Private Life Read Online Free Page A

him, was a rich man and
    an accomplished farmer. And after the war, John Gentry managed to hold off the
    bushwhacking Rebel sympathizers by being well armed at all times and a notoriously
    excellent shot. They did burn down his corncrib once, and steal two of his horses. He
    knew them, of course. Boone County, Callaway County, and Cole County were wild
    patchworks of Union and Rebel sympathizers, and though blood didn't run as high there
    as it did out to the west, your neighbor could always tip his hat to you during the day and
    come to hang you that same night. John Gentry said that you would think that Lincoln, a
    man who knew both Illinois and Kentucky, would have given going to war lengthier
    consideration than he did, but those folks from Massachusetts and New York, who didn't
    have a thing to lose, got his ear, and that was that for a place like Missouri, which
    remained a stew of differing loyalties and long-standing resentments for many years.

    Lavinia never expressed opinions about the war--for her, the three girls were
    occupation enough. She was frank--their assets were few--and as they grew into young
    ladies, her principal task was to cultivate them. John Gentry had a piano, and so Beatrice
    was put to learning how to play it. Lavinia had a sewing machine, and so Elizabeth was
    put to learning how to use it. Dr. Mayfield had left quite a few books, and so Margaret,
    never adept with her hands, was put to reading them. Quite often, she would read while
    Beatrice practiced her fingerings and Elizabeth and her mother sewed. Margaret liked to
    read Dickens best-- The Old Curiosity Shop was a great favorite, and A Tale of Two
    Cities . Her grandfather, sitting in the circle smoking his pipe, enjoyed Martin Chuzzlewit
    for Dickens's faithful portrayal of the sad life of those folks who lived over by Cairo,
    Illinois, a spot on the map as different from the Kingdom of Callaway County, Missouri,
    as white was from black. She also read Ragged Dick and Marie Bertrand , which were, of
    course, by her mother's favorite author, Mr. Alger. They were most excited to receive a
    copy of Mr. Alger's Bob Burton, or, The Young Ranchman of the Missouri , as a gift from
    Aunt Louisa, but though they did read it, John Gentry was dismayed to discover that the
    Missouri River in question was in Iowa, and was not their Missouri, the real Missouri,
    which was in the state of Missouri and, he always told everyone, the true main branch of
    the Mississippi, and therefore the longest river in the entire world. Another book that
    came to mean a good deal to Margaret was Two Years Before the Mast , by Mr. Dana. She
    read it to her sisters twice, all the while making bright pictures in her own mind of the
    wild and inaccessible coast of California. These pictures subsequently turned out to be
    entirely wrong.

    Alice, her grandfather's cook, taught them how to make biscuits, coffee,
    doughnuts, flapjacks, and piecrust. Of farmwork, the girls did little, but they did pick
    apples, pears, plums, and peaches from their grandfather's trees, and blackberries and
    raspberries and gooseberries from his bushes. They were taught to make jams and
    cordials, and to think of Missouri as an earthly paradise.

    Lavinia got pattern books and designed their dresses so as to minimize their
    disadvantages of appearance: With her blue eyes and fair hair, Margaret wore only shades
    of blue. Elizabeth, who was not fair, was allowed blue and green. Beatrice, dark like their
    father, wore deep reds, sometimes pink, and occasionally a faded and respectable violet.
    Beatrice grew tall; she had to wear wide sleeves. Elizabeth's frocks, with their buttons
    and tucks and insets, always drew the (ever-foreseen male) eye to her slender waist.
    Margaret's wrists were a bit thick, according to her mother, so she had to wear gloves into
    town. The girls trimmed hats. They knitted shawls. They crocheted collars and edgings.
    They bleached, trimmed, pressed, and set aside in