures without the shadow of chaperonage, which
was, indeed, a thing still unheard of in Tuskingum.

In the expansion which no one else ventured, or, perhaps, wished to set
bounds to, she came under the criticism of her younger brother, who, upon
the rare occasions when he deigned to mingle in the family affairs, drew
their mother's notice to his sister's excesses in carrying-on, and
required some action that should keep her from bringing the name, of
Kenton to disgrace. From being himself a boy of very slovenly and
lawless life he had suddenly, at the age of fourteen, caught himself up
from the street, reformed his dress and conduct, and confined himself in
his large room at the top of the house, where, on the pursuits to which
he gave his spare time, the friends who frequented his society, and the
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