FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99  
100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   >>   >|  
und each other, and embraced and kissed, and the daughter said, "Good-by t' ye now, mother. Wish me well, an' ye'll see that I get it,--supplement an' all," she added slyly. And the mother said, "Good luck t' ye, child; an' it's luck to them that gets ye." That was the way quarrels always ended between Isabella McDonald and her oldest daughter. The oldest daughter, and yet only just turned of twenty; and there were eight children younger than she, and one older. This is the way among the Scotch farming-folk in Prince Edward Island. Children come tumbling into the world like rabbits in a pen, and have to scramble for a living almost as soon and as hard as the rabbits. It is a narrow life they lead, and full of hardships and deprivations, but it has its compensations. Sturdy virtues in sturdy bodies come of it,--the sort of virtue made by the straitest Calvinism, and the sort of body made out of oatmeal and milk. One might do much worse than inherit both. It seemed but a few years ago that John McDonald had wooed and won Isabella McIntosh,--wooed her with difficulty in the bosom of her family of six brothers and five sisters, and won her triumphantly in spite of the open and contemptuous opposition of one of the five sisters. For John himself was one of seven in his father's home, and whoever married John must go there to live, to be only a daughter in a mother-in-law's house, and take a daughter's share of the brunt of everything. "And nothing to be got except a living, and it was a poor living the McDonald farm gave beside the McIntosh," the McIntosh sisters said. And, moreover: "The saint did not live that could get on with John McDonald's mother. That was what had made him the silent fellow he was, always being told by his mother to hold his tongue and have done speaking; and a fine pepper-pot there'd be when Isabella's hasty tongue and temper were flung into that batch!" There was no gainsaying all this. Nevertheless, Isabella married John, went home with him into his father's house, put her shoulder against her spoke in the family wheel, and did her best. And when, ten years later, as reward of her affectionate trust and patience, she found herself sole mistress of the McDonald farm, she did not feel herself ill paid. The old father and mother were dead, two sisters had died and two had married, and the two sons had gone to the States to seek better fortunes than were to be made on Prince Edward Island. John, a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99  
100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

mother

 

McDonald

 
daughter
 

Isabella

 

sisters

 

married

 
living
 
father
 

McIntosh

 
Edward

Island

 
rabbits
 

tongue

 

family

 

Prince

 

oldest

 

mistress

 
gainsaying
 

States

 
fortunes

Nevertheless

 

reward

 

pepper

 

speaking

 

affectionate

 

temper

 

patience

 

shoulder

 

silent

 
fellow

oatmeal
 

children

 

younger

 

twenty

 

turned

 
Scotch
 

scramble

 

tumbling

 
farming
 
Children

kissed

 

embraced

 

quarrels

 

supplement

 

inherit

 

contemptuous

 

opposition

 

triumphantly

 

brothers

 

difficulty