Jaconetta; Her Loves (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 edition. Excerpt: ...her, it was not with a soft kiss on the lips, but with a smart slap in the face. Poor J aconetta Beller was a year or two older than myself, --perhaps eight or nine at that time. I thought her name almost as romantic as my own self-bestowed appellation. I supposed it to refer directly to cows, and thought I could hear through its liquid syllables the mild protest of Snowdrop at milking-time, the tinkle of Buttercup's bell, the swish of Daisy's flybrushing tail. Why, even yet " What is that?" I demanded only the other day of one of my brother Tom's boys, as a sort of hoarse roar came echoing across the wide stretch of the ranch range. " Nothin'," returned Tom, barefoot presentment of another Tom who once roamed barefoot about Good Cheer plantation, "nothin' but ole Buttercup bellerin' for her calf." A confused dream of Lombardy poplars, tall against an evening sky, with a cowpen visible through a vista of their trunks, and of our Buttercup standing patient under the milker's hands; a smell of fresh milk, a faint far-away echo of the squeaky girl's voice ordering me about--rose up within me. The Squire, " Mis' Squire," and Beller were installed in the left wing of our house, --a suite of rooms reserved for guests of distinction. Here they settled themselves as if they meant to stay forever. I gazed at Beller and tremblingly prayed that they might. Mrs. Squire, so called by everybody, including her husband, was, as before remarked, high-nosed and imposing. She was also formidable. Her reputation as a housekeeper, as a church member, and as a matchmaker, was something awesome. As a matchmaker, indeed, she has had few equals. She had at this...