style="font-size:15px;"> "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?"
She raised her lovely eyes and looked him all over. "Were you very little?" she asked.
"Well – I think I wasn't very good as a boy."
"Then I don't like grandad as well. I'm bigger than Judy, but do you suppose I would beat her?"
"But if she went in the pantry and stole something?"
"Can you steal things in your own house?"
"Oh what a little casuist you are. But we haven't settled the other question – are you going to love me?"
"I can't tell right away;" reluctantly.
"Well, I am going to love you. You are all the little girl I have."
"But you have all the other people."
He laughed good-naturedly. She was very amusing in her unreason. And unlike most children he had seen she held her love rather high.
"I shall get a horse," he said, "and you will ride with me. And when the spring fairly comes in we will take walks and find wild flowers and watch the birds as they go singing about. Maybe I can think up some stories to tell you. I am going to be very good to you for I want you to love me."
She seemed to consider. Then she saw grandad, who had a little squirrel in his hands. Some of them were very tame, so she ran to look at it.
"A queer little thing," said the father to himself.
CHAPTER IV
OLD PITTSBURG
Spring came with a rush. Barbe Carrick glanced out of the south window one morning and called her little girl.
"Look, Dilly, the daffodils are opening and they make the garden fairly joyous. They are like the sun."
There was a long border of them. The green stalks stood up stiff like guards and the yellow heads nodded as if they were laughing. Wild hyacinths were showing color as well, but these were the first save a few snowdrops and violets one found in woody nooks. Birds were singing and flying to and fro in search of nesting places.
Pittsburg was not much of a town then, but its surroundings were beautiful. The two rivers were rushing and foaming now in their wild haste to pour their overflow into the Ohio. The houses had begun to stretch out beyond the Fort. Colonel Campbell some years before had laid out several streets, the nucleus of the coming city. Then Thomas Hickory completed the plans and new houses were in the course of erection. Still the great business of the time was in the hands of the Indian traders that the French had found profitable. Beyond were farms, and the great tract, afterward to be Allegheny City, lay in fields and woods.
A post road had been ordered by the government between Philadelphia
