Amanda Douglas - A Little Girl in Old Pittsburg

"Oh, no. Party spirit runs high. A man who has never seen anything beyond an Indian skirmish thinks he could set the country on its feet by any wild plan. And here we have so many shades of opinion. Father's amuse me; I wonder how he and great-grandfather keep such amicable friends!"

"Oh, he has no one nearby to play a game of piquet with him. And the Duvernay temper is much milder. But you must be tired. Let us fix the fire for the night."

"Tell me when I have it right. I am not quite sure, though I have looked after many a camp fire. And now I am here to ease you up somewhat, and look out for you. Your father has been very good through these troublous times, and I will see that he need not be ashamed of his son."

"Oh," she cried with deep emotion, "you make me very happy. So much of our lives are yet to come."

There followed several pleasant days. The snow ran off and another came and vanished.

There was little doing. Some people had looms in their houses and were weaving goods of various rather common kinds and many of the women were kept busy spinning thread and woolen yarns for cloth. Money was scarce, most of the trade was carried on by barter.

"It has the making of a magnificent city," Bernard Carrick said, surveying its many fine points. "From here you will go straight over to the Mississippi. Some day we shall have both sides. What have the French been about to let such a splendid opportunity slip through their hands."

"Don't stir up a hornet's nest at home," counseled the elder Carrick.

"Oh, you mean great-grandfather! He sees the mistakes and shortsightedness, and while he would have been proud enough to live here under French rule, he understands some aspects at the old home better than we, the extravagance of the Court, the corruption of society, and," laughing, "he is hardly as hot for France as you are for England. After all, what so much has been done for you or Scotland or Ireland for that matter?"

"This will be fought all over again. You will see. The country will be broken up into little provinces. Yankee and Virginian will never agree; Catholic and Puritan are bound to fight each other."

"Hardly! They fought together for the great cause and they'll hardly turn their swords on each other. I've been from New York to Yorktown. And now the great work is for every man to improve his own holding, his own town."

Pittsburg then had enjoyed or hated successive rulers. Great Britain, then France, Great Britain again, Virginia and Pennsylvania. It had been a strategic point worth holding, but no one then had dreamed of its later renown.

Bernard Carrick did not seem to make much headway with his little daughter. She had been startled with his rudeness, though he was gentle enough now. But what with her mother, grandad, and Norah, who was the most charming of stepmothers, she felt he had enough care and attention. She was not going to sue for any favors.

"Daffodil," he said one pleasant day when they had been rambling round the old Block House, not so very old then, though it could count on over twenty years, "Daffodil, why can't you love me as well as you love great-grandfather. I think you scarcely love me at all."

She kicked some gravelly stones out of her path and looked over the river. It was all so beautiful then, no smoke to obscure it anywhere.

"They all love you, they're always wanting you. Grandad doesn't care for me any more. And he wasn't a bit glad when the news came. He went in the house saying it was a 'lee' and Norry said the black cat was on his back. It wasn't a real cat, but like those in the stories. And he stayed there all day. And he wouldn't believe you were coming home or that the war was ended."

"He hardly believes it yet;" laughing. "But he was glad to have me come back. And are you not a little glad?"

"You have all mother's gladness. And gran'mere's."

She made a funny little movement with her dimpled chin, that if she had been older would have been coquettish. Her lashes were long and a sort of bronze brown, and her eyes made a glitter through them. Barbe had been a very pretty girl but the child was not much like her mother only in certain dainty ways. And her blue eyes came from him. He was rather glad of that.

"Don't you want them to be glad that I am back?"

"Why?" – she looked up perplexed. She was not old enough to define her emotions. "Of course I should want them to be glad."

"Yet you are a little jealous."

"Jealous!" she repeated. The word had no clearly definite meaning to her.

"Maybe I have crowded you out a little. But you will find as you grow that there is a great deal of love that can be given and not make any one the poorer."

"What is jealousy?"

She had been following out her own thought and hardly minded his truism.

"Why" – how could he define it to the child's limited understanding? "Jealousy is wanting all of another's regard and not being willing that any other shall have a share. Not being willing that grandad shall care for me."

"He wasn't glad at first." She could not forget that.

"It wasn't a question of wanting or not wanting me that made him captious. He could not enjoy the English being beaten. I do not understand that in him since he means to spend all the rest of his life here, and has never wanted to go back. He was only a little boy, not older than you when he came here. And he fought in the battle of Braddock's defeat. Though the French gained the day it was no great victory for them, for they gave up their plan of taking possession of all the country here about. And he has not much faith in the rebels, as he used to call us, and didn't see what we wanted to fight for. And he is glad to have me back. But he isn't going to love you any less."

"Oh, yes he does," she returned quickly. "I used to ride with him and he never asks me now. And he takes you away – then they all come asking for you and if everybody likes you so much – "

"And don't you like me a little?" He gave a soft, wholesome laugh and it teased her. She hung her head and returned rather doubtfully – "I don't know."

"Oh, and you are my one little girl! I love you dearly. Are you not glad to have me come back and bring all my limbs? For some poor fellows have left an arm or a leg on the battlefield. Suppose I had to walk with a crutch like poor old Pete Nares?"

She stopped short and viewed him from head to foot. "No, I shouldn't like it," she returned decisively.

"But you would feel sorry for me?"

"You couldn't dance then. And grandad tells of your dancing and that you and mother looked so pretty, that you could dance longer and better than any one. And he was quite sure you would come home all – all – "

"All battered up. But I think he and Norry would have been very good to me. And mother and everybody. And now say you love me a little."

"I was afraid of you," rather reluctantly. "You were not like – oh, you were so strange."

What an elusive little thing she was!

"But you are not afraid now. I think I never heard of a little girl who didn't love her father."

"But you see the fathers stay home with them. There are the Mullin children and the Boyles. But I shouldn't like Mr. Boyle for a father."

"Why?" with a touch of curiosity.

"Oh, because – "

"Andy Boyle seems very nice and jolly. We used to be great friends. And he gave me a warm welcome."

"I can't like him;" emphatically. "He beat Teddy."

"I suppose Teddy was bad. Children are not always good. What would you have done if you had been Teddy?" he asked with a half smile.

"I would – I would have bitten his hand, the one that struck. And then I should have run away, out in the woods and frozen to death, maybe."

"Why my father thrashed me and I know I deserved it. And you are not going to hate grandad for it?"