Project Gutenberg's The Pretty Sister Of Jose, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Pretty Sister Of Jose
1889

Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett

Release Date: June 8, 2008 [EBook #25726]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRETTY SISTER OF JOSE ***

Produced by David Widger

THE PRETTY SISTER OF JOSE

By Frances Hodgson Burnett

Charles Scribner's Sons - 1889

THE PRETTY SISTER OF JOSE

CHAPTER I.

It had taken him a long time, and it had cost him--Jose--much hard
labor, to prepare for his aged grandmother and Pepita the tiny home
outside Madrid, to which he at last brought them in great triumph one
hot summer's day, when the very vine-leaves and orange-trees themselves
were dusty. It had been a great undertaking for him in the first
place, for he was a slow fellow--Jose; slow as he was dull and kind and
faithful to Pepita and the grandmother. He had a body as big as an ox,
and a heart as big as his body, but he was slow and dull in everything
but one thing--that was his carpenter work. He was well enough at that,
and more than well enough, for he had always had a fancy and a knack for
it from the time when as a boy he had worked in his uncle's vineyards
and tilled his fields and fed his beasts. His uncle had been counted a
rich man among his neighbors, but when his sister and her husband died
and left the two children, Jose and Pepita, penniless, and with no
protector save himself and their grandmother, already an old woman, it
was upon the grandmother that the burden fell, for he did nothing for
them except to give them, grudgingly now and then, a few poor vegetables
or a little fallen fruit. It is true that when Jose was old enough to
labor in the fields he gave him work to do, but he paid him ill and
treated him ill also, giving him poor food and harsh words, and often
enough blows the poor lad did not deserve. So it came about that while
he was at his work Jose fell into the way of planning to escape from all
this, and make another home for himself and his pretty child-sister
and the old woman. He knew there was only one way to do it: if he could
carry hi