Private Life Read Online Free PDF Page A

the town newspaper. He had money and credentials. What
    John Gentry knew about Robert Bell, within the first week, was that he was backed by
    some family capital, he was ambitious, and he had grown up in St. Louis in a big house
    on Kingshighway, a very wealthy and forward-looking neighborhood.

    It was Robert Bell who decreed, young man though he was and new to town, that
    the Unionists would march at the front of the Fourth of July parade just behind the band;
    the farm-produce displays, the fire engine, the horse drill, and the mules would march in
    the middle; and the Rebels (numbering eight by now), dressed in their old Confederate
    uniforms, would march at the back, behind the Ladies' Aid Society and the GermanAmerican Betterment Society (which dressed in traditional Bavarian costume). He wrote
    about his plan in the newspaper, alternating discussions of the controversy with news of
    the war in Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico, and then the Philippines, until everyone in town had
    had their say and gotten bored with the War Between the States, especially since the new
    war seemed to be going so well. According to John Gentry, this strategy of promoting
    patriotism over infighting was a mark of genius in such a young man, and he went by the
    office of the newspaper to tell Robert Bell as much. The young man thereupon invited
    John Gentry and his family to watch the parade from the windows of the newspaper
    office, which was closed for the afternoon.

    To Margaret, Robert Bell was a disappointing sight. He had enormous
    muttonchop whiskers that only partly disguised his receding chin. His hair was thin and
    flyaway. His eyes were his best feature, rich blue and much more expressive than his
    words. He was nicely dressed. But he was considerably shorter than Beatrice--the top of
    his head came only to the middle of her ear. He made Margaret feel awkward just by
    standing next to her. He was attentive to them, though. He showed Lavinia to the best
    chair, which was pulled up right in front of a large open window looking out on Front
    Street, and then he showed Beatrice to the chair beside that one, and he brought her a
    cake and a cup of tea. Elizabeth and Margaret he left to fend for themselves, but he had
    gotten in nice cakes--light, with raspberry filling and marzipan icing, something Margaret
    had never seen before that day. He also had gotten in enough lemons for real lemonade,
    which he served with ice. He was comfortable with luxury, just what you would expect in
    a Bell from St. Louis--Margaret could see this thought passing from Lavinia to her
    grandfather when they caught each other's eye and raised an appreciative eyebrow.

    The crowd outside the window undulated forward and then separated and backed
    toward the newspaper office as the band turned into the road. Margaret watched them for
    a few minutes, and then she did what she so frequently could not help doing, she glanced
    at a newspaper on the table beside her, and began to read the articles. Since everyone
    around her was admiring the parade, she was free to read, but not, she thought, free to
    pick up the paper and open it in the midst of a celebration. The dispatches related that
    American ships had landed preparatory to taking Santiago. As for Puerto Rico, victory
    belonged to the Americans, for General Miles had taken San Juan without resistance.
    Then there was an article about the fate of a two-headed bull-calf born in Montgomery
    County (died at three months), and an article about the extension of the MKT Railroad
    somewhere in Kansas. At the bottom of the page was another headline and part of an
    article, "County Man Returns from Mexico Expedition":Little did Andrew Jackson
    Jefferson Early, of this county, suspect, when he was growing up on Franklin Street, that
    he would someday travel the world and consort with famous and prominent men. Mr.
    Early is an astronomer. Before he journeyed to the mountains of central Mexico, the
    world was a different place.