St. George Rathborne - "The House Boat Boys"

Charles Darwin - "The Power Of Movement In Plants"

William Ewart Gladstone - "On Books and the Housing of Them"

Alfred de Musset - "Child of a Century, v3"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Nature and Human Nature

T >> Thomas Chandler Haliburton >> Nature and Human Nature




Oh, how they all laughed at that! "You ever innocent!" said they.
"Come, that's good; we like that; it's capital! Sam Slick an innocent
boy! Well, that must have been before you were weaned, or talked in
joining hand, at any rate. How simple we are, ain't we?" and they
laughed themselves into a hooping-cough amost.

"Fact, Miss Janet," said I, "I assure you" (for she seemed the most
tickled at the idea of any of them) "I was, indeed. I won't go for to
pretend to say some of it didn't rub off when it became dry, when I
was fishing in the world on my own hook; but, at the time I am
speaking of, when I was twenty-one next grass, I was so guileless, I
couldn't see no harm in anything."

"So I should think," said she; "it's so like you."

"Well, at that time there was a fever, a most horrid typhus fever,
broke out in Slickville, brought there by some shipwrecked emigrants.
There was a Highland family settled in the town the year afore,
consisting of old Mr Duncan Chisholm, his wife, and daughter Flora.
The old people were carried off by the disease, and Flora was left
without friends or means, and the worst of it was, she could hardly
speak a word of intelligible English. Well, Minister took great pity
on her, and spoke to father about taking her into his house, as sister
Sally was just married, and the old lady left without any companion;
and they agreed to take her as one of them, and she was in return to
help mother all she could. So, next day, she came, and took up her
quarters with us. Oh my, Miss Janet, what a beautiful girl she was!
She was as tall as you are, Jessie, and had the same delicate little
feet and hands."

I threw that in on purpose, for women, in a general way, don't like to
hear others spoken of too extravagant, particularly if you praise them
for anything they hain't got; but if you praise them for anything they
pride themselves on, they are satisfied, because it shows you estimate
them also at the right valy, too. It took, for she pushed her foot out
a little, and rocked it up and down slowly, as if she was rather proud
of it.

"Her hair was a rich auburn, not red (I don't like that at all, for it
is like a lucifer-match, apt to go off into a flame spontinaciously
sometimes), but a golden colour, and lots of it too, just about as
much as she could cleverly manage; eyes like diamonds; complexion, red
and white roses; and teeth, not quite so regular as yours, Miss, but
as white as them; and lips--lick!--they reminded one of a curl of rich
rose-leaves, when the bud first begins to swell and spread out with a
sort of peachy bloom on them, ripe, rich, and chock full of kisses."

"Oh, the poor ignorant boy!" said Janet, "you didn't know nothing, did
you?"

"Well, I didn't," sais I, "I was as innocent as a child; but nobody is
so ignorant as not to know a splendiferous gall when he sees her," and
I made a motion of my head to her, as much, as to say, "Put that cap
on, for it just fits you."

"My sakes, what a neck she had! not too long and thin, for that looks
goosey; nor too short and thick, for that gives a clumsy appearance to
the figure; but betwixt and between, and perfection always lies there,
just midway between extremes. But her bust--oh! the like never was
seen in Slickville, for the ladies there, in a gineral way, have no--"

"Well, well," said Jessie, a little snappish, for praisin' one gall to
another ain't the shortest way to win their regard, "go on with your
story of Gaelic."

"And her waist, Jessie, was the most beautiful thing, next to your'n,
I ever see. It was as round as an apple, and anything that is round,
you know, is larger than it looks, and I wondered how much it would
measure. I never see such an innocent girl as she was. Brought up to
home, and in the country, like me, she knew no more about the ways of
the world than I did. She was a mere child, as I was; she was only
nineteen years old, and neither of us knew anything of society rules.
One day I asked her to let me measure her waist with my arm, and I
did, and then she measured mine with her'n, and we had a great dispute
which was the largest, and we tried several times before we
ascertained there was only an inch difference between us. I never was
so glad in my life as when she came to stay with us; she was so
good-natured, and so cheerful, and so innocent, it was quite charming.

"Father took a wonderful shindy to her, for even old men can't help
liking beauty. But, somehow, I don't think mother did; and it appears
to me now, in looking back upon it, that she was afraid I should like
her too much. I consaited she watched us out of the corner of her
glasses, and had her ears open to hear what we said; but p'raps it was
only my vanity, for I don't know nothin' about the working of a
woman's heart even now. I am only a bachelor yet, and how in the world
should I know anything more about any lady than what I knew about poor
Flora? In the ways of women I am still as innocent as a child; I do
believe that they could persuade me that the moon is nothin' but an
eight-day clock with an illuminated face. I ain't vain, I assure you,
and never brag of what I don't know, and I must say, I don't even
pretend to understand them."

"Well, I never!" said Jessie.

"Nor I," said Janet.

"Did you ever, now!" said Catherine. "Oh dear, how soft you are, ain't
you?"

"Always was, ladies," said I, "and am still as soft as dough. Father
was very kind to her, but he was old and impatient, and a little hard
of hearing, and he couldn't half the time understand her. One day she
came in with a message from neighbour Dearborne, and sais she,

"'Father--'

"'Colonel, if you please, dear,' said mother, 'he is not your father;'
and the old lady seemed as if she didn't half fancy any body calling
him that but her own children. Whether that is natural or not, Miss
Jessie," said I, "I don't know, for how can I tell what women thinks?"

"Oh, of course not," said Janet, "you are not waywise, and so artless;
you don't know, of course!"

"Exactly," sais I; "but I thought mother spoke kinder cross to her,
and it confused the gall.

"Says Flora, 'Colonel Slick, Mr Dearborne says--says--' Well, she
couldn't get the rest out; she couldn't find the English. 'Mr
Dearborne says--'

"'Well, what the devil does he say?' said father, stampin' his foot,
out of all patience with her.

"It frightened Flora, and off she went out of the room crying like
anything.

"'That girl talks worse and worse,' said mother.

"'Well, I won't say that,' says father, a little mollified, 'for she
can't talk at all, so there is no worse about it. I am sorry though I
scared her. I wish somebody would teach her English.'

"'I will,' sais I, 'father, and she shall teach me Gaelic in return.'

"'Indeed you shan't,' sais mother; 'you have got something better to
do than larning her; and as for Gaelic I can't bear it. It's a horrid
outlandish language, and of no earthly use whatever under the blessed
sun. It's worse than Indian.'

"'Do, Sam,' said father; 'it's an act of kindness, and she is an
orphan, and besides, Gaelic may be of great use to you in life. I like
Gaelic myself; we had some brave Jacobite Highland soldiers in our
army in the war that did great service, but unfortunately nobody could
understand them. And as for orphans, when I think how many fatherless
children we made for the British--'

"'You might have been better employed,' said mother, but he didn't
hear her, and went right on.

"'I have a kindly feelin' towards them. She is a beautiful girl that.'

"'If it warn't for her carrotty hair and freckled face,' said mother,
looking at me, 'she wouldn't be so awful ugly after all, would she?'

"'Yes, Sam,' sais father, 'teach her English for heaven's sake; but
mind, she must give you lessons in Gaelic. Languages is a great
thing.'

"'It's great nonsense,' said mother, raisin' her voice.

"'It's my orders,' said father, holding up his head and standing
erect. 'It's my orders, marm, and they must be obeyed;' and he walked
out of the room as stiff as a ramrod, and as grand as a Turk.

"'Sam,' sais mother, when we was alone, 'let the gall be; the less she
talks the more she'll work. Do you understand, my dear?'

"'That's just my idea, mother,' sais I.

"'Then you won't do no such nonsense, will you, Sammy?'

"'Oh no!' sais I, 'I'll just go through the form now and then to
please father, but that's all. Who the plague wants Gaelic? If all the
Highlands of Scotland were put into a heap, and then multiplied by
three, they wouldn't be half as big as the White Mountains, would
they, marm? They are just nothin' on the map, and high hills, like
high folks, are plaguy apt to have barren heads.'

"'Sam,' said she, a pattin' of me on the cheek, 'you have twice as
much sense as your father has after all. You take after me.'

"I was so simple, I didn't know what to do. So I said yes to mother
and yes to father; for I knew I must honour and obey my parents, so I
thought I would please both. I made up my mind I wouldn't get books to
learn Gaelic or teach English, but do it by talking, and that I
wouldn't mind father seein' me, but I'd keep a bright look out for the
old lady."

"Oh dear! how innocent that was, warn't it?" said they.

"Well, it was," said I; "I didn't know no better then, and I don't
now; and what's more, I think I would do the same agin, if it was to
do over once more."

"I have no doubt you would," said Janet.

"Well, I took every opportunity when mother was not by to learn words.
I would touch her hand and say, 'What is that?' And she would say,
'Làuch,' and her arm, her head, and her cheek, and she would tell me
the names; and her eyes, her nose, and her chin, and so on; and then I
would touch her lips, and say, 'What's them?' And she'd say.
'Bhileau?' And then I'd kiss her, and say, 'What's that?' And she'd
say. 'Pog.' But she was so artless, and so was I; we didn't know
that's not usual unless people are courtin; for we hadn't seen
anything of the world then.

"Well, I used to go over that lesson every time I got a chance, and
soon got it all by heart but that word Pog (kiss), which I never could
remember. She said I was very stupid, and I must say it over and over
again till I recollected it. Well, it was astonishing how quick she
picked up English, and what progress I made in Gaelic; and if it
hadn't been for mother, who hated the language like pyson, I do
believe I should soon have mastered it so as to speak it as well as
you do. But she took every opportunity she could to keep us apart, and
whenever I went into the room where Flora was spinning, or ironing,
she would either follow and take a chair, and sit me out, or send me
away of an errand, or tell me to go and talk to father, who was all
alone in the parlour, and seemed kinder dull. I never saw a person
take such a dislike to the language as she did; and she didn't seem to
like poor Flora either, for no other reason as I could see under the
light of the livin' sun, but because she spoke it; for it was
impossible not to love her--she was so beautiful, so artless, and so
interesting, and so innocent. But so it was.

"Poor thing! I pitied her. The old people couldn't make out half she
said, and mother wouldn't allow me, who was the only person she could
talk to, to have any conversation with her if she could help it. It is
a bad thing to distrust young people, it makes them artful at last;
and I really believe it had that effect on me to a certain extent. The
unfortunate girl often had to set up late ironing, or something or
another. And if you will believe it now, mother never would let me sit
up with her to keep her company and talk to her; but before she went
to bed herself, always saw me off to my own room. Well, it's easy to
make people go to bed, but it ain't just quite so easy to make them
stay there. So when I used to hear the old lady get fairly into hers,
for my room was next to father's, though we went by different stairs
to them, I used to go down in my stocking feet, and keep her company;
for I pitied her from my heart. And then we would sit in the corner of
the fire-place and talk Gaelic half the night. And you can't think how
pleasant it was. You laugh, Miss Janet, but it really was delightful;
they were the happiest hours I almost ever spent."

"Oh, I don't doubt it," she said, "of course they were."

"If you think so, Miss," said I, "p'raps you would finish the lessons
with me this evening, if you have nothing particular to do."

"Thank you, Sir," she said, laughing like anything. "I can speak
English sufficient for my purpose, and I agree with your mother,
Gaelic in this country is of no sort of use whatever; at least I am so
artless and unsophisticated as to think so. But go on, Sir."

"Well, mother two or three times came as near as possible catching me,
for she was awful afraid of lights and fires, she said, and couldn't
sleep sound if the coals weren't covered up with ashes, the hearth
swept, and the broom put into a tub of water, and she used to get up
and pop into the room very sudden; and though she warn't very light of
foot, we used to be too busy repeating words to keep watch as we
ought."

"What an artless couple," said Janet; "well I never! how you can have
the face to pretend so, I don't know! Well, you do beat all!'

"A suspicious parent," sais I, "Miss, as I said before, makes an
artful child. I never knew what guile was before that. Well, one
night; oh dear, it makes my heart ache to think of it, it was the last
we ever spent together. Flora was starching muslins, mother had seen
me off to my room, and then went to hers, when down I crept in my
stockin feet as usual, puts a chair into the chimney corner, and we
sat down and repeated our lessons. When we came to the word Pog
(kiss), I always used to forget it; and it's very odd, for it's the
most beautiful one in the language. We soon lost all caution, and it
sounded so loud and sharp it started mother; and before we knew where
we were, we heard her enter the parlour which was next to us. In an
instant I was off and behind the entry door, and Flora was up and at
work. Just then the old lady came in as softly as possible, and stood
and surveyed the room all round. I could see her through the crack of
the door, she actually seemed disappointed at not finding me there.

"'What noise was that I heard, Flora?' she said, speakin' as mild as
if she was actilly afraid to wake the cat up.

"Flora lifted the centre of the muslin she was starching with one
hand, and makin' a hollow under it in the palm of the other, she held
it close up to the old woman's face, and clapped it; and it made the
very identical sound of the smack she had heard, and the dear child
repeated it in quick succession several times. The old lady jumped
back the matter of a foot or more, she positively looked skared, as if
the old gentleman would think somebody was a kissin' of her.

"Oh dear, I thought I should have teeheed right out. She seemed
utterly confounded, and Flora looked, as she was, the dear critter, so
artless and innocent! It dumbfoundered her completely. Still she
warn't quite satisfied.

"'What's this chair doing so far in the chimbley corner?' said she.

"How glad I was there warn't two there. The fact is, we never used but
one, we was quite young, and it was always big enough for us both.

"Flora talked Gaelic as fast as hail, slipt off her shoes, sat down on
it, put her feet to the fire, folded her arms across her bosom, laid
her head back and looked so sweet and so winnin' into mother's face,
and said, 'cha n'eil Beurl' (I have no English), and then proceeded in
Gaelic--

"'If you hadn't sat in that place yourself, when you was young, I
guess you wouldn't be so awful scared at it, you old goose you.'

"I thought I never saw her look so lovely. Mother was not quite
persuaded she was wrong after all. She looked all round agin, as if
she was sure I was there, and then came towards the door where I was,
so I sloped up-stairs like a shadow on the wall, and into bed in no
time; but she followed up and came close to me, and holdin the candle
in my face, said:

"'Sam, are you asleep?'

"Well, I didn't answer.

"'Sam,' said she, 'why don't you speak?' and she shook me.

"'Hullo,' sais I, pretendin' to wake up, 'what's the matter! have I
overslept myself? is it time to get up?' and I put out my arm to rub
my eyes, and lo and behold I exposed my coat sleeve.

"'No, Sam,' said she, 'you couldn't oversleep yourself, for you
haven't slept at all, you ain't even ondressed.'

"'Ain't I,' said I, 'are you sure?'

"'Why look here,' said she, throwin' down the clothes and pullin' my
coat over my head till she nearly strangled me.

"'Well, I shouldn't wonder if I hadn't stripped,' sais I. 'When a
feller is so peskilly sleepy as I be, I suppose he is glad to turn in
any way.'

"She never spoke another word, but I saw a storm was brewin, and I
heard her mutter to herself, 'Creation! what a spot of work! I'll have
no teaching of 'mother tongue' here.' Next morning she sent me to
Boston of an errand, and when I returned, two days after, Flora was
gone to live with sister Sally. I have never forgiven myself for that
folly; but really it all came of our being so artless and so innocent.
There was no craft in either of us. She forgot to remove the chair
from the chimbley corner, poor simple-minded thing, and I forgot to
keep my coat sleeve covered. Yes, yes, it all came of our being too
innocent; but that's the way, ladies, I learned Gaelic."



CHAPTER VI.

THE WOUNDS OF THE HEART.


When I took leave of the family I returned to the room where I had
left Peter and the doctor, but they had both retired. And as my
chamber adjoined it, I sat by the fire, lighted a cigar, and fell into
one of my rambling meditations.

Here, said I to myself, is another phase of life. Peter is at once a
Highlander, a Canadian, a trapper, a backwoodsman, and a coaster. His
daughters are half Scotch and half Indian, and have many of the
peculiarities of both races. There is even between these sisters a
wide difference in intellect, appearance, and innate refinement. The
doctor has apparently abandoned his profession for the study of
nature, and quit the busy haunts of men for the solitude of the
forest. He seems to think and act differently from any one else in the
country. Here too we have had Cutler, who is a scholar and a skilful
navigator, filling the berth of a master of a fishing craft. He began
life with nothing but good principles and good spirits, and is now
about entering on a career, which in a few years will lead to a great
fortune. He is as much out of place where he is, as a salmon would be
in a horse pond. And here am I, Squire, your humble servant, Sam Slick
the Clockmaker, not an eccentric man, I hope, for I detest them, they
are either mad, or wish to be thought so, because madness they suppose
to be an evidence of genius; but a specimen of a class not uncommon in
the States, though no other country in the world but Yankeedoodledum
produces it.

This is a combination these colonies often exhibit, and what a fool a
man must be when character is written in such large print, if he can't
read it even as he travels on horseback.

Of all the party assembled here to-night, the Scotch lasses alone, who
came in during the evening, are what you call everyday galls. They are
strong, hearty, intelligent, and good-natured, full of fun and
industry, can milk, churn, make butter and cheese, card, spin, and
weave, and will make capital wives for farmers of their own station in
life. As such, they are favourable representatives of their class, and
to my mind, far, far above those that look down upon them, who ape,
but can't copy, and have the folly, because they sail in the wake of
larger craft, to suppose they can be mistaken for anything else than
tenders. Putting three masts into a coaster may make her an object of
ridicule, but can never give her the appearance of a ship. They know
this in England, they have got to learn it yet in the Provinces.

Well, this miscellaneous collection of people affords a wide field for
speculation. Jessie is a remarkable woman, I must ask the doctor about
her history. I see there is a depth of feeling about her, a simplicity
of character, a singular sensitiveness, and a shade of melancholy. Is
it constitutional, or does it arise from her peculiar position? I
wonder how she reasons, and what she thinks, and how she would talk,
if she would say what she thinks. Has she ability to build up a theory
of her own, or does she, like half the women in the world, only think
of a thing as it occurs? Does she live in instances or in
generalities, I'll draw her out and see. Every order, where there are
orders, and every class (and no place is without them where women
are), have a way of judging in common with their order or class. What
is her station I wonder in her own opinion? What are her expectations?
What are her notions of wedlock? All girls regard marriage as an
enviable lot, or a necessary evil. If they tell us they don't, it's
because the right man hante come. And therefore I never mind what they
say on this subject. I have no doubt they mean it; but they don't know
what they are a talking about.

You, Squire, may go into a ball-room, where there are two hundred
women. One hundred and ninety-nine of them you will pass with as much
indifference as one hundred and ninety-nine pullets; but the two
hundredth irresistibly draws you to her. There are one hundred
handsomer, and ninety-nine cleverer ones present; but she alone has
the magnet that attracts you. Now, what is that magnet? Is it her
manner that charms? is it her voice that strikes on one of those
thousand and one chords of your nervous system, and makes it vibrate,
as sound does hollow glass? Or do her eyes affect your gizzard, so
that you have no time to chew the cud of reflection, and no
opportunity for your head to judge how you can digest the notions they
have put into it? Or is it animal magnetism, or what the plague is it?

You are strangely affected; nobody else in the room is, and everybody
wonders at you. But so it is. It's an even chance if you don't
perpetrate matrimony. Well, that's a thing that sharpens the eyesight,
and will remove a cateract quicker than an oculist can, to save his
soul alive. It metamorphoses an angel into a woman, and it's plaguey
lucky if the process don't go on and change her into something else.

After I got so far in my meditations, I lit another cigar, and took
out my watch to look at the time. "My eyes," sais I, "if it tante past
one o'clock at night. Howsomever, it ain't often I get a chance to be
alone, and I will finish this here weed, at any rate." Arter which I
turned in. The following morning I did not rise as early as usual, for
it's a great secret for a man never to be in the way, especially in a
house like Peter's, where his daughters had, in course, a good deal to
see to themselves. So I thought I'd turn over and take another snoose;
and do you know, Squire, that is always a dreamy one, and if your mind
ain't worried, or your digestion askew, it's more nor probable you
will have pleasant ones.

When I went into the keeping-room, I found Jessie and her sister
there, the table set, and everything prepared for me.

"Mr Slick," said the elder one, "your breakfast is ready."

"But where is your father?" said I, "and Doctor Ovey?"

"Oh, they have gone to the next harbour, Sir, to see a man who is very
ill there. The doctor left a message for you, he said he wanted to see
you again very much, and hoped to find you here on his return, which
will be about four o'clock in the afternoon. He desired me to say, if
you sailed before he got back, he hoped you would leave word what port
he would find you in, as he would follow you."

"Oh," said I, "we shall not go before to-morrow, at the earliest, so
he will be in very good time. But who in the world is Doctor Ovey? He
is the most singular man I ever met. He is very eccentric; ain't he?"

"I don't know who he is," she replied. "Father agrees with you. He
says he talks sometimes as if he was daft, but that, I believe, is
only because he is so learned. He has a house a way back in the
forest, where he lives occasionally; but the greater part of the year
he wanders about the woods, and camps out like--"

She hesitated a moment, and then brought out the reluctant word: "an
Indian. He knows the name of every plant and flower in the country,
and their uses; and the nature of every root, or bark, or leaf that
ever was; and then he knows all the ores, and coal mines, and
everything of that kind. He is a great hand for stuffing birds and
animals, and has some of every kind there is in the province. As for
butterflies, beetles, and those sort of things, he will chase them
like a child all day. His house is a regular--. I don't recollect the
word in English; in Gaelic it is 'tigh neonachais.'"