Bildungsromans; Communities -- Juvenile fiction; First loves -- Juvenile fiction; Pittsburgh (Pa.) -- History -- Juvenile fiction
Norah took her out occasionally, "for," she said to Barbe, "it isn't
just right to make an old woman of her. They love the fun when they're
young, and that's natural, an' it's a sin to crowd them out of it."
Barbe was very domestic. Her house, her little boy, her sewing and
spinning, filled up all her time. The child was a marvel to her. He
was so bright and active, so pretty and merry, but altogether
different from Daffodil.
Once when they had talked over great-grandfather's bequest, Bernard
had said, "It seems almost a pity that Dilly had not been the boy,
with that great estate to come to him. A man can do so much more in a
business way than a woman. Not but that the boy will be cared for,
father's heart is set on him. And I shall see that he is well provided
for if I live."
Bernard Carrick was deeply interested in the welfare and advancement
of the town, and found much work to do outside of the farm that his
father-in-law attended to, indeed, had the greater interest in. Sandy
Carrick had a great outlying tract. Grain of all kinds, especially
wheat, grew for the mere planting in the virgin soil. And the staple
product of the time was whiskey. Nearly every farmer had a still. The
morality of drinking was not called in question, and the better class
of people were temperate. It was the great thing they could exchange
for their needs. They sent it over the mountains to Kentucky and Ohio.
They built rough sort of tugs, and freighted it through the Ohio to
the Mississippi, disposing of it anywhere along the route. The mouth
of the great river was still in the hands of the Spanish.
It must be confessed, since the birth of Felix, Barbe had shared her
motherhood a good deal with Norah, who laid claim largely to Daffodil.
They wandered through the woods together, for the child peopled them
with the old stories that Norah's faith made so real. She stopped for
her at school, and brought her home to supper. Grandad at times tried
to tease her. Strangely enough she was never jealous, even of her
father's love for the little brother. And she said to grandad:
"You may love him all you like. He is a boy. Men ought to love boys.
And he is named after you, though I don't like the name."
"Oh, you don't! One grandfather is as good as the other, and I'm
nearer of kin. It's a good old Scotch name, an' they're good as the
French any day."
"I don't like Sandy."
"And I don't like Felix. But I put up with it. You won't make a
Frenchman out of him. I'll see to that;" and he gave a funny wink out
of his eye.
"And if some day he should want to go to France?"
"I'll see that he doesn't. This place will be big enough and good
enough for him. There's fortunes to be made here. I'm going to leave
him mine, an' I'll bet you a gallon of whiskey it'll be worth more
than your wild land."
"Well, I shan't care!" archly, and with laughing eyes. "I like the
woods and the birds and the squirrels. Some day I'll have a house
built, and I'll take Norah to live with me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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