Tom was dumfounded at the attack on Patsy. This was a blow upon
which she had not counted. To strike her Patsy, her cripple, her
baby! The cowardice of it incensed her, She knew instantly that
her affairs must have been common talk about the tenements to have
produced so great an effect upon the children. She felt sure that
their fathers and mothers had encouraged them in it.
In emergencies like this it was never to the old father that she
turned. He was too feeble, too much a thing of the past. While
to a certain extent he influenced her life, standing always for
the right and always for the kindest thing she could do, yet when
it came to times of action and danger she felt the need of a
younger and more vigorous mind. It was on Jennie, really more her
companion than her daughter, that she depended for counsel and
sympathy at these times.
Tom did not underestimate the gravity of the situation. Up to
that point in her career she had fought only the cold, the heat,
the many weary hours of labor far into the night, and now and then
some man like McGaw. But this stab from out the dark was a danger
to which she was unused. She saw in this last move of McGaw's,
aided as he was by the Union, not only a determination to ruin
her, but a plan to divide her business among a set of men who
hated her as much on account of her success as for anything else.
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