The Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland (Volume 3) (Paperback)

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. 1885. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... I see you have put between inverted commas?' * Bother ' said Katie laconically, as she scored out the offending scratches. These efforts at literature were only a means to an end with Katie. If she could have made money in any other way, she would. She would have rather played at rouge-et-noir or 'little horses' than have written the finest book of the generation, if she could have made sure that her stakes would have turned up doubled. It would have been less trouble and more amusement. She took no kind of pleasure in her work for its own sake, but, as I have said, looked on it as simply a moneyspinner to give her gold for her own uses. In her plans for the future, her father and mother had no place. All was for herself alone. If she had had the trouble, was she not entitled to the reward? She thought so and meant to take it. Once when I gave her mother a small chamber in the golden palace of her dreams, she tossed her fair frizzly head and put on her pretty little pert air--an air that suited her Roxalana nose and bright, sharp, hazel eyes, as much as Esther's steadfast gaze and placid smile suited her Madonna-like face. Oh, mamma must take care of herself ' she said. 'She and papa get on better together than her and me.' Only I am afraid she said 'pa' and 'ma.' 'Than she and I, Katie, ' I ruled, in my quality of pedagogue. 'Of course I know that I said " she and I," so what is the good of taking me up so short ?' said Katie without blushing. All this would doubtless have been very disheartening, had Katie Pender been a boy, or had I been a woman. But the mysterious influences of sex make us forgive in the opposite camp things which would be fatal in our own; and what man of my age could be extreme to mark amiss the follies of a young girl of Katie's ?...