The Imperialist | Page 5

discover both an avowal and to some extent an enforcement of Mr
Murchison's political views; neither an Alexander Mackenzie nor an
Oliver Mowat could very well grow up into anything but a sound
Liberal in that part of the world without feeling himself an unendurable
paradox. To christen a baby like that was, in a manner, a challenge to
public attention; the faint relaxation about the lips of Dr
Drummond--the best of the Liberals himself, though he made a great
show of keeping it out of the pulpit-- recognized this, and the just
perceptible stir of the congregation proved it. Sonorously he said it.
"Oliver Mowat, I baptize thee in the Name of the Father--" The
compliment should have all the impressiveness the rite could give it,
while the Murchison brothers and sisters, a-row in the family pew,
stood on one foot with excitement as to how Oliver Mowat would take
the drops that defined him. The verdict was, on the way home, that he
behaved splendidly. Alexander Mackenzie, the year before, had roared.
He was weeping now, at the age of seven, silently, but very copiously,
behind the woodpile. His father had finally cuffed him for importunity;
and the world was no place for a just boy, who asked nothing but his
rights. Only the woodpile, friendly mossy logs unsplit, stood
inconscient and irresponsible for any share in his black circumstances;

and his tears fell among the lichens of the stump he was bowed on till,
observing them, he began to wonder whether he could cry enough to
make a pond there, and was presently disappointed to find the source
exhausted. The Murchisons were all imaginative.
The others, Oliver and Abby and Stella, still "tormented." Poor Alec's
rights--to a present of pocket-money on the Queen's Birthday--were
common ones, and almost statutory. How their father, sitting
comfortably with his pipe in the flickering May shadows under the
golden pippin, reading the Toronto paper, could evade his liability in
the matter was unfathomable to the Murchisons; it was certainly
illiberal; they had a feeling that it was illegal. A little teasing was
generally necessary, but the resistance today had begun to look
ominous and Alec, as we know, too temerarious, had retired in disorder
to the woodpile.
Oliver was wiping Advena's dishes. He exercised himself
ostentatiously upon a plate, standing in the door to be within earshot of
his father.
"Eph Wheeler," he informed his family, "Eph Wheeler, he's got
twenty-five cents, an' a English sixpence, an' a Yankee nickel. An' Mr
Wheeler's only a common working man, a lot poorer'n we are."
Mr Murchison removed his pipe from his lips in order, apparently, to
follow unimpeded the trend of the Dominion's leading article. Oliver
eyed him anxiously. "Do, Father," he continued in logical sequence.
"Aw do."
"Make him, Mother," said Abby indignantly. "It's the Queen's
BIRTHDAY!"
"Time enough when the butter bill's paid," said Mrs Murchison.
"Oh the BUTTER bill! Say, Father, aren't you going to?"
"What?" asked John Murchison, and again took out his pipe, as if this
were the first he had heard of the matter.

"Give us our fifteen cents each to celebrate with. You can't do it under
that," Oliver added firmly. "Crackers are eight cents a packet this year,
the small size."
"Nonsense," said Mr Murchison. The reply was definite and final, and
its ambiguity was merely due to the fact that their father disliked giving
a plump refusal. "Nonsense" was easier to say, if not to hear than "No."
Oliver considered for a moment, drew Abby to colloquy by the pump,
and sought his brother behind the woodpile. Then he returned to the
charge.
"Look here, Father," he said, "CASH DOWN, we'll take ten."
John Murchison was a man of few words, but they were usually
impregnated with meaning, especially in anger. "No more of this," he
said. "Celebrate fiddlesticks! Go and make yourselves of some use.
You'll get nothing from me, for I haven't got it." So saying, he went
through the kitchen with a step that forbade him to be followed. His
eldest son, arriving over the backyard fence in a state of heat, was just
in time to hear him. Lorne's apprehension of the situation was instant,
and his face fell, but the depression plainly covered such splendid
spirits that his brother asked resentfully, "Well, what's the matter with
YOU?"
"Matter? Oh, not much. I'm going to see the Cayugas beat the
Wanderers, that's all; an' Abe Mackinnon's mother said he could ask me
to come back to tea with them. Can I, Mother?"
"There's no objection that I know of," said Mrs Murchison, shaking her
apron free of stray potato-parings, "but you won't get money for the
lacrosse match or anything else from your father today, I can assure
you. They didn't