Elia Peattie
Azalea, the Story of a Girl in the Blue Ridge Mountains
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
- 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
- Pages
- 296
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