Aunt 'Liza's Hero; And Other Stories

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1904. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... AN OLD DAGUERREOTYPE Caleb Speed pushed back his chair from the dinner-table with anger and disgust in his face. The door had just banged behind a big, hearty boy of seventeen, whom he could still see through the narrow window trudging off toward the barn. The lively whistle that sounded through the closed windows seemed to aggravate the man's ill-temper. He walked over to the fireplace, and kicked the smouldering logs with his heavy boot. If there's any one thing that riles me all over, he exclaimed, angrily, it's having that boy always setting himself up to be in the right, and everybody else in the wrong! Well, he 'most generally is in the right, answered Caleb's wife, clearing the table. It's remarkable what a memory Jerry has, 'specially for dates. At the quilting here last week the women folks were trying to settle when 'twas old Mis' Lockett died, and Jerry knew to the day. He said 'twas two days after Deacon Stone's cows were killed by lightning, and that happened on the thirteenth of September, just a hundred years to the very day after Wolfe captured Quebec. You can't trip Jerry up in history. Well, answered her husband, impatiently, he needn't be so sassy about it. We had a dispute over them same cows. I was telling the new minister about the storm, and I happened to say they was standing under a pinetree. He chipped in, 'Why, no, it wasn't, uncle; it was an oak.' 'It was a pine!' says I. 'No, it wasn't; it was an oak, ' says he. Just then Hiram Stone came by, and Jerry yelled to know which 'twas. Hiram said, 'Oak.' Then Jerry grinned as malicious, and said, 'I told you so! I knew I was right!' If he hadn't been my dead sister's only child and the minister looking on -- Caleb stopped in anger. Mrs. Speed made no comment. She was fond of h...