Robert Michael Ballantyne

The Iron Horse Robert Michael Ballantyne

Talk of earthquakes! not all the earthquakes that have rumbled in Ecuador or toppled over the spires and dwellings of Peru could compare, in the matter of dogged pertinacity, with that earthquake which diurnally and hourly shocked little Gertie's dwelling, quivered the white dimity curtains of little Gertie's bed and shook little Gertie's frame. A graceful, rounded little frame it was; yet strong, and firmly knit-perhaps in consequence of its having been from infancy so constantly and so well shaken together. Her neat little body was surmounted by a head which no sculptor in search of an antique model would have chosen. Gertie's profile was not Grecian; her features were not classic-but they were comely, and rosy, and so sweet that most people wanted to kiss them, and many people did. Gertie did not object. Probably, being only six, she imagined that this was the ordinary and natural method of salutation. Yet it was observable that the child did not reciprocate kisses except in one or two special cases. She had evidently a mind of her own, a fact which was displayed most strikingly, in the passionate manner in which she reciprocated the embraces of John Marrot, her father, when that large hairy individual came in of an evening, and, catching her in his long arms, pressed her little body to his damp pilot-cloth-coated breast and her chubby face to his oily, smoke-and-soot begrimed countenance, forgetful for the moment of the remonstrance from his wife that was sure to follow: - "Now then, John, there you go again. You ain't got no more power of subjewin' your feelings than one of your own ingines, w'ich is the schreechin'ist, fizzin'ist, crashin'ist, bustin' things I ever 'ad the misfortune to 'ave to do with. There's a clean frock just put on this mornin' only fit for the wash-tub now?"