{"product_id":"2940013168763","title":"D'RI AND I","description":"A poet may be a good companion, but, so far as I know, he is ever\u003cbr\u003ethe worst of fathers.  Even as grandfather he is too near, for one\u003cbr\u003epoet can lay a streak of poverty over three generations.  Doubt not\u003cbr\u003eI know whereof I speak, dear reader, for my mother's father was a\u003cbr\u003epoet--a French poet, too, whose lines had crossed the Atlantic long\u003cbr\u003ebefore that summer of 1770 when he came to Montreal.  He died\u003cbr\u003ethere, leaving only debts and those who had great need of a better\u003cbr\u003elegacy--my mother and grandmother.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs to my father, he had none of that fatal folly in him.  He was a\u003cbr\u003emountaineer of Vermont--a man of steely sinews that took well to\u003cbr\u003ethe grip of a sword.  He cut his way to fame in the Northern army\u003cbr\u003ewhen the British came first to give us battle, and a bloody way it\u003cbr\u003ewas.  I have now a faded letter from Ethan Allen, grim old warrior,\u003cbr\u003ein which he calls my father \"the best swordsman that ever straddled\u003cbr\u003ea horse.\" He was a \"gallous chap\" in his youth, so said my\u003cbr\u003egrandmother, with a great love of good clothes and gunpowder.  He\u003cbr\u003ewent to Montreal, as a boy, to be educated; took lessons in\u003cbr\u003efencing, fought a duel, ran away from school, and came home with\u003cbr\u003elittle learning and a wife.  Punished by disinheritance, he took a\u003cbr\u003efarm, and left the plough to go into battle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI wonder often that my mother could put up with the stress and\u003cbr\u003ehardship of his life, for she had had gentle breeding, of which I\u003cbr\u003eknew little until I was grown to manhood, when I came to know also\u003cbr\u003ewhat a woman will do for the love of her heart.  I remember well\u003cbr\u003ethose tales of knights and ladies she used to tell me as we sat\u003cbr\u003etogether of an evening, and also those adventures of her own\u003cbr\u003eknight, my good father, in the war with the British.  My love of\u003cbr\u003earms and of a just quarrel began then.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter the war came hard times.  My father had not prospered\u003cbr\u003ehandsomely, when, near the end of the summer of 1803, he sold his\u003cbr\u003efarm, and we all started West, over rough trails and roadways.\u003cbr\u003eThere were seven of us, bound for the valley of the St.\u003cbr\u003eLawrence--my father and mother, my two sisters, my grandmother,\u003cbr\u003eD'ri, the hired man, and myself, then a sturdy boy of ten.  We had\u003cbr\u003ean ox-team and -cart that carried our provision, the sacred feather\u003cbr\u003ebeds of my mother, and some few other things.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47147505942768,"sku":"2940013168763","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013168763_p0.jpg?v=1763577411","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013168763","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}