Caleb, Bertha, and Tackleton

Fred Barnard

1878

framed, 13.7 x 10.8 cm

The full title of the fourth Cricket illustration is a quotation that underscores Caleb's well-motivated deception of his blind daughter and co-worker as to their true economic circumstances and relationship with their employer, the misanthropic and exploitative capitalist Tackleton, in "Chirp the Second." Barnard draws the reader's attention to the situational irony in entitling the three-quarter-page woodcut "'The extent to which he's winking at this moment!' whispered Caleb to his daughter. 'Oh, my gracious!'" (p. 93).

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham

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