Читать книгу The Ark of 1803. A Story of Louisiana Purchase Times онлайн

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“Hm,” said the old man. “Well, son, if there’s goin’ to be any such doings down to New Orleans, I’d be terrible sorry for Jimmy to miss it. I reckon I couldn’t very well leave Maria. I expect I’m pretty tolerable old for a trip like what you say it is to go down the river, even when everything is fav’rable. I’d mebby do best to cossett what’s left of my scalp and not run the risk of losing it to a strange Indian when I could just as easy lose it to one nearer home. I don’t reckon Maria would consent to my going, but I’d set a right smart store on one of our family havin’ a hand in them doin’s down to New Orleans, and I reckon them rivermen at Natchez won’t corrupt Jim any more than the roustabouts around Marietta shipyard. I just reckon you’ll have to take him along, son.”

There was no resentment whatever in the old man’s tone. He made no defense of Jimmy, although Jimmy was his idolized grandson, and Jimmy’s father had been taken captive by the Indians before Jimmy was a year old—which was sixteen years ago—and nothing had ever been heard of him. But Uncle Amasa had lived as a pioneer among pioneers, where every man had to stand by himself, for himself, and for those whom his presence protected. He made no defense of Jimmy.