The Prodigal Daughter Read Online Free PDF

have I got two?”
    “Because it’s
only passed from father to son and is almost unknown in daughters.”
    “It’s not fair.
I want only one,” Abel began laughing. “Well, perhaps if you have a son, he’ll
have only one.”
    “Time for you to
braid your hair and get ready for school,” said Miss Tredgold.
    “But it’s just
getting exciting.”
    “Do as you are
told, child.”
    Florentyna
reluctantly left her father and went to the bathroom.
    “What do you
think is going to happen tomorrow, Miss Tredgold?” Florentyna asked on the way
to school.
    “I have no idea,
child, but as Mr. Asquith once advised, wait and see.”
    “Was Mr. Asquith
in the castle with Papa, Miss Tredgold?”
    In the days that
followed, Abel explained what life was like in a Russian prison camp and what
had caused him to limp. He went on to teach his daughter the stories the Baron
had told him in the dungeons over twenty years before. Florentyna followed the
stories of the legendary Polish hero Tadeusz Kosciuszko, and all the other great figures through to the present day, while Miss Tredgold
pointed to a map she had pinned on the bedroom wall.
    Abel finally
explained to his daughter how he had come into possession of the’silver band
that he wore on his wrist.
    “What does it
say?” demanded Florentyna, staring at the tiny engraved letters.
    “Try to read the
words, little one,” said Abel.
    “Bar-on Ab-el
Ros-nov-ski,” she stuttered out. “But that’s your name,” she insisted.
    “And it was my
father’s.”
    After a few more
days, Florentyna could answer all her father’s questions, even if Abel couldn’t
always answer all of hers.
    At school,
Florentyna daily expected Edward Winchester to pick on her again, but he seemed
to have forgotten the incident, and on one occasion even offered to share an
apple with her.
    Not everyone in
the class, however, had forgotten, and one girl in particular, a fat, rather
dull classmate, took special pleasure in whispering the words “Stupid Polack”
within her hearing.
    Florentyna did
not retaliate immediately, but waited until some weeks later when the girl,
having come in at the bottom of the class in a history test while Florentyna
came in at the top, announced, “At least I’m not a Polack.” Edward Winchester
frowned, but some of the class giggled.
    Florentyna
waited for total silence before she spoke. “True. You’re not a Polack; you’re a
third-generation American, with a history that goes back about a hundred years.
Mine can be traced for a thousand, which is why you are at the bottom in
history and I am at the top.”
    No one in the
class ever referred to the subject again. When Miss Tredgold heard the story on
the way home, she smiled to herself.
    “Shall we tell
Papa this evening?”
    “No,
my dear. Pride has never been a virtue. There are some occasions on which it is wise to
remain silent.”
    The six-year-old
girl nodded thoughtfully before asking: “Do you think a Pole could ever be
President of the United States?”
    “Certainly,
if the American people can overcome their own prejudice.”
    “And
how about a Catholic?”
    “That will
become irrelevant, even in my lifetime.”
    “And a woman?”
added Florentyna.
    “That might take
a little longer, child.”
    That night, Miss
Tredgold reported to Mr. Rosnovski that his lessons had proved worthwhile.
    “And when will
you carry out the second part of your plan, Miss Tredgold?”
    Abel asked.
    “Tomorrow,” she
replied, smiling.
    At three-thirty
the following afternoon Miss Tredgold was standing on the comer of the street
waiting for her ward to finish school. Florentyna came chattering out through
the gates and they had walked for several blocks before she noticed that they
were not taking their usual route home.
    “Where are we
going, Miss Tredgold?”
    “Patience,
child, and all will be revealed.”
    Miss Tredgold
smiled while Florentyna seemed more concemed with telling her how well she had
done in an