Mothering on Perilous. Lucy S. Furman
began: "The month before paw got kilt last spring, the officers was a-watching him so clost he was afeared to sell any liquor round about home, so me and him we tuck a barrel acrost the mountains to Virginia, where there's mines, and it would fetch a good price. We loaded fodder on top. The going was awful sorry, and the steers was three days at it. When I got there, I seed men walking round with their hats afire, and went down to the railroad-train and rid on the engine."
"What did it look like?" demanded Philip, breathlessly.
"Sort of like a saw-mill sot up on wheels."
"I'd sooner die as not to see one!" sighed Philip.
"I aim to see one when I'm a perfessor," remarked Taulbee.
"I bet I see a hundred when I go to be a soldier," said Nucky.
"I'd ruther see a railroad-train as to eat!" declared Geordie, and this appeared to be the prevailing sentiment, except with Keats, who said dismally that he didn't crave to see anything that would take him fifty mile' from Nervesty and home. After reflection, Hen agreed with him.
"Listen at them two homesicks!" remarked Philip, cuttingly.
Geordie folded his fat hands. "Now you might tell about your paw gettin' kilt," he said.
Killis said that the officers had been spying around on his "paw" a long time for "stilling" liquor, but that he was too smart for them, and moved the still about, and made liquor by night, and also frightened them by sending word to the marshal he would never be taken alive. That one night they had just "drug" the still up to a new place in the hollow, and he and his father and uncles were sitting around the fire, when there was a yell, and the marshal and a deputy burst in, shooting as they came. That his uncles returned the fire, but before his father could do so, he fell, with a dreadful wound through the stomach. That he himself, when he saw his father fall, snatched a hunting-knife and cut the marshal in the forearm with it as he was running out.
The last item he told without bragging, and quite as a matter of course. The other boys gave him looks of approval and envy, all save Nucky. "By Heck, I wouldn't have stopped with his arm," he declared.
"I haint," replied Killis, quietly.
Evidently I have two heroes on my hands!
Saturday Night.
Moses and Zachariah, two more runaways, were returned this morning, and this afternoon arrived my twelfth boy—the last, since they cannot sleep more than three in a bed! Jason is a beautiful child of seven, very funny in his little long trousers. I wanted him at sight, but hesitated on account of his youth. When I heard from his father, however, that he had no mother now, I took him at once. Before leaving, Mr. Wyatt said that Jason was right pyeert about learning, and, he added candidly, about meanness too, and he hoped I would not spar' the rod. The rod indeed—I threw a protecting arm around the angelic-looking child at the word.
Indeed, not a few of the parents have warned me against wild and warlike tendencies in their offspring—Mr. Marrs, for instance, said that Nucky was a master scholar when he could leave off fighting long enough to study his books, and others have admonished me to hold a tight rein. Their warnings are needless—everything so far has gone with surprising smoothness, confirming my theory that in an atmosphere of love and gentleness the martial traits will be atrophied.
To-day things were more tumultuous, Saturday being combined wash-and-cleaning-day at the school, and a hard time for all hands. Ten of the girls came over from the big house to our back yard, and there, assisted by one of my boys, who kept up fires under the big kettles and carried water from the well, did the washing for the entire school; while in every building on the place cleaning, scrubbing and window-washing were in full blast. I was sorry to have to punish little Hen to-night for calling it a "hell of a day."
IV
WAR, NOT PEACE
Monday Noon.
Yesterday morning I accompanied my boys to Sunday-school in the village. They showed a good deal of restlessness before the service was over—not surprising considering that only two had ever heard of a Sunday-school before.
After dinner I undertook to cheer and entertain them by reading Robinson Crusoe, out in our yard, beginning in the thick of the story, where the hero is in sight of his island. What was my chagrin to see one pair after another of bright, roving eyes dull and close, one head after another roll over in the grass, Nucky Marrs holding out longest, and murmuring wearily, as his head settled back against a tree, "Didn't he never get into no fights, or kill nobody?"
Discouraged, I sat for a long while gazing upon the twelve sleepers, and wondering what if anything would be the proper literary milk for my babes.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.