"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.