Azalea, the Story of a Girl in the Blue Ridge Mountains
Elia Peattie
language
(, March 7, 2010)
This children's book was published in 1912 with illustrations by Hazel Roberts. It the first of three "Azalea" books by Elia Peattie. Be sure to look for the others: - Annie Laurie and Azalea - Azalea's Silver Web ............................................................................... Book Excerpt: The McBirneys The guinea hens wanted everybody to get up. They said so right under the bedroom window; and the turkey gobbler had the same wish and made it known in his most important manner. Hours before, Mr. Rhode Island Red, the rooster, had expressed his opinion on the subject, and from the first pale hint of dawn till the sun swung up in the clear May sky, a great company of tanagers, robins, martins, meadow larks and their friends had suggested, each in his own way, that it was time to be awake. But really, it didn't need all of this clamor to get the McBirneys out of bed. Since sunup, Thomas McBirney had been planting cotton on the red clay terraces of his mountain farm; and Mary McBirney, his wife, had been busied lay- ing her hearth-fire, getting the breakfast and feeding the crowing, cackling, gobbling crea- tures in the yard. And three times she had thrust her head in at the door of the lean-to to say that if she were a boy she'd get up and see what a pretty day it was. James Stuart McBirney, otherwise Jim, thought his mother was right about almost every- thing, but he did differ with her about getting up when a fellow felt like a log and his eyes were as tight as ticks. He had heard her say there was a time for everything, and it seemed to him that the time to sleep was when a fellow was sleepy. Why should sensible people send him to bed when he wasn't sleepy and make him get up when he was? Contents: I. The McBirneys II. New Friends III. In Hiding IV. New Clothes V. The Shoals VI. Growing Pains VII. The Singing VIII. The Kidnapping IX. Haystack Thompson X. The Escape XI. The Summers Family XII. Ma Says No XIII. At Home Again XIV. The Sacrifice XV. Azalea Chooses .............................................................................. About the Author: Born in the Gilded Age, Elia W. Peattie stood at the door of the Progressive Era and held it open for a new generation of women who would continue to seek careers, gain universal suffrage for women, promote birth control, and fight vice, filth, corruption, ugliness, ignorance, and exploitation. Her intellectual background, her use of irony and humor, her ability to employ various genres and literary approaches, and her undaunted "impertinence" produced a strong voice on the Great Plains. As a result, she became a vital catalyst for social change and a successful role model for promoting personal and professional independence for women. A loving and beloved mother and wife and a successful journalist, Peattie proved that a woman, if she wanted it, could have it all.** **...summary from plainshumanities.unl.edu