The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton Read Online Free PDF Page A

suspicious in a boy.
    "How’d you get that?"
    "I only get to keep four bits. But I got it here in my pocket."
    "How’d you get it, I asked you."
    "Mr. Thomas Newton gave it to me. He told me to take it. You want to come with me?"
    I didn’t answer anything, but he started walking down the creek, keeping in the middle and careful, I quickly saw, to refrain from stepping in any muddy spots. Frank pulled out the last of his seegar and stuck it between his lips, but he didn’t light it. We didn’t say anything. We passed the lower banks of the cow pasture, but the cows couldn’t be seen from the creek. Everything was quiet. We kept going until we came to a small cave, a spot that I knew Frank had explored extensively. We stopped, and Frank looked eagerly in. I did not. I could hear well enough: movements of some large body, audible only when they suddenly were stilled. I knew there would be a dark face in there. I didn’t have to see it. Frank picked up some stones by the creekside and heaved them idly into the water, the way a boy would do, aiming at this snag or that one. Then we walked on until we got to the next cow pasture, where we came up out of the creek and paused to pick mulberries. I said, "Well?"
    And he said, "I left it under a rock."
    "Did anyone see you?"
    "Only the one that was supposed to see me."
    We carried the mulberries home in Frank’s cap. Mulberries are funny. Most of the time they don’t taste like a thing, but these were sweet as could be. Harriet didn’t know whether to be pleased with the mulberries or angry at the stains all over our faces and hands. It was my responsibility to admonish him, she declared. But the fact was, I always seemed to let Frank do just what he pleased.

CHAPTER 3
    I Improve My Friendship with Mr. Newton
    The early training of New-England boys, in which they turn their hand to almost every thing, is one great reason of the quick perceptions, versatility of mind, and mechanical skill, for which that portion of our Countrymen is distinguished. —p. 165
    NOW THE TIME CAME for the sale of my father’s house, of which I was to be a principal beneficiary. The house was on Seventeenth Street, a block down from Broadway, and luckily for all of us, a large piece of property very nearby happened to have been sold early in the year for a lot of money. Considerable building was going on in that section, and Horace had managed to interest someone associated with one of the lumber mills in my father’s house. My sisters, including Hannah and Ella Rose by letter from New York State, now began subtly to vie with each other to be the one whose husband was so prosperous that she, but she alone, could assign her share to me. Each sister was generous. Ella Rose wrote, "My darling Beatrice, I find it so sad to think of poor Papa and his little house on its little town lot, that I leave it to you to do as you please with my portion. It will hardly make a difference to Mr. Logan and me." Hannah followed some days later with, "Dear Harriet, This communication is only for you, my dearest and best sister, but I must tell someone in the family that Ella Rose can certainly not do without any small infusion of funds that might result from the sale of Papa’s very eccentric property. She wants only, of course, to do something for her beloved younger sisters, but as always she is sacrificing herself. I am pleased to say that my husband has had an exceptionally good year with his barrel workshop, and our sons, too, are prospering. Our youngest sister should be aided out of our portion. Knowing how anyone outside of the family must feel about the unusual nature of Papa’s architectural choices, I can only presume that the sum realized in the sale will be small to begin with."
    Alice said, "Frederick’s business is fully capable of taking care of Annie, though I notice no one has even asked."
    Harriet said, "It brings on a headache for me even to speak of it. I will happily resign my portion just