Beadle's Dime Novels No. 127: Bald Eagle — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

10 BALD EAGLE. Our story opens in the maternal home of this graceless youth, situated under the brow of a mountain and overlooking the river. It had been a raw, gusty day, and as the night approached, the air grew sharp and caused the yellow leaves, which began to fall from the trees, to whirl and eddy round the angles of the home, like disaffected ghosts, rustling at the windows, assailing the doors, and mounting the roof. A smoldering fire burned upon the hearth of the huge fire- place; over the coals, suspended upon hooks from the iron crane, hung a tea-kettle which had long since boiled,-and new sent out volumes of steam, and spurted little jets of water, in angry discontent at not being “ taken off.” : On a flag-bottomed, high-backed chair, with her gown raised nearly to her knees, sat a large, low-browed woman, with her eyes fixed upon the coals; ever and anon she swung one leg, and brought the heel of her foot down uneasily to the red- bricked hearth, as if her thoughts were of an oppressive or painful character. She held a short clay pipe between the thumb and fore-finger of the right hand, while the other fell heavily in front of her, the elbow upon her knee. She seem- ed to derive little pleasure from the gratification of smoking, for she held the pipe between her lips, and occasionally drew in the air therefrom, long after the fire in the bowl had gone out. At length a drop from the sputtering kettle must have touched her, for she started quickly and cried, in a sharp voice ; “Why don’t you take off this kettle, you lazy jade, you ?” There was no other than the firelight in the room, which flickered and played fitfully upon the blackened rafters above, gleaming amid strings of pumpkins and apples hung to dry, and yet insufficient to illuminate the dark recesses of the apart- ment. Somewhere from out the gloom emerged a slender shape, with brown hair and soft, tender blue eyes, which gazed With an expression of fear upon the woman who had thus accosted somebody in the darkness. She approached timidly, and a limber wrist and small red hand lifted the obnoxious macs from the hook, saying, at the same time, ses. it scald you, mother ?” No; I don't know; I didn't feel it.” Conniecbooks.conn