LITMIR.BIZ

      Published by Good Press, 2021

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066174156

Table of Contents

       CHIQUITA.

       CHAPTER I.

       CHAPTER II.

       CHAPTER III.

       CHAPTER IV.

       CHAPTER V.

       CHAPTER VI.

       CHAPTER VII.

       CHAPTER VIII.

       CHAPTER IX.

       CHAPTER X.

       CHAPTER XI.

       CHAPTER XII.

       CHAPTER XIII.

       CHAPTER XIV.

       CHAPTER XV.

       CHAPTER XVI.

       CHAPTER XVII.

CHIQUITA.

       Table of Contents

CHAPTER I.

       Table of Contents

      A BOZRAH BORNIN'.

      A tallow candle shed its sickly and flickering light in the front room of an ancient farm house, as Jack Sheppard announced his arrival on earth at four o'clock on a Friday morning. He arrived in a snowstorm, and it was a very select gathering of some of old Bozrah's prominent citizens who greeted his entry into the world. There was old Doctor Pettingill, with square-rimmed, blue-glass spectacles; Grandma Paisley, who didn't care for avoirdupois, just so it was a boy; Aunt Diantha, with portentous air and red mittens, while in the kitchen, dozing by the big fireplace, was Uncle Zebedee, who had driven over from Pudden Hollow the evening before to learn the news and "set up" all night in order to be of assistance in case of necessity.

      The whole Deerfield valley was interested, and it made no difference if the snow did play tag up and down the necks and on the faces of all Bozrah as they brought paregoric, feather pillows, goody-goodies and all the useful uselessnesses that each and every one had kept for years and years awaiting a possible occasion. There was an old brass warming-pan that Deacon Baxter used to warm the bed for Governor Winthrop, and a hot water jug which Great-grandma Lathrop averred warmed the feet of every one of her seventeen "darters and grand-darters." There was also a quilt made of silk patches, each patch taken from a dress that some colonial dame had worn when she danced the stately minuet at a great function in Boston or Albany.

      All these good people had a successful way of bringing up children in the paths of self-reliance, respect, thrift, endurance and honesty which made stalwart, orthodox patriots.

      The Sheppards were an old English family who settled in New England late in the seventeenth century—three brothers, one of which, according to ye olden tyme records, planted the elm trees in front of the meetyngehouse on Dorchester hill; these trees, at the age of sixty or seventy years, being cut down by the British during the Revolutionary War. The descendants of the three brothers were thrifty men, large of physique and of great executive ability, the women the loveliest of the colonies—families of sterling integrity, wealth and esteem.

      "Thad" Sheppard, Jack's father, was in some respects an exception, he being a man of the world, of the wild, dangerous class, handsome and talented, but lacking the balance wheel which magnetic temperaments usually require. He was admired by both men and women to the point of the danger line, for his schemes wrecked many a fortune and family, ultimately losing him the confidence of all. "Thad" loved one of the beautiful daughters of the Deerfield valley, and, despite the protestations of friends and relatives, she married him, claiming she could do what none thus far had been able to accomplish—reform him. "Thad's" habits had not been curbed. Life was too gay for thoughts of the sombre hereafter, and the sedate, sober counsel of the old men was scorned, but their predictions were to be most cruelly fulfilled. Yet there was that confiding love, that desire to accomplish miracles, which swayed the fair young girl of the Deerfield hills to sacrifice herself in the hope of reform. Oh, what a waste of time for any woman! What debauchery of intellect, what a prostitution of a fair and beautiful life; utter folly, deliberate social suicide, with its months and years of anguish and debasement for the mere gratification of an impulse! To be sure, there are some moments, comprising even days or months, when happiness reigns, but do these few hours, which grow farther apart, shorter and shorter, as time wears away, compensate for the millions of silent, expectant moments during which the uncomplaining wife watches for that unerring expression which never deceives her? Is there any excuse a mother can give her daughter, budding into womanhood, for bringing her into the world to face disgrace, possibly crime? Does a son, born of such parents, have that respect and confidence toward father and mother that he should?

      Sue Paisley lived on that beautiful farm where Jack was born. She was on a visit while "Thad" attended important business in the great cotton markets of the South. She loved the brook that gurgled and splashed along its course. Nodding bluebells coquetted with the tiny wave crests, while the grass along the bank waved little blades in defiance at the roar of its voice. Each summer Sue sang its praises to the tinkle of the whetstone as the farm hand sharpened his scythe, tink, tink, tinkety tink. When she married, she left the long rows of maple trees, the great red barn, the stuffy parlor, the spare room with its high feather bed and Dutch clock; the big round dining table with tilting top, blue and white chinaware, and the long well sweep, to become hostess in the more pretentious surroundings of a small city on the Connecticut, living long enough to realize how futile were her efforts to stay the temptations which beset "Thad" on every hand. Misfortune overtook all his financial investments, and, as one enterprise followed another in the maelstrom of speculation, Sue's life ebbed away, leaving Jack and his sisters to

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