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 and the town. And there were plans for a paper. For now most people were convinced that the war was at an end, and the Southern cities had been turned over to the Continental government.

There was a brisk, stirring air pervading the place. Business projects were discussed. Iron had been discovered, in fact the whole land was rich in minerals. The traders were bringing down their furs. It had not been a specially cold winter and in this latitude the spring came earlier.

"Oh, it's beautiful!" The child clapped her hands. "Can't I bring in some of them?"

"Oh, yes. But pick only the largest ones. Leave the others on to grow."

She came in with an apron full. "Some are for grandfather," she said.

"Yes, fill this bowl and put it on his table."

She had just finished when he came out. He was always immaculate, and his hair had the silvery tint. His daughter saw that it was always neatly brushed and the queue tied with a black ribbon. He was growing a trifle thinner and weaker.

"Oh, little one," he cried, "did you get a posy for me? Is it your birthday?" and he stooped to kiss the golden hair, then the rosy lips.

"Her birthday will not be until next week," said her mother.

"I had forgotten. I am almost a hundred. And she is – "

"Seven."

"And when I get to be a hundred I'll have a little table like yours, and read out of the Bible, and we'll talk over things that happened when we were children."

He laughed and patted her shoulder. "I shall not be here," he said slowly.

"Oh, where are you going? I do not want you to go away," and she drew an apprehensive breath.

"We do not always stay in one place. I came from France years and years ago. And I shall go to another country, heaven. It is always summer there."

"Can't you take me?" with an eager, upward look.

"Mother wants you. And you are to be a little old lady and sit in this chair."

"And wear a cap like gran'mere? And have two little creases in my forehead, so?"

She tried to make them but they were not much of a success, and the smile returned. "Now let us read."

She took her seat on the arm of the chair. Gran'mere came in and busied herself about breakfast. The reading was from one of the minor prophets. Dilly did not understand it very well but she could converse in the language quite fluently. Her mother had taught her to spell and read English. Girls were not expected to have much education in those days; indeed, here they grew up mostly like the flowers of the field. While the little girls to the eastward were working samplers, sewing long overhand seams, hemming, and doing beautiful darning, these little girls ran about, romped, helped to take care of the next younger baby, grew up and married, no one could have told just how.

After breakfast when the sun was warm and bright grandfather started for his walk. He always felt stronger in the morning. Sometimes Barbe went, often only Dilly. He liked the child's prattle. He liked, too, the way the denizens of the woods came to her, and the birds. True she always had some bread to crumble and she talked in her low sunny voice. Now and then a squirrel would run up her shoulder, watch her with beady eyes that almost laughed and whisk his feathery tail about.

"It does seem as if they ought to talk," she often said.

"They do in their language, only we can't understand them; at least we do in part. Doesn't he say in his fashion, 'I'm glad to see you? Have you any crumbs to-day.' And how one of them scolded when another ran off with that piece you dropped."

"That was funny, wasn't it!" and she laughed. They were sitting on a fallen log in the warm sunshine. Bees were out also, buzzing and no doubt grumbling a little because there were not more sweet flowers in bloom. And the birds sang and whistled in great glee.

They returned from their walk presently through the woods, where she gathered some curious wild flowers. Then they came out by the river, foaming and tumbling about as if it longed to overflow its banks. Now and then a rough kind of boat came down laden with stores of some kind, but there was no hurry visible anywhere.

About sixteen years before the Indians had ceded all the lands about Pittsburg to the Colonies. The six nations assembled with their principal chiefs and warriors and gave the strongest assurance of treaty keeping, which after all were not well kept, as usual. But they had retreated to better hunting grounds and for some time had made little trouble, though many friendly Indians remained.

The wanderers came out to the town proper. Streets were being surveyed, straightened, new ones laid out. There were about a hundred houses ranged round the Fort, but they had begun to spread outside. The disputes with the Pitt family, who had held the charter of Pennsylvania, had been mostly settled and grants of land given to many of the returned soldiers in lieu of the money the Colonial government could not pay. Pittsburg now belonged to the State, and a project had been broached to make it the county seat.

Grandfather looked very tired and pale as he came in and went straight to his chair. His daughter took his hat and cane.

"I did not mean to go so far. I wanted to look at the spot where I had buried my money;" with a little hollow laugh.

"Did you bury some money?" asked Daffodil, with eager curiosity. "Can't you dig it up again?"

"No, dear; it has to stay there for years. It may be dug up in your time, but I shall not need it."

She looked puzzled.

"You must have a cup of tea," said Mrs. Bradin, and immediately she set about it. Grandfather leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Dilly espied her mother in the adjoining room and went thither to exploit the splendid time with the squirrels and show the flowers she had gathered. Then she stood rather wistfully.

"Well?" said her mother in a tone of inquiry.

"Grandfather went to look at the money he had buried, but he couldn't find it. Do you suppose some one has taken it away?"

"Buried?" She seemed mystified a moment, then smiled. "It wasn't as we bury things. A long time ago when the French held the Fort and seemed likely to keep a good part of the country grandfather bought a large tract of land. Then the French were driven out by the English and they in their turn by the Colonists. But the land is there and some day the money may come out of it. Grandad thinks he might as well have thrown it into the river. But he has never wanted for anything, and it would likely have been spent for something else. It's odd grandfather should have said that to-day. He seldom mentions it. He was quite troubled over it at first – when I was a little girl."

"Oh," returned Daffodil, relieved, though she did not understand the matter.

"Go and put your flowers in water;" said her mother.

Grandfather was soundly asleep and did not wake until dinner was on the table. Then he scarcely tasted it.

"You must not take such long walks," his daughter said. "You cannot stand it any more."

"No, I am getting old," rather sadly. "When your mother died I felt that I didn't want to live, and now I am content to go on in this lovely world until the Lord calls me home. I thought once I should round out the century. There have been many changes in the hundred years."

And though he had been on exile for his faith's sake, though he had seen the blunders and sins of his country's rulers, he could not help reverting to the grand old dream of the magnificent empire of New France that would never come to pass now. How they had let all the advantages slip through their fingers that had grasped only at the wildest pleasures and dissipations.

Barbe went out in the sunshine to garden a little. She was so fond of growing and blooming things. And they yielded such a beautiful return. She sang snatches of songs, sometimes in French, sometimes the gay or sad Scotch ditties. Dilly went over to see Norah, all the men were out now at the spring work. Norah was spinning on the big wheel, but she could raise her voice above its whir and to-day she was full of merry legends. Dilly had brought the cat and Judy never objected to being held.

"I'm going to be seven years old," she said in a pause. "And when will I be almost a hundred like great-grandfather?"

"Oh, you've gone only a little bit toward it," laughed Norah. "Why I'm not half way there myself. And I don't want to be. I'd like never to grow any older. But you shouldn't stop at seven. You haven't come to the cream of life. There's more fun at seventeen and that's ten years away. But you're big enough to have a party."

"What is a party like?"

"Oh, you little innocent! A party is a lot of people together who laugh and tell stories and have a good time and something to eat and drink. And you must have a cake with seven candles around it."

"What are the candles for?"

"To light your way;" laughing. "No, to tell how many years you have lived. I'll make the cake, and the candles too. They'll have to be dips for I haven't any small mould. Don't you remember how your mother and gran'mere made candles last fall? And I haven't a bit of wax myrtle. Oh, I can melt up two or three of mine. They are more fragrant than tallow. Yes, you shall have a party. I'll talk to your mother about it."

Dilly was all interest and excitement. Her mother agreed at once. A modern little girl would have refused such a party. For there would be all grown people. Barbe Carrick had been a little exclusive with her child and she had not felt the need of playmates. Then they were rather out of the range of the Fort people as the somewhat crowded settlement was called. There were no schools nor Sunday-schools for little folks. Sunday was not very strictly kept. The schoolmaster read prayers, the litany, and a sermon from some volume on Sunday morning and the rest of the day was given over to social life. There were a few Friends who held their meeting in each other's houses; some of the Acadians had found their way thither, and now and then a priest came who took in the more devout of the Irish population. But there was a large liberty of opinion.

Norah would have the house decorated with blossoming shrubs and she made a wreath for the little girl to wear, for a few neighbors were asked in. James Langdale had been in Bernard's company, and Mrs. Langdale and Barbe had exchanged many a fear and a few hopes. There were two Langdale boys, but of course they were not eligible for a girl's party.

They had some idea of the fitness of things even then. Barbe and Bernard Carrick were at the head of the table with Daffodil on her mother's side and great-grandfather on the other. At the foot were grandfather and grandmother Bradin and on one side grandfather Carrick and Norah, fresh and smiling and full of gayety in the pretty lavender crêpe she had worn at her own wedding and that she saved now for high occasions, with her sapphire earrings and brooch that had come down to her through several generations and had been worn at Court and danced with royalty.