I was paging through books via my online library the other day and found this… Calico Captive
I grabbed it up for old time sake. As a kid I remember my mother reading this to me. I thought it was wonderful then and was happy to revisit it.
The book is juvenile fiction based on a true story of American settlers being stolen by Indians and traded to the French to work. I was then and still continue to be impressed with the patience that people held. Traveling took so long during this time in history…yet wives waited, husbands waited, girls waited, young men waited. They waited without phone calls…waited without letters. Today we are such an impatient society.
Here’s what Amazon had to say, “In the year 1754, the stillness of Charlestown, New Hampshire, is shattered by the terrifying cries of an Indian raid. Young Miriam Willard, on a day that had promised new happiness, finds herself instead a captive on a forest trail, caught up in the ebb and flow of the French and Indian War. It is a harrowing march north. Miriam can only force herself to the next stopping place, the next small portion of food, the next icy stream to be crossed. At the end of the trail waits a life of hard work and, perhaps, even a life of slavery. Mingled with her thoughts of Phineas Whitney, her sweetheart on his way to Harvard, is the crying of her sister’s baby, Captive, born on the trail. Miriam and her companions finally reach Montreal, a city of shifting loyalties filled with the intrigue of war, and here, by a sudden twist of fortune, Miriam meets the prominent Du Quesne family, who introduce her to a life she has never imagined. Based on an actual narrative diary published in 1807, Calico Captive skillfully reenacts an absorbing facet of history.”
I am really happy that I took the time to revisit this book. It’s nice to read something that’s not gory, not sexual, not filled with clues or innuendos that I need to keep track of. It was just a good simple book.
Amazon readers give the book 4.5 stars. I’d give it 4.3. It was worth my time and just what I needed.