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For MJ and Penelope

—A.I.B.

For Betsy and El a

—J.L.M.

A Note to Readers

THIS BOOK IS based on hundreds of interviews with people at

every level of

government in Washington, scores of American states and cities, and

several

foreign capitals. These interviews were conducted on a range of

terms: Some

people agreed to speak on the record, meaning that they could be

cited by name,

while others insisted on some degree of anonymity in order to share

the most

sensitive elements of their experiences in this time of crisis.

Some sources relayed con dential documents to con rm or expand

upon

their recol ections. Others shared audio or video tapes taken at

crucial times,

including recordings of private meetings with White House o cials

and

congressional leaders. These materials represent a crucial

contribution to the
historical record, al owing the authors to narrate some of the most
important

and disturbing moments of this period in thorough detail.

Where quotations are attributed directly to individuals, using

quotation

marks, it is because they re ect the verbatim language used in

interviews, text

messages, emails, documents, or in recorded material, or were

relayed by

authoritative sources soon after the fact. In other situations, this

book renders

conversations and scenes in paraphrased form, without quotation

marks.

Interviews for this book are quoted in the present tense to re ect
that the

speaker was looking back on events from a distance; conversations

and remarks

that unfolded in real time are quoted in the past tense.

In every instance, the authors have endeavored to tel the story of

these

tumultuous years in our history as vividly as possible, and with the

highest

degree of precision and delity to the facts.

Introduction
A Recognizable Target

ABIGAIL SPANBERGER AND Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were not

close

friends.

Though they both claimed House seats in 2018, an election year that
elevated

a vanguard of Democratic women, the two had little in common.

Spanberger

had been an operative with the Central Intel igence Agency before
running for

the House as a down-the-middle centrist in the red-tinted suburbs of

Richmond, Virginia. Ocasio-Cortez, a decade her junior, was an

organizer on

the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign and then defeated an incumbent

member of

the Democratic leadership, campaigning as a socialist in New York

City.

In some respects, the two women represented the enormous gulf

within the

Democratic Party, separating the young left-wingers who made up

the party’s

grass roots from the moderate suburban constituencies whose votes

had

delivered Democrats a majority in the House in 2018 and then

elected Joe Biden
to the presidency.

But in the rst days of 2021, Spanberger and Ocasio-Cortez were not

thinking much about their di erences. Spanberger placed a cal to her

col eague

on a more urgent subject.

In just a few days, Congress would be tasked with certifying the

results of the

2020 election. In a normal year, it was a pro forma exercise. The

popular vote

had already been tal ied and the Electoral Col ege had carried out its
arcane

duties in the middle of December. The role of the House and Senate
was mostly

ornamental.

Things were shaping up di erently this year. President Donald Trump

had

refused to concede the election, and he had instead spent the two
previous

months peddling increasingly outlandish conspiracy theories about

election

fraud. His complaints were ungrounded in fact, and lawsuits brought

on his

behalf had been al but laughed out of court.

But many of his fol owers had bought into Trump’s claims, and a
good number of them were planning to gather in Washington for a
demonstration

outside the Capitol on January 6. The president was clinging to a

bogus theory

that his obsequious vice president, Mike Pence, could use his status
as the

presiding o cer in the Senate to block certi cation of the election.

As a former intel igence o cer, Spanberger was concerned about the

possibility of violence—particularly violence targeting her fel ow

Democrats,

and most especial y the handful of highly recognizable progressive

women who

had been demonized by the right. She reached out to Ocasio-Cortez

to urge her

to take some unusual precautions, counseling an American lawmaker

to

approach the physical space of the Capitol—and the ritual of

certifying a free

and fair election—with the same caution she may have used with an
intel igence

asset in a dangerous foreign country.

“You are a very recognizable target,” Spanberger recal s tel ing

Ocasio-Cortez.
“Drive to work, and make sure that you dress in a way where you
are as less

recognizable as you could possibly be.”

“Wear sneakers, dress down—don’t look like you.”

That extraordinary conversation was one of many rippling through

Congress

in those tense days before January 6. In the aftermath of the

insurrection, it

would become clear that the national security apparatus of the

United States and

the police leaders responsible for defending the Capitol had failed to
anticipate

and prepare for the scale of the threat at hand. But to the
lawmakers charged

with completing the transfer of power between presidents, the mood

of menace

was pervasive.

To them, it was apparent enough that the basic institutions of

American

democracy had been strained almost to the breaking point.

In late December, Maxine Waters, the senior Democrat from Los

Angeles,

had spoken up on a video cal with other lawmakers to inquire about

security
measures for January 6. Waters, one of the most recognizable Black
women in

Congress and a frequent target of the conservative media, was

alarmed about

one far-right organization in particular. In the rst presidential debate,

Trump

had pointedly declined to denounce the extremist group known as

the Proud

Boys—“Stand back and stand by,” he told them—and now some of

its members

appeared to be headed to Washington.

What, Waters asked, is being done about that?

On January 3, Democratic leaders issued guidance to lawmakers on

keeping a

low pro le. Worried about a potential altercation with pro-Trump

demonstrators on January 6, they advised the rank and le to conceal

the special

pins that identi ed them as members of Congress and to use a

network of

tunnels that runs under the Capitol to move around that day, rather
than going

outside. Lauren Underwood, a young lawmaker from Il inois, later

paraphrased

the safety advice with frustrated sarcasm: “It’l be ne, but in case
you’re worried
just take the tunnel.”

Andy Kim, a House Democrat from New Jersey, had intended to

bring his

wife and two sons down to Washington to see him sworn in for a
second term. A

former National Security Council o cial who had worked in

Afghanistan, Kim

and his wife, Kammy, decided to err on the side of caution.

“I told her, ‘You know, I’m a little concerned about some of the
chatter that

we’re hearing about this protest,’ ” Kim says. “ ‘So, I mean, I want
you and the

kids to stay up in Jersey.’ ”

Before Kim returned to Washington alone, his wife said goodbye

with a

message Kim did not recal her giving him at any other time.

“Her last words to me were: ‘Be careful,’ ” he says.

Another Democrat, Jason Crow of Colorado, had brought his family

to the

nation’s capital for his swearing in and had hoped they would stay
until January

7—the day after Congress would certify Biden’s victory and drop the
curtain on
the Trump era. But those plans changed. A former army ranger who
did three

tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, Crow says he sent his family home on
the eve of

the certi cation vote.

“My wife and I made the decision for them to leave on the fth, which
they

did for safety,” he says.

Crow was not the only veteran of America’s twenty- rst-century wars
to

recognize an incipient breakdown in political order.

The previous summer, Mikie Sherril of New Jersey, who ew

helicopters in

the navy before winning a wealthy suburban district in 2018, had

pressed the

country’s top general to con rm that the armed forces would not be
used to

thwart an orderly transition from one president to the next. The

Trump

administration had used the military in a brazen political stunt in

early June,

when the president marched through Lafayette Park to brandish a

Bible outside

St. John’s Church, anked during the short walk by the secretary of
defense,
Mark Esper, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Sta , Mark Mil ey.

Both men had expressed regret afterward, but Sherril was deeply
dismayed.

Concerned that the armed forces could be used in even more sinister
ways, she

pressed Mil ey by phone to commit that there would not be “some

sort of

military coup.”

“He assured me in private that he understood his constitutional

duties, as did

our military,” Sherril says. “And he felt very secure that the military
would carry

out its constitutional duties.”

But as the certi cation vote rapidly approached, questions of military

neutrality and public order were looming as large as ever. Mil ey, an
army general

whose relationship with the president was in tatters, was among

those broaching

exceptional y delicate subjects in preparation for the long day ahead.

On January 4, the general placed a cal to Tom Cotton, the

Republican
senator from Arkansas. A hard-line conservative and a close al y of
the president,

Cotton had announced he would vote to certify the election results,

and he was

working closely with Mitch McConnel , the Senate majority leader, to

counter a

group of senators who intended to object.

Mil ey had taken note of Cotton’s statement, and reached out to ask
for help.

Could you explain, he asked Cotton, how the certi cation process on

January 6 is supposed to work?

He was worried, the general explained, that Washington was poised

to

explode. It was not that he feared an insurrection, exactly. But Mil ey

had seen

the scenes of violence in American streets the previous summer, and

he feared

that in a tinderbox environment there could be an outbreak of street

violence

between extreme forces on the right and left.

That turned out to be a fatal y misguided read on the threat at

hand.

Even House Republicans were alarmed. On the eve of the vote, the
GOP
Conference gathered in the Capitol Visitor Center to debate how
they should

handle the process, with some members beaming in remotely. It was

obvious

that a large number of conservatives would vote to object to the

election results,

some of them out of an earnest belief in election-fraud conspiracies

but most

out of fear that doing the opposite would bring down the wrath of
President

Trump and his MAGA army. A smal few acknowledged that fear
openly and

fretted about the implications of indulging a paranoid horde.

“Those people coming to D.C. in droves, praying that tomorrow, we

are

going to overturn the election and make Donald Trump the president
for four

more years—are we going to satisfy those concerns with what we do

tomorrow?”

gg

asked Mike Gal agher, a young Marine veteran representing

Wisconsin’s Eighth
Congressional District.

“How long,” Gal agher demanded to know, “are we prepared to tel

these

people that the election is not over?”

Debbie Lesko of Arizona, a pro-Trump conservative, said she had

asked

House leaders to “come up with a safety plan” because there could

be hundreds

of thousands of people pouring into Washington. Expressing fear

about the left-

wing group Antifa, she wondered aloud: Should members get special

transportation or police escorts back to their homes?

But Lesko wasn’t just musing about threats from the far left.

“We also have, quite honestly, Trump supporters who actual y

believe that we

are going to overturn the election,” she said, “and when that does
not happen—

most likely wil not happen—they are going to go nuts.”

Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, assured Lesko that he was in

touch

with the sergeant at arms and “they’re preparing ahead of time” on

the security

front. A conciliatory character by nature—far more of a cheerleader

than an
arm-twister, as congressional leaders go—McCarthy had forged a
tight political

al iance with Trump, and he was eager not to let the certi cation
debate strain

that bond or divide the GOP Conference.

“I do not judge anybody on how they vote,” he said in wrapping up

the tense

discussion, adding: “What I’d like to do is get through tomorrow.”

On the day of the certi cation vote, the potential for violence was so
clear

that Brendan Boyle, a House Democrat from Philadelphia, heard

from some

labor union leaders back home with an unusual o er. The o cials with
the

building trades, including associates of the longtime boss John

“Johnny Doc”

Dougherty, had fol owed the news reports suggesting things could
get rough on

January 6. Would it be helpful to Boyle, they wondered, if they sent

down some

of their guys to be by his side?

To the whole assortment of lawmakers and o ceholders bracing for

the

worst on January 6—or what they imagined might be the worst—

there was no
real debate about the immediate cause of the threat of violence.
There were

larger forces in American politics swirling around that date, great

currents of

social division and cultural change, of decaying trust in shared

institutions and

eroding con dence in the democratic process.

But those forces had converged on January 6 for a reason, and

Adam Smith,

the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, knew what it

was.

A matter-of-fact moderate from Washington State with close ties to

the

nation’s military establishment, Smith had told his fel ow Democrats

he believed

there was zero chance of a coup, in part because Trump seemed to

lack the

intel ectual wattage and administrative wherewithal to carry one out.

In Smith’s

reckoning, the president was far more interested in branding his new
“shiny

Space Force” and repainting Air Force One, than in drawing up plans
for an

American junta.
After al , Smith says of Trump, “my perception is, he is a fucking
moron.”

Smith says he discouraged his col eagues from even speculating

publicly

about the concept of a military takeover, lest anxious Democrats

inadvertently

supply the dim president with inspiration for a crazy plan he did not
already

have.

Stil , the Armed Services Committee chairman had spoken numerous

times

with military leaders about how they might handle things if Trump
tested the

limits of his powers as commander in chief. Mark Mil ey had told

Smith that he

knew he did not have to fol ow il egal orders—a reassuring enough

sentiment,

should Trump prove more devious than Smith believed him to be.

By the early afternoon of that day, the House and Senate had been
evacuated,

with the top leaders of both chambers sequestered at Fort McNair, a

waterfront

military base in Washington, D.C., and hundreds of other lawmakers

locked

down in an assortment of Capitol Hil o ces and hearing rooms.

The evacuation had fol owed a large and angry ral y outside the
Capitol,

where Trump urged a raucous mass of supporters to “ ght like hel ”

and

demanded that Pence “stand up for the good of our Constitution” or

face

Trump’s personal repudiation. Taking those words to heart,

thousands of

Trump’s supporters had soon overrun the imsy barricades outside

the Capitol

complex. The mob included doctors and smal business owners, cops
and

military veterans, seasoned radicals and angry newcomers to the far-

right cause.

Some aped the vigilantism of the Wild West and Jim Crow South,
raising a cry:

“Hang Mike Pence!”

Pence had been plucked from the Senate chamber by the Secret
Service and

sequestered inside the Capitol. For once defying the president in

public, the vice

president had refused to indulge Trump’s fantasies of blocking the

election

results, and he had declined to leave. According to Marc Short,

Pence’s chief of sta , the vice president did not want to create the
image of his motorcade eeing
the seat of government in the world’s greatest democracy.

The exodus from the Senate had been a confusing, hectic a air, with

lawmakers young and old, Democrats and Republicans, ordered

hastily away

from the chamber by Capitol Police as they struggled to gure out

what was

going on. Some of them knew that the complex had been breached.
Few

understood that there was a rampaging mob on their heels.

“Do not run, just walk!” yel ed out a police o cer, hoping to stop a
senatorial

stampede.

Patrick Leahy, the Senate’s senior Democrat, was rushed toward the
tunnels

out of the Capitol by a uniformed o cer as fast as the eighty-year-old

Vermonter

could walk. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a Republican who had broken

repeatedly

with Trump, and whom the president had marked down as a target
for political

retribution, clasped arms in the hal with Dan Sul ivan, her state’s
junior senator,

recognizing the threat far more seriously than some of her col
eagues.
“I got my Marine,” she said, al uding to Sul ivan’s status as a colonel
in the

Marine Corps reserve.

Not far o was Josh Hawley, the Missouri senator and former
Supreme

Court clerk who had been the rst Republican to announce plans to
chal enge

the election results in the Senate. A number of his conservative col

eagues

thought Hawley’s objection was little more than a play for publicity—
an act of

gratuitous pandering to Trump, who knew little of constitutional law

but was

always eager to accumulate al ies and enablers.

As the senators, reporters, sta ers, and cops went down an escalator
and

toward the Senate subway that connects the Capitol to a labyrinth of

o ce

buildings, Hawley was no longer gaming out the political impact of

his

procedural stunt. Nor did he cut the same rabble-rousing pose he

had adopted

hours earlier when he was famously photographed holding a

clenched left st in

solidarity with onlooking pro-Trump protesters.

Now the mob was out of control, and Hawley was simply trying to
gure out

what had happened and what to do.

“They just said, ‘Go to Hart 216,’ ” he al but shrugged, naming a spot
that

would come to be known as the “secure location.”

His Senate col eague Kevin Cramer, an a able North Dakotan,

wondered

aloud in his Plains patter about just what was afoot.

Cramer had been a trusty Trump al y and, like many Republicans,

thought

the president’s in ammatory behavior was mostly harmless, just the

antics of an

entertainer-politician. The senator loved tel ing a story about

Trump’s priorities

from a North Dakota stop the president made on Cramer’s behalf.

Trump had

wanted to know in advance: What kind of crowd had Elton John

drawn at the

Fargodome, and could he outdo the English piano man?

The last few weeks had been di erent, though, and Cramer thought
Trump
had behaved in a grossly irresponsible way in the run-up to January
6. Cramer

had felt the sting of that anger: He had announced a few days
earlier that he

would vote to certify the election, because there were simply no

grounds for

doing otherwise.

“The most damaging thing the president has done yet was the way
he talked

about Pence and his responsibilities,” Cramer said.

The senators were converging on their secure location, an expansive

conference room in the Hart Senate O ce Building best known as a

site of

Supreme Court nomination hearings and the explosive testimony of

James B.

Comey Jr., the former FBI director, against Trump. And as they
approached

Hart 216, their predicament began sinking in. Pictures were popping
up on

their phones showing the rioters pil aging the Capitol, including one
man toting

a Confederate battle ag just outside the Senate chamber.

“Oh, wow,” Cramer exclaimed, striding through the Hart basement.

“That’s
right there, al right. How the heck did they get in?”

His mind, though, kept returning to the president.

“Sometimes I’m not even certain what his end goal is,” he said of
Trump,

adding, “As you know, I’m one of his top loyal people in the Senate.
He’s never

cal ed me, none of his attorneys have ever cal ed me. Sometimes I
wonder if he

even real y—what the real motive is.”

Five and a half years after Trump rode down the Trump Tower
escalator to

announce his campaign for president, his own al ies were stil
wrestling with the

same question: Just what is he doing?

Mitt Romney knew precisely what his nemesis had done.

The former Republican presidential candidate had been one of

Trump’s

harshest Republican critics since the president sailed down that

escalator in

Trump Tower in June of 2015. Romney had eschewed a third

presidential bid of

his own that year, opting instead to bombard Trump from the
sidelines. After
the election, he had attempted a rapprochement with the president-
elect,

pp

interviewing for the job of secretary of state over dinner at Jean-

Georges in New

York, only to be passed over for a former Exxon executive with no

government

experience.

Not long after, Romney had relocated to Utah, the o cial seat of his

Mormon faith, and in 2018 he had taken a Senate seat there. Soon,
he became

the only Republican senator to vote for Trump’s impeachment on the

charge of

pressuring the Ukrainian government to smear the Biden family.

Romney was every bit a politician, and throughout his career he had

displayed a streak of opportunism that was pronounced even by the

standards of

that profession. But now, in the winter of his political life, he was
free to speak

his mind about a political gure who o ended him to his core. In Mitt
Romney’s eyes, Donald Trump was a moral atrocity—as a man,
father, husband,

and president.

And Romney had never been so visibly and publicly angry as when
he strode

into Hart 216.

Just minutes earlier, he had exited the Senate chamber in fury upon
hearing

that the Capitol had been breached. He had been directed away
from the mob

by a fast-acting cop, Eugene Goodman, and by mere seconds he had

escaped

col iding with a throng of insurrectionists who would certainly have

recognized

him on sight. In Hart, Romney would cal his home-state governor,

Spencer

Cox, to seek help protecting members of his family in Utah.

As he caught up with his col eagues, Romney’s eyes were lit with
rage, his face

ushed.

“Unbelievable,” he said of what was clearly now a dark day in

American

history.

“This is what the president has caused today, instigating this—this

insurrection,” he spat out.

It was a national humiliation.

“It’s what this says to the country and the world,” Romney said. “The
only

time this ever happened before was in the Civil War.”

Then he stormed o , joining his dazed col eagues in the hangar-size

room as

they were phoning aides and relatives to tel them they were, at least
for the

moment, al right. Others could not avert their gaze from the pictures
on their

phones: The Senate chamber had been breached. There would be

no peaceful

transfer of power in America in 2021.

This book is an account of a political emergency in the United States

—the story

of how the country reached and survived a moment when carrying

out the basic

process of certifying an election became a mortal y dangerous task.

During a period of two years, stretching from the onset of the

coronavirus

pandemic through the crucial legislative battles of the new Biden

administration,
Americans saw their nation’s two-party system and the electoral
process itself

put to an extraordinary test. Not since 1968—a year of political

assassinations

and mass riots at home, and calamity on the battle eld abroad—has
American

democracy endured such a period of crisis.

In this time, it became inescapably clear that American politics had

become

not just a contest between parties or factions or regions, or even

between the left

and the right. The basic elements of American democracy—

campaigning and

voting and legislating—had been transformed into so many fronts in

an

existential battle for the survival of the democratic system. Many

lawmakers had

become mere tribunes for their radicalized constituents, only

exacerbating the

internal tribalism that was menacing the country more than any
foreign foe.

The two parties were not merely adversaries, but enemies in a

domestic cold

war that had started to run hot. And one of those two parties was in
thral to an
authoritarian demagogue who chose to attack the Congress rather
than

graceful y relinquish power.

Wel before shots rang out at the Capitol on January 6, American

political

leaders were confronting a set of dire questions. In the face of

multiple

overlapping threats—including a once-in-a-century pandemic—could

the basic

institutions of American government function?

In spite of the country’s profound divisions, could the United States

stil

manage to hold a free and fair election and then usher in a new
government that

would faithful y carry out the people’s business?

The answer to both questions has been a resounding: sort of.

Considered from a hopeful angle, the events of this period are

indeed an

a rmation of American political resilience amid an unheard-of assault

from

within.

The country, after al , did not col apse. A would-be strongman was
defeated.
The transfer of power from one White House to the next did happen.
A new yet

familiar president has sought to be a leader for al Americans in a

way his

predecessor never even feigned. The two parties have negotiated

across the aisle in an attempt to improve the lives of their
constituents.

But that triumphant narrative is not the only important vantage point
on

this period. Alongside those encouraging events, another timeline

has unfolded

in dark paral el.

Donald Trump has not been banished from national life, but instead
remains

the dominant force in his party and is bent on purging those few
Republicans

who won’t bow to him.

The country’s bitter political and social divisions have not eased, but
have

instead proven so pernicious as to undermine the distribution of

miraculous

vaccines against the coronavirus, badly worsening the spread of

more contagious

strains.
In contrast to past crises, the pandemic has not united the country
but

become a deadly new front in the culture wars.

Joe Biden and the Democratic leaders in Congress, Nancy Pelosi and
Chuck

Schumer, have only tful y managed to ral y their own ungainly

coalition in the

job of governing, let alone unite the country as a whole. Far from
presiding as a

soothing and self-assured national healer, Biden has appeared too

often captive

to the arcane internal politics of his own party, prone to undermining

his own

arguments, and too tangled in indecision about his priorities to

speak plainly to

the country about what they are.

And the next election, one that may wel return Trump loyalists to
power in

Congress, is now only months away.

The former president’s delusions about a stolen election—the ctions

that

inspired a riot on January 6—have lingered with corrosive force,

warping his

own party and catalyzing a wave of red-state voting restrictions

aimed at cracking
down on election fraud that did not happen. The fantasies of a
Trump

restoration have only deepened since his departure from the White
House.

In May of 2021, about four months after leaving o ce, Trump

telephoned

the conservative editor Rich Lowry to tel him his magazine, National
Review,

would take o like a rocket if it recognized that he had actual y won

the election.

In fact, Trump told Lowry, he expected to be reinstated by August,

and

Republicans would be put back in charge of the Senate once the

supposedly

pervasive corruption of the 2020 election was exposed.

It was beyond belief, Trump said, that Mitch McConnel did not seem
to

understand this.

The former president’s comments were pure madness.

As central a gure as Trump is in America’s political crisis, however, he

is

hardly the only consequential character in this period, and his

aberrant conduct
alone does not il ustrate the depth of the country’s chal enge. Nor
was his ascent

unique to America—right-wing nationalism has been menacing

liberal

democracy around the globe. This is a more complicated, stil -

ongoing story that

didn’t end with one election.

The reporting for this book involved hundreds of interviews with

senators,

governors, members of the House, diplomats, lawyers, political

strategists,

entrepreneurs, foreign leaders, and o cials at the highest ranks of

both the

Biden and Trump administrations. It is based on hundreds of pages

of

con dential documents and recordings of some of the most powerful

people in

the land, including Trump, Pelosi, Schumer, and McCarthy, speaking

in

unguarded candor to col eagues and friends.

The sources and voices in this story represent a great multiplicity of

perspectives that agree on a single reality: that the future of

American democracy

is at risk.
This story unfolds in three parts. First is the pre-election phase: the
period in

which President Trump was mismanaging the coronavirus pandemic,

terrorizing

the nation’s governors while o ering medicine-wagon remedies for a

catastrophic respiratory plague, and ailing in his e orts to de ne a

message for

his own upended campaign. Biden, meanwhile, was laboring to unify

the

Democratic Party, seeking a running mate and an agenda that could

bring

together a vast set of constituencies that shared a deep antipathy to

Trump and

little else.

Second is the period stretching from Election Day to the inauguration

of

President Biden and the (second) impeachment of former President

Trump. In

this stage, it was apparent that the country had rejected Trump, but
the ultimate

balance of power in Washington was very much in doubt. Democrats

were

contemplating the possibility of Biden’s agenda smashing on the

rocks of a
Republican-control ed Senate, while Republicans were cowering in
fear as

Trump began to turn on his own party. It took an attack on the

Capitol and a

second Republican defeat in Georgia to complete the transition away

from the

Trump presidency.

Third, there was the phase from February onward, as President

Biden

attempted an acrobatic feat of leadership: pushing a liberal policy

agenda of

titanic ambition with the thinnest of majorities, while reaching across

the aisle

on other matters to show the country that bipartisan governance

was stil

possible.

In this stage, it became grimly apparent that the two-party system

remained

dangerously unstable. One side—the Republican Party—was col

apsing into a

faction animated by their disgraced leader and a re exive contempt

for anything

associated with the Democrats, including basic public-health

precautions.
Meanwhile, the Biden-led Democrats spent much of 2021 wrestling
with their

own roiling ideological and cultural divisions, as the coalition that

ejected

Trump from the White House proved ful of chal enging contradictions
that

frustrated Biden’s ability to govern.

By the end of 2021, Biden had enjoyed one of the most productive
rst years

of any new president, sweeping a multitril ion-dol ar coronavirus

relief bil into

law, achieving a major bipartisan deal on infrastructure, and coming

tantalizingly close to groundbreaking deals on family-welfare policy

and climate

change. Yet those achievements came at a price, as painstaking

negotiations

strained the cohesion of Biden’s party and tested the patience of an

electorate

detached from the Washington wrangling and increasingly alarmed

by the

resurgent pandemic and the rising cost of consumer goods.

In many respects, Biden’s landmark achievements appeared to be

the work

not of a rising new electoral majority, but of long-entrenched

Democratic
leaders who came of age in the 1960s and found their last great
opportunity to

legislate in the present crisis. And, as the year wore on, the
limitations of those

leaders and their mastery of Washington became increasingly clear.

Their

methods and instincts appeared in many cases painful y mismatched

to the

merciless politics of 2021.

Far from quickly erasing the Trump era, leaders in both parties have
found

the shadow of the last presidency has been longer and darker than
they

anticipated, coloring every major political decision and legislative

negotiation of

the Biden administration and shaping even the perceptions of

American

democracy overseas. Not long ago, Senator Chris Murphy of

Connecticut

recal ed speaking in his o ce with the Egyptian ambassador to the

United States

g
gyp

and seeking to lobby him on matters of democratic reform and the

human rights

of political prisoners.

Look at what’s going on in your own country, the envoy had red
back. You

want to preach to us about democracy? I saw what happened on

January 6.

Other accounts of this period have emphasized the tactical political

decisions

that shaped the outcome of the election, or the degree to which

unelected

elements of the country’s government stood up to Donald Trump.

During his

short presidency, a cult of hero worship sprang up around a

succession of non-

politicians: lawmen like Robert S. Muel er III and physicians such as

Anthony

Fauci; jurists such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John G. Roberts; and
military

men like James Mattis and, most recently, Mark Mil ey.

But in the end, a democracy can only succeed if its elected leaders
are

determined to sustain it, and if the voters to whom they answer

maintain their
faith in the system.

As of this writing, it is di cult to say with con dence that either the

American elite or the American electorate has what it takes to

defend the

principles of free and representative government.

It is beyond the scope of this narrative to ful y catalog the forces

that have

driven the United States to this baleful point. But even a simple
timeline of the

last quarter century in American life speaks powerful y to the

reasons why many

voters may have lost faith in the system.

In less than a third of an average American lifetime, the country

endured a

contested presidential race in 2000; the terror attacks of September

11, 2001; the

long and disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the nancial crisis
of 2008 and

the Great Recession; the election of Donald Trump in 2016; and the
devastation

of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. That is a catalog of failure and

failure and

failure.
It is a great irony of this time that it has fal en to Joe Biden, a man
implicated

in some of those failures, to pul the country back from the brink. In
a dark

hour, American voters turned not to a messianic outsider or to a man

on

horseback, but to a man of the gavel—a former Senate committee

chairman

before he was vice president—to redeem the worn-out system in

which he toiled

for half a century.

Joe Biden did not predict the events of January 6, but the fear of
American system failure—of a breakdown in the institutions and
values of democracy—

haunted him throughout the 2020 election. He felt in his bones that
his

campaign against Donald Trump was a ght for American survival.

On the Sunday before Election Day, he said as much to Hakeem Je

ries, a

Brooklyn congressman who joined Biden on the campaign trail

outside

Philadelphia. Biden was upbeat about his chances, tel ing Je ries that
he felt

good about the energy he was seeing on the trail. He believed he

would win on
November 3. Je ries agreed: Democrats just needed to keep their
foot on the gas

through Election Day, he said.

It was the sort of smal talk—equal parts rah-rah optimism and

nervous

energy—common at the end of campaigns.

Then Biden said something entirely uncommon in American political

campaigns, Je ries recal s.

“I certainly hope this works out,” the future president said. “If it
doesn’t, I’m

not sure we’re going to have a country.”

Chapter 1

Reciprocity

IT WAS HOURS before dawn in California when Gavin Newsom’s

phone rang.

The fty-two-year-old governor was accustomed to early cal s from

the East

Coast, but under normal circumstances a 4:30 a.m. wake-up cal

from the White

House was unusual.

These were anything but normal: The coronavirus pandemic had

struck
Newsom’s state and the president of the United States wanted to
talk about it.

Newsom, a Democrat, enjoyed a strange relationship with President

Donald

Trump. The two had known each other since long before Trump’s
election in

2016: When he was merely a celebrity real-estate developer, Trump

had donated

money to one of Newsom’s campaigns, and Newsom’s ex-wife, the

television

personality Kimberly Guilfoyle, was dating the president’s eldest son.

Trump

and Newsom had dealt with each other in o ce a number of times,

mainly

around natural disasters like wild res.

They had a disaster on their hands now.

It was the very beginning of March, and the respiratory pathogen

that had

already ravaged parts of China and Italy was in increasingly

abundant evidence

in the United States. The rst case had been con rmed on January 21,
in

Washington State, and six weeks later West Coast governors and
mayors were
Another random document with
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papa,” she concluded by saying, “you always have told me that one
ought never to be in debt, and so— Are you pleased, papa? Do you
trust me again?”
He kissed her and drew her closer. “Indeed I do, dear child,” he
answered.
“And I may come into the library again?”
“Just as before.”
Mabel gave a little satisfied sigh. It was so good to have all
restrictions taken away.
“Now I must go to work again, daughter,” said her father. “Thank you
very much for getting me the book; and, yes, I think I shall have to
give you the other one. Keep it on your shelves, and perhaps it will
remind you of two or three things.”
“What?”
“Can you guess?”
“One is, not to meddle with what isn’t mine.”
“Yes, that is one.”
“And the other—I can’t guess, papa.”
“That ‘a wrong confessed is half redressed’, and that your father has
very great respect for the honor and justice, and self-sacrifice his
little daughter has shown.”
Then Mabel left him, and trudged upstairs feeling very happy. On her
way down again her mother met her. “Mrs. Lewis was here this
afternoon,” she said, “and she said we must all come to the lawn
party. She told me there seemed to be some coolness between
Marie and you, but she hoped that nothing serious was the matter.”
“Oh, mamma, do you think Marie has said anything about me to her
mother?”
“Perhaps, but if she has, Mrs. Lewis does not seem to attach much
importance to it. If mammas were to take seriously all the little fusses
their children get into, I am afraid they would have a hard time of it.”
Mabel stood patting the baluster softly. She was thinking very
soberly. Presently she looked up, “Mamma, do you mind if I give the
five dollars to the Cuban orphans?” she asked.
“I have not the slightest objection.”
“Won’t the girls be surprised?”
“Do you want them to be?”
“Why, yes, I think so. They were very mean to me, to be sure, and
we have scarcely spoken for weeks. Would you go to the lawn party
if you were I, mamma? I don’t think you know how hateful they
were,” and then she told her story.
“They were very unjust, I admit,” her mother told her, “but I think they
will be very much ashamed of themselves when they see you willing
to help them so generously. Yes, I think you and Alice and Harold
should all go, even if the girls have been unkind. It will not be a
social affair, remember, and if the cause is good the rest does not
matter.”
“But about the money, mamma; I was going to ask you to send it for
me.”
“Wouldn’t you rather spend it at the lawn party? You might give a
part of it to the fund, but you’ll be doing just the same if you buy
things from the girls, and, besides, it will be pleasant for them to feel
that they have such a good customer. What was the reason you
thought you would not spend it there?”
“Because—because—I didn’t want to show off,” Mabel answered,
shyly.
Mrs. Ford put her arm around the child. “I think you have already
sacrificed enough, dear,” she said. “No one doubts that you have the
right feeling. Never mind what the girls think, but go and enjoy
yourself. I promised Mrs. Lewis that I would send a contribution of
biscuits and salad, and several of the neighbors have promised me
something. So I shall probably send you and Harold off foraging to-
morrow; at least, I’ll let you collect some of the articles for me.”
“Mamma, Mrs. Knight has such beautiful flowers; I wonder if she
wouldn’t give us some? She said she would be glad to do anything
she could for us, because we helped her to get Bobby.”
Mrs. Ford considered for a moment. “If you want to go and ask her, I
see no harm in it, but you’d better wait till Friday morning, so the
flowers will be fresh, if you get any.”
Therefore, Mrs. Knight received a second visit from the children, as
she was busy making some of her famous cinnamon-bun, on Friday
morning. Mabel explained their errand and met with a hearty
response.
“Give you some flowers? To be sure, I will, gladly; and you can have
every one in the garden, if you want them.”
“Oh, we couldn’t carry every one,” said Harold, in all seriousness.
Mrs. Knight laughed. “Thee is literal enough for a Friend,” she said.
“Then I will not give thee all my flowers, but how would thee like a
loaf of my bun? I’ll warrant they’ll not have any like it at thy friend’s
party, Mabel. But I give it to thee, and thee must donate it in thy
name.”
“Oh, would that be fair?” asked the little girl.
“Does thee think a Friend would tell thee to do a thing unfair? Then if
thy compunctions are even more tender than mine I will give it to
thee to do with as thee chooses.”
“But, can you spare it, Mrs. Knight?”
“I can make more when I want it,” she returned. “I always keep it on
hand, for I am fond of it myself, thee sees.”
Therefore, with their hands and arms laden, they returned to the city,
and the exclamations of appreciation which met them when their
donations were handed in, warmed their hearts mightily, and made
Mabel, at least, feel much more that she was a welcome guest.
Still, Marie and Ethel had not yet greeted her, and she rather
anxiously waited to find out how they would act when they saw her
there.
 CHAPTER VI.
MARIE LEWIS’ pretty home in West Philadelphia looked very bright
and attractive on the afternoon of the lawn party. Mabel and Harold
stood looking around at the tables and booths.
“That’s the tea-house,” said Mabel, indicating a gay structure at one
end of the grounds. “Ethel is going to help serve the tea, and her
sister is the Rebecca at the Well, where the lemonade is. I think we’ll
get some lemonade first thing, for I am so thirsty.”
They sauntered over to the well, passing the tea pagoda on their
way. Just here Mrs. Lewis stopped them. She had in her hands a
plate of Mrs. Knight’s cinnamon-bun. “Come right in here, Mabel,”
she said. “I’m taking this to the tea-house; it will be so nice to serve
with the tea. Have you seen Marie? Here is Ethel, too.”
The girls looked at each other rather sheepishly as they saw Mabel.
Mrs. Lewis went on: “Just think, girls, how Mabel has worked for us.
She brought those lovely flowers over on the middle table, and
besides those and this delicious bun, she has given three dollars, all
herself, to the fund.”
“Oh!” Marie blushed up to the roots of her hair, and looked at Ethel.
Mrs. Lewis passed on, leaving the four children standing there,
rather embarrassed at the situation.
Harold broke the silence by saying, with a little amused smile: “Come
on, Mabel, we were going to get some lemonade, you know.”
“Oh,” Ethel started forward, “don’t go away yet. I—we—you know we
didn’t know.”
“But we were horrid,” Marie broke in, “and I’m awfully ashamed of
myself, really I am, Mabel, and I think it was sweet of you to come
this afternoon, after the way we behaved. Don’t you, Ethel?”
“Yes, I do,” replied Ethel, a little awkwardly. It was harder for her to
yield than for Marie. “But why didn’t you say, in the first place, that
you were going to give such a lot?” she asked, turning to Mabel.
“You didn’t say you’d save up and give more than any of us.”
Mabel looked down. She couldn’t explain.
But Harold was equal to the occasion. “Because she thought she
had a debt to pay; to make good something that was spoiled, and
until she knew about that she thought she oughtn’t to call the money
hers, you know.”
“Oh, I think that was right,” Marie exclaimed. She gave Mabel a little
squeeze. “I’m so glad,” she said in a low tone. “You’re a dear, just a
dear, Mabel, and I’ll never get mad with you and treat you so again.
Truly, I wanted to be friends. I have missed you so much, all this
time.”
It was not so easy for Ethel to give in, but, finally, she, too, showed
her good will by opening a box of caramels she was carrying. She
offered them to Mabel and Harold. “I know they are good,” she said,
“for my aunt made them. Take a whole lot, Mabel.” And she gave her
a generous supply.
However, glad as Mabel was that all was smooth sailing again, she
did not feel quite happy with the girls, and so she and Harold
wandered off to seek out their own amusements. After they had
eaten all the ice-cream and cake of which they were capable, and
had bought more candy and had had more lemonade than was good
for them, they found a little corner on one of the piazzas, and here
they decided to settle down, for awhile, and watch the people, who
were now beginning to gather rapidly.
“I’m awfully tired,” said Mabel. “I just feel as if my feet didn’t belong
to me. Harold, I was just thinking that your papa will perhaps know
some of the Cuban orphans, if any of his friends get killed.”
Harold’s face took on a serious look as it always did when his father
was mentioned. “I wish I knew about father,” he said, after a pause,
“I haven’t heard for two weeks, and neither has Drake.”
“Oh,” Mabel wished that she had not said anything about Captain
Evans’ friends and their orphans.
“You see,” Harold went on, “the last time we did hear he was still at
camp, but he expected to be ordered to Cuba at any time, and I
suppose he may be on his way there. Of course, I want him to be as
brave as the others, but I get scared sometimes, for fear he will be
killed.”
“Oh, then would you be a Cuban orphan?” Mabel asked, in an awe-
stricken tone.
“Why, not exactly. I don’t know whether it means those who fight in
Cuba, or those who are Cuban people; it might be either way. Don’t
let’s talk about it any more. Aren’t there a lot of people here now? It’s
not been so crowded since we came.”
Just then two gentlemen sauntered up and stood looking at the gay
scene before them. One was Marie’s father, Mabel knew.
“There’s not much chance of our having an occasion like this another
year,” Mr. Lewis remarked: “The war won’t last long.”
Mabel nudged her companion, and they listened with all their ears.
“Too bad, though, the way our fellows have had to be sacrificed at
camp,” returned Mr. Lewis’ friend. “Every day I hear of someone from
here having succumbed to typhoid fever, and the warm weather will
not improve the conditions, I am afraid. By the way, you knew
Captain Evans. I learned at the club on my way uptown, that he was
gone. Poor fellow, as nice a man as I ever knew. Died of typhoid
fever.”
Harold clutched Mabel’s arm and turned very pale. “Did you hear?”
he whispered.
Mabel nodded; she understood. “Perhaps there is some mistake,”
she whispered, in return. “Wait, I want to ask something.”
She went up to Mr. Lewis, who looked down at her kindly. “If you
please, Mr. Lewis,” she said, “That Captain Evans you know, that
you were just talking about, did he have any little boy?”
Mr. Lewis glanced inquiringly at his friend, who nodded. “Yes, I think
so,” he made answer.
“And is his name Harold?” Mabel’s eyes were getting very moist, and
she gave a quick little gasp.
The gentleman seemed to be trying to remember. “Why, let me see;
yes, I am pretty sure he has. I think I’ve heard him call his boy Harry.
Yes, that’s it; Harry.”
Mabel glanced around, but only caught sight of Harold’s retreating
figure. She ran quickly after him; and, taking hold of his hand, she
held it tightly. “We’ll go home and tell mamma,” she whispered.
Harold bit his lip, and tried to keep back the tears, but hurried on.
They were not long in reaching home, and then Harold broke away
from Mabel, and she saw him disappear into his room.
Her sympathetic little heart was too full for speech as she burst into
Mrs. Ford’s room and buried her face in her mother’s lap.
“Why, my little girl,” exclaimed Mrs. Ford; “did the girls treat you
badly, after all? I am so sorry; I hoped it would be all right, and that
you would have no more trouble.”
“It isn’t the girls,” Mabel sobbed; “they were lovely; it’s Harold.”
“Why, dear me, how has he hurt your feelings; you have been getting
along so beautifully together? What has he done?”
“He hasn’t done anything,” Mabel said, between her sobs; “it’s his
father.”
“His father! Has he come back?”
No answer, but a shake of the brown locks.
“Oh, I see; he has sent for Harold. Well, dear; we knew that would
have to be sometime. Don’t cry about it; but try to make Harold
happy while he is here.”
“It isn’t that,” Mabel found voice to say.
“Then, what is it—what has his father done?”
“He’s died, and Harold is a Cuban orphan,” Mabel replied, with a
fresh burst of tears.
“My dear, are you sure? Come, tell me about it; I don’t understand.
We have not heard a word of it. Look up and tell me, child.”
Mabel managed to convey her news, though in a somewhat
disjointed manner.
Mrs. Ford looked grave, and went to Harold’s door; but, receiving no
answer to her gentle knock, she went in, and saw that the little fellow
had flung himself across the bed, and was crying convulsively. He
raised his head as Mrs. Ford entered, and came to the arms she
held out to him.
She gathered him closely to her. “Don’t give up hope, dear child,”
she said. “I think there may be a mistake; and, under any
circumstances, you know we love you, and are glad to keep you with
us.”
Mabel had crept in softly. “Oh, mamma, always?”
“Perhaps.”
“Oh, do say always,” she begged; “and let Harold be my brother;
then I’ll not be the middle one any more, and I’ll try—oh, Harold! I will
try to be as much like a boy as I can, and as mamma will let me. I’ll
play anything you like to have me. I’ll climb trees and all; and I’ll even
try not to be afraid of cows.”
Mrs. Ford could but smile; but she added more comforting words till
Harold at last lifted his head and said: “Where is Don? I want Don.”
And Mabel, delighted to be able to do something, flew to bring the
dear dog, and with Don hugged up close to him Harold, after a while,
fell asleep.
It was warm, mild May weather, and Mabel, too excited to sleep,
crept to the window to watch for her father that night, for she felt that
he would, perhaps, be able to decide upon the truth of the report
they had heard, and besides, her mother had said, that if it were not
too late, he would go down to the club, and gather particulars. But it
was very late; a meeting of some kind had kept him at the university,
and Mabel grew very weary, before she saw his familiar form coming
in at the gate.
She crept softly down stairs, and entered her mother’s room in time
to hear Mr. Ford say, as he looked at his watch: “I am afraid it is too
late to-night to do anything, but I will inquire into the matter the very
first thing in the morning. Poor little fellow. I hope he will sleep
soundly. His father was all in all to him.”
“Don’t say was,” said Mrs. Ford, “for I do not quite believe the
report.”
Mr. Ford shook his head. “I wouldn’t be too sanguine,” he returned.
“You say Harold told you his father generally called him Harry?”
“Yes, that is the part which makes it seem as if there were no
mistake.”
“And can’t Harold stay here always?” Mabel asked, as her father
lifted her to his knee.
“That will be as his aunt says. We have no right to decide upon that.
You will still have to be our boy, I think,” he said, smiling, for it had
always been a joke between Mabel and her father, that of her being
the boy of the family, and Mabel liked to be called “Phil,” for she
always insisted that she ought to have had her father’s name.
“But what are you doing up this time of night?” Mr. Ford asked. “You
should have been in bed and asleep hours ago.”
Mabel gave him a mighty hug, and crept upstairs again, feeling very
sorry for Harold, and wishing that she could do something to comfort
him.
The re-instatement in the favor of her friends seemed a small thing,
compared to this last matter of interest, and after she had cuddled
down again by the side of her sister Alice, she got up and went to the
door leading to Harold’s room, to whisper to him, through the key
hole, “Good-night, Harold, I hope you will sleep well, and I’ll stay
awake all night if you think you will feel lonely.”
But Harold did not hear her, for he had cried himself to sleep long
before, and, though Mabel’s promise to stay awake was made in all
good faith, it was not ten minutes later that she was soundly sleeping
too, little dreaming that she would be the first one to bring comfort to
the boy’s sorrowful heart.
 CHAPTER VII.
WORN out with his grief, Harold slept rather late the next morning,
and Mrs. Ford would not have him disturbed. Since it was Saturday,
Mabel did not have to go to school, and she amused herself as best
she could in the garden. She wished that Harold would come down,
but she concluded that, until he did, she would occupy herself by
playing marbles. The fact that they hurt her knuckles did not deter
her from making up her mind to keep on till she could do as well as
Harold.
“SHE OCCUPIED HERSELF WITH TRYING TO PLAY
MARBLES.”
She was so absorbed in this employment that she did not hear the
gate open, nor see who had entered, till she heard someone close
beside her, say: “That’s a pretty good shot for a little girl,” and
looking up, she saw a gentleman whose face looked rather familiar.
She jumped to her feet and stood gazing at him, her recollection who
it was gradually returning, and then she cried out: “Why, you weren’t
alive yesterday.”
Captain Evans, for it was he, threw back his head and laughed
heartily in such a very alive way that Mabel could not doubt for a
moment that he was flesh and blood. “I feel very much alive to-day,”
he assured her. “Are you Miss Ford?” he asked.
“No,” Mabel returned, “I’m only the middle one, and I’ll not be
anything else, till Alice is married.”
Captain Evans laughed again. Mabel thought he seemed a very jolly
person.
“You’re really Harold’s father,” she said. “Oh, do hurry in and see
him, for he thought he didn’t have a father any more, and he was so
miserable.”
Captain Evans instantly became grave.
“Did he really believe that? My poor little boy,” and he hurried up the
walk.
Mabel, flying ahead of him, ran up the steps crying joyfully, “Harold!
Harold! Quick!” And she almost fell over him as he appeared at the
head of the stairs.
“He is alive! He is! He is!” she cried. “Come down.”
But Harold needed no second bidding, for he had caught sight of a
beloved figure already mounting the stairs, and, with one shout of
joy, he threw himself into his father’s arms, and was fairly lifted off
his feet in the energy of the greeting that his father gave him.
It was all easily enough explained, when one realizes that Evans is
not a very uncommon name, and had there been time to make a few
more inquiries, the fact would have been brought to light that the
Captain Evans who died at camp was another man, whose son
Harry was a a boy of fifteen, with several sisters and brothers.
Harold and Mabel felt very sorry for these other Evanses, even while
they were so happy over the turn affairs had taken.
“Your aunt is still in no state of health to take charge of a restless
little boy,” Captain Evans told his son, “and so I thought I must get
leave to come on for a few days, and look after my son, for we have
imposed long enough upon the kindness of these good friends.”
Harold’s face fell. “And where am I going?” he asked.
“I don’t know just yet, but I am corresponding with someone in the
country, and I hope to make arrangements to send you to a farm for
the summer. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” replied Harold, “if Mabel could go, too.”
Mabel, listening, took hold of Captain Evans’ fingers and looked into
his face earnestly. “Would it be very far away?” she asked.
“No, only up here in Pennsylvania, a little way.”
“Won’t you please to tell mamma about it?”
“Certainly, I shall be glad to,” returned the captain.
And the outcome was that, not only was the farm found to be the
place for Harold, but for the Ford family, too; with the exception of
Mr. Ford, who was going abroad for the summer.
“It is just the spot for us,” Mrs. Ford declared; “a place where I can
turn the children loose, and know that they are safe.”
Mabel turned a beaming face toward Harold. “Do you hear that?” she
exclaimed. “We’ll be turned loose, and I can go fishing, and I can
climb trees and fences, and play all sorts of boy plays, without
having the girls think I am a tom-boy. Oh, won’t it be fun? And we will
be together all summer, and in the fall—” she looked at Captain
Evans.
“Oh, that’s too far to think about now,” he answered, “but if the war is
over, and if I am spared, I shall be able to make my plans more
readily than I can now.”
“I hope the people will be nice and kind on the farm and will let me
have Don,” said Harold.
“That is the only difficulty,” his father told him. “I’m afraid you cannot
take Don with you, but Drake has promised to take charge of him,
and if all goes well you can have him again when you get back. It is
too bad, I know,” he continued, seeing how disappointed Harold
looked, “but you would have had to leave him anyhow, if you had
gone to your aunt’s, for she would not have received the dog, I
know.”
“Why can’t I take Don to the farm?” inquired Harold, still hoping for
consent.
“Because Mrs. Knight doesn’t allow dogs on the place. She has a
favorite cat, and, at first, was hardly willing to take a boy. For some
reason she doesn’t approve of boys or dogs, but Mrs. Ford seems to
have overcome her objections.”
“Mrs. Knight!” Mabel exclaimed. “Oh, mamma, is it our Mrs. Knight?
Deborah Knight? She was going to move into the country; I
remember. Has she gone? Is it to her house we are going? I do hope
it is.”
“Yes, it is your Deborah Knight,” her mother told her. “I was going to
keep it as a little surprise for you, but it doesn’t matter. As soon as
she is settled on her farm, she is to let us know. When I saw her, and
told her who I was, she immediately remembered you and Harold,
and consented at once to take us all into her home. She has a large
house, and thinks she will be rather lonely there, and seemed really
pleased at the idea of having ‘those two kind and tender children,’ as
she calls you.”
“Is she going to be a farmer herself? How can she, when she is
lame?” Mabel asked.
Mrs. Ford smiled. “No, she has a man and his wife who attend to the
farm for her. They live in a little house on the place. Mrs. Knight has
changed a good many of her plans in order to accommodate us, and
I hope you children will give her no trouble.”
Of course the children protested that they would not; and, indeed,
they were quite as reasonably good as one could expect, and if they
did, once in a while, get into mischief, Mrs. Knight excused it
because of the unfailing respect they showed to Bobby. This
important member of the household seemed to enjoy country life
after he had once become used to the change of residence, and
rested secure from his natural enemies—boys and dogs.
Like the grasshopper, the children played through the summer days.
The fact that Marie Lewis had gone to the White Mountains, and
Ethel Morris was at Bar Harbor, did not, in the least, matter to Mabel,
who would not have exchanged Mrs. Knight’s grove and garden and
barn for all the watering places in the world, and who wanted no
better companion than Harold.
In the midst of summer came the news of peace, and, later on, all
Mrs. Knight’s guests went back to town to see the parades during
the week of the Peace Jubilee celebration. But this did not take place
before Mabel and Harold had a little jubilee of their own, consequent
upon the news that Captain Evans, at Mrs. Ford’s request, would
allow Harold to remain with the Fords for a year, at least, and longer
if his father were still on active duty.
And, will you believe it? Harold, dressed in uniform, marched with his
father’s regiment the day of the military procession. To be sure, he
did not go all the way, but Mabel, up on one of the stands, felt her
heart swell with pride as the regiment swung around the corner of
the Public Buildings, and she saw her little companion bravely trying
to keep step with the soldiers. And when the crowd cheered and
cheered, she thought it must be all for Harold, and she stood up and
waved her handkerchief till her arm was tired.
Harold saw her, and, after the troops had passed in review, his father
sent him to join his friends, and there they sat and looked at the
brave array of infantry, cavalry, artillery and marines.
“When I am grown, I am going to be a soldier,” Harold declared, all
enthusiasm.
Mabel looked sober. That was something a girl couldn’t be, although
she thought it would be fine to march by Harold’s side in such a
grand procession.
But that evening, when the Captain told stories of suffering and
distress, or long marches and weary tramps through rain and sleet,
or under a scorching sun, or the horrors of a battle, Mabel concluded
that, after all, it was rather comforting to know that such things could
not be expected to come into her life, and she felt very sorry for
Harold, who, however, grew only more excited as the dangers were
made more plain.
“But the only heroes are not the men like Dewey and Hobson, and
Schley and Sampson,” Captain Evans said, at last. “I’ve seen the
greatest courage, though of another kind, exhibited in quiet homes
and by those of whom the world never hears. A small duty, which
has no blare of trumpets nor roll of drums to encourage one on to
perform, sometimes requires more real heroism than a charge in
battle.”
Mabel knew that. She knew that everybody must fight something,
and that she, too, could be a soldier, in a quiet way. That to become
weary and to deny oneself, to face danger and temptation, was what
was expected of those who had enlisted under the banner of the
great Captain.
So, she nodded her head gravely, and said, “Yes, I know.”
Harold’s face showed his appreciation, and as if with one voice they
broke out into the martial hymn: “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”
They sang it all through, and then quiet fell upon the group. From a
distance came the roll of drums. A returning regiment going to its
armory. Then all was still again, except for the voice of a cheery little
cricket shrilling out its peaceful song in some quiet corner of the
garden. Mabel snuggled up close to her mother. Don rested his head
lovingly on his little master’s knee. Content filled the hearts of all, for
this evening. The morrow would see Mabel at school, to battle with
more than books; would see Harold, too, fighting his way through his
first Latin lessons.
The year had taught them many things, but most of all, it had taught
them the value of truth and honor and loving forbearance.
 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been
standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MABEL'S
MISHAP ***

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